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‍Can you start by introducing yourself and what you do at Zeguro?

Sure. So I'm John, and I lead product management officially at Zeguro, among a few other things. As small startups go, I wear a lot of different hats. Sometimes I do some engineering work, sometimes I do some design work, sometimes I play insurance ops to help out. So a little bit of everything just to get the job done. Officially and hopefully, when we get a bigger team and hire more people, I can stick with my job, which is product management. Which is figuring out what we should be building, how much and when, and making sure everyone is working the most effectively and efficiently as we can.

What is one place in the world that you'd like to travel to and why?

I'm going to say something remote like Antarctica. It'll be an amazing sight, and hopefully, I'll see all the glaciers before they melt away. I really want to see the penguins. And while I'm down there, I might as well visit New Zealand and Australia. That's one part of the world I haven't really been to at all.

What was the first job you ever had?

The first one that I actually got a paycheck for was in high school. I was in a Senate Page program. So I was in Seattle at the time, and the state legislature has a Senate Page program where students can go in there and be pages for senators for a couple of weeks. So I did that and got a paycheck out of it. It was interesting getting to know the inner workings of the government.

What is your favorite movie if you had to pick one?

I've been watching a lot of Star Wars, so let's go with that.

What type of music is on your Spotify most played?

Well, when I'm working, I can't listen to anything with words that I can understand. I'll just start typing lyrics and you'll see random words everywhere. So I tend to stick with instrumentals or classical or opera because I can't understand a word they're singing. Most recently, it's been a bunch of instrumental pop covers and classical. Normally I have pretty eclectic music tastes. I go from Italian opera to like EDM, depending on my mood. I'm pretty partial to this guy named Jacob Collier. He's very interesting in how he experiments with his pieces.

What are some things you like to do in your free time?

Normally before the pandemic, I would just travel a lot. I would do lots of outdoor activities like hiking and biking. But these days, on lockdown, I'm doing a lot more reading, podcasting,  YouTubing things to learn. I'm part of an online trivia league so I do that every day. Learning and trivia kind of goes hand-in-hand.

How did you learn about Zeguro in the first place?

I don't remember. I think Sidd reached out. Or I found it out through browsing AngelList, which I do on occasion to keep up with new startups. I think I was researching cybersecurity for a while because before this, I dabbled in cybersecurity. Somehow I may have stumbled upon it or Sidd may have contacted me. I don't remember. It's kind of perfect because my parents, our family business is with an insurance agency, and I've learned insurance through osmosis through the years. And I have cybersecurity interest and a little bit of background in it. So it was kind of a perfect marriage of the two.

What has been your favorite memory at Zeguro?

I'll go with the cookie baking competition we had a couple of years ago. I had just joined and people decided to do a cookie contest. It was amazing the spread that we had. We were on a sugar high for weeks. Just giant platters of cookies. It looked so professional. That's when I knew I found my people. Like half the people in the company are bakers, so they can do some pretty impressive stuff.

If you could switch jobs with anyone else at Zeguro, who would it be?

I kind of want to get back to coding a little bit, just for fun. But I'm pretty sure I'm rusty at this point, so whatever I produce, people will just be like, "what the hell is this" and throw it all out and redo it anyway. So probably not. Maybe Kevin's job. I also really like design and working with user experience. I like making things look really pretty and intuitive at the same time. I work with Kevin closely anyway, and sometimes I want to do more even though I really shouldn't. That would be kind of fun. I've done some design work in the past and I really enjoyed that.