raw-transcript-pedro.md

Welcome Pedro

Pedro: Started to University of Manchester, So it I moved to the.

I moved to the UK in 2019 to to study at University of Manchester. So it's been four years now, that I've been in the country Mystic, good weather but everything else. So you arrived here in Was it pre-pandemic or was it poop and demic, you know, my full my 19 2019, Toyota a year.

I had like half foot. Yeah I was a first semester and then was like a month into my second semester. Everything went to went chaotic. Basically That was one. Okay, chaos star. Yeah so I see you found. You found a job in when the pandemic had just started. So when we went a lot down in 20, 19 and you started your second year.

So I started my second year in Chetails and 2020, and that's, that's when I had to look for job. Yeah, so let's backtrack a bit. So the interesting thing is writing is Why study computing, Where does that, where did that come from? You know what? Influencer decision to study computer?

I think my answer is typically not not what you would expect from, I haven't been so you can say, actually your

Put outside some math. Should we have? Yeah. So there's a bigger picture here. Yes. So I do computers and mads and there is a reason why I pick boats. But again, my, my background, I was not one of those kids that would love to break the microwave apart, which I part That was that was not me and the microsity was it was not there.

I like mads, I like Mads a lot but I like a lot of other things as well. I like sports. I was really into philosophy political science So it was quite messy to pick something to do it. And i thought that the best thing to pick was something that will be kind of like keep the most open doors and not close them.

So I always thought well I think a computer scientist can become an economist Compare scientists can become a philosopher. He told me I just place that a computer science can become a manager. I think I think the transition between computer scientists and mathematics to one of those fields it's easier than that the way around.

If I sign up for an economics degree, then decide I want to be computer scientist. I feel like there will be more friction for going to make that change. So I was just thinking okay so let's go with something that I'm Kind of good ads mathematics but i know computer science experience which was chaotic when I go to university.

I to be honest, I didn't have internet at home until I got to the UK. So was very much of a shock to consider the computer science. So, I guess there's been a leap into the dark, some respects in the you haven't done. Had you done any computing? Up at all.

Nothing at all. Nothing about anything. No coding. Just came from the mass basically. And this kind of idea that, okay, this is a very general subject that can be applied to lots of different things. I love to read and I used to read a lot of mostly news. Business inside, are Bloomberg saturation.

I used to see all of these characters that I thought it were quite interesting. Back back. Then was, was the first time that Musk was making actually a big name on the news, Becky 2019. So it was was starting to come up now. Everybody Portugal knows him. But back then, I was the kid, I would go within newspaper.

And no one else was still know who, who the hell is, right? So I think was kind of seeing those patterns of what those people study and kind of background, they ads. And I kind of saw the relating, the computer science would enable someone to have a really big impact if they choose to at some point.

So that's kind of why I decided to pair mats with computer science. Okay, good. Not out of passion if you have this, so no, that's interesting accent. Interesting story. So you right here in first year, I guess it's a bit of a shock adapting to the Using doing the copy of the mass, I guess was pretty much what you expected or it was.

I thought the man who would actually be easier but when I came, I started to. So I did one thing that kind of save my old smasher, which is, I went ahead. And so on the slides, what we're gonna cover throughout the semester and then I realised that in the weeks, for example, that we approach integration.

Now, one of my account was courses, I realised that the way the slides were made was sort of as a revision because students study integration here in a levels We don't setting integration in Portugal in our high school, right? So I was like, okay, so this is week 4 of the semester.

I have three weeks to understand integration before we get there because it's just going to sort of revise through it. So that was that's an example of things. That there was a mismatch between the mass story and one country in the other. And I'll just said to give myself sometime to catch up.

Felt like gaps. Yeah. And the computing I had to get on the competing in the first year. Did you in enjoy it? Was it what you expected or I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot. In the introduction classes to programming, etc. I think those were very beneficial because was very sort of just logical thinking to solve problems, The whole 30 project, one was a little bit more scary because evolved web applications and everything and I'm kind of a visual learner.

And up to this day, I'm still building a bit about four years later and I'm just my, my vision of what how the internet works and how we build. This is just getting a little bit better of time by time. And I suppose, I think it's one of the reasons why the joint degree is more challenging in some ways.

Because you get, you get a little bit less exposure to computing. And then when you come to English project, your Well, you've got that extra, you know, Extra extra skill of doing the maths. You you have less experienced with doing computational stuff. Yeah, there's definitely a gap to cover their and I think it gets More challenging and telling you throughout three years because you do benefit for having a lot of optional courses from each subject.

But at some point to start realising that the context switching that you got to do, it all is switching context between subjects. It's a bit challenging because you cannot be on the same sort of waveland for, for studying for exams because they will require different different styles, right? And that was something that I think heads at the extra amount of challenge for if I was doing just one, not the two basically And I know maybe we can talk about, it's a bit later but one of I think one of the difficulties with mass is if you stop studying it and then stops studying again, it can be quite hard getting back into it.

When so you did you did a year and industry and then came back. Was it easy? Picking up that mass again, or was it? It's like, it's like a wet. It's a way of thinking that. And it's like if you're not speaking a language, you know, if you stop speaking Portuguese, You eventually lose that skill over a period of time.

Is it kind of a bit like that would mass, where you're kind of If you're not doing every day, And you come back into your final year after your after your placement year to do mass again, it's like, oh yeah I've done this for a year. How do I do this?

Um, that's true. I think I think I tried to the, I tried to mitigate that effect, which I still felt it. Same as all my friends, I came from policeman here. Um, but i was lucky that i was working on some mass related stuff on the side during during that previous year.

And the optionals that I picked when I got back was very much statistics related. So they were kind of within my interest machine learning, etc. So, it helped that the context was a context that I cared about was not so much that I came back and fields and algebra like all that ones.

So, it was a little bit, it helped me to get that But definitely, yeah. So the end of first year did you do something? What did you do in the summer at the end of your first year? Were, you were you doing a digital internship or you did you when I?

So I had to go back to Portugal because of the pandemic and I worked at a beach bar for this summer. So that was a DJ slash waiters at a beach bar but I guess kind of I think sometimes people An underestimate, the value of doing that, kind of casual work, because actually you're dealing with customers sometimes under pressure and it depends a little bit on the context you're working in but those kinds of things can actually look good on a CV.

If you're comparing to people and one's got no experience at all, one's got experience of. Okay, serving customers in a beach bar. And that actually can be a A positive thing on a CB. Did you have it on your CV when you're applying? I don't think I added on my CV just because I thought I could either stuff that I could replace it with.

I used to teach karate in my high school years but, but actually doing that summer, I ended up having to quit after three weeks. Some maybe a month because I was having too much fun was the other way around. It was, it was that the whole customer challenge that you describing was the part that I liked it.

The most just to talk to people all day, right? And being able to play music, okay? So I was like, okay, university's coming and I haven't touched anything computer science related for like these all times since the year ended. So, I got a quick now and go back to learning a little bit ahead of starting the year.

Yeah. So we come back in to second year and I think you you decided that that point to do a to do a placement, when you started your second year or was it something you decided towards the and of the second Was something that decided since first here, right?

Yeah. I was, I was certain that I wanted to place, you know, it was one of the milestones that I had My mind there was justifying the investment that I made in coming to the UK, right? Because there's obviously significant investment that comes in terms of setting abroad and one of the milestones that I had to tell myself, okay, A bit stop number one.

This is this is going on right pad was to get their placement here. So Yeah. And did you started applying and I guess in September of your second year in 20 2020. Yeah. And what sort of can you tell us a little bit about any sort of obstacles you faced and finding work and how you overcame those and I'll manage plus.

The other thing I think is managing balancing The requirements of degree in your second year, which is quite intense and also trying to find a job and go to interviews. And how did you balance those two things? I think in a way, my memories of that semester is a bit of a blur just off our traumatic.

You might have been in a way Yeah, but applying for job, especially coming was the first time COVID was was sort of a thing with doing application process application season. He is challenging. I think, I think, as a first time applying for places, I didn't have as much of a network that I can say that I have now.

So a lot of it was sort of boot force, right? And managing expectations. I remember being rejected for a position at little, I think it was working as a A manager of some kind of business analysts of some kind, right? And I remember being crushed because like I didn't get into little well, what else who else is gonna get me, right?

Yeah, so it just about when in doubts, keep pushing. That's that's what a lot of people, I think gave up on that year because it was challenging, It was just, it, just just things moving online. So, there's a bit of sort of indecision from companies as to what they're, they didn't know whether these A job opportunities.

There were offering are going to be online or hybrid or they're going to have to pull them all or completely. So there were they were employers that were pulling You know I'm sorry we can't you you've got a job actually sorry, we can't honour that anymore because things change kind of thing.

So there was there was loads of stuff going on that year to deal with. So And you you've got the job. You got was at At the world namara, tell us a little about what in the mirror does and what your role was at, you know, Assurance. So normally is one of the biggest investment banks in Asia.

And they never had quarter in London for the Emmy office. And i was joining the i joined the cloud computing theme, so they were going through a massive A massive. Program to change most of the infrastructure over to the cloud. But what by the time I joined the already at the own private cloud, but now, they were looking to multi-cloud, hybrid cloud sort of approaches platform as a service type type environments and, and I jumped into straight into the the exciting time.

So was, it was a good was a good year to be working there. A lot of things were happening. Learning a lot of stuff, back competingly, I guess you haven't really touched on that point. Nothing at all, you Okay. So you were based in London but you are working online or was there was it entirely online your placement or was it a mix?

No was the first. The first maybe two months was online. The initial onboarding was online, but then it came a place that we could go to the office. And there was a rule to We had to go once a week but there was a time to be honest. I was I spoke with a George.

I was flexible enough about it. I think AJR from no more so far has been the best day driver across pets with props to them. And I remember that because a lot of people didn't want to come to the office because senior employees got to use to working remotely that they really didn't want to go them much.

So that was a lot of free seats every day. So you was an intern, you could say, so, would you mind if I come more than one day week? Even if my team is not coming and since it would have so many empty bookings between the week, that was months that I went like every day of the week, right?

And when you're in the office, was the office, well, occupied, or was it instead of because? Cuz I think it's sort of thing. I think when you, when you start a job, you want to be in the office because you want to learn the culture and meet your colleagues and The opportunity to online or a bit limited.

You can't really, you know, it's difficult, interacting online. But for more senior closely, no everyone already And it's very much more comfortable working remotely, but as a new staff, like really want to be in the office, so whether times when you're in office and it wasn't wasn't as perhaps well, I know attended should we say as as you'd have liked or was it still an into overworking environment?

It was definitely enjoyable. I think the difference is, in normal times, you could have a passive sort of approach to getting to learn their culture. You can just go sit down and do your work. And by default you're gonna be merced in the office environment, right? So you don't really have to put much effort into just learning because by default, you're going to be learning it.

Yeah, with the office at Alpha capacity and some days your team not being the office, it does require a little bit more. You being proactive. One of the rules that I had was every week, I would have to have a coffee chat with someone. A lot of people from my team, even different divisions IB trading.

AR operations, just try to get another business. Let's say yeah. Human resources. Okay, right. Oh, hey, hey. So I guess. Did you get like so you have a line manager? Did they offer you mentor? Or did you seek out a mental? And it sounds like you were networking by?

A coffee. Yeah, basically and I think that's quite important is finding people outside of your team who can meant to you, Some companies have formal mechanisms for doing this, where you will be assigned a mentor from a completely different team. That sounds like you were doing that. They they also offer their structure, which, again, I don't.

But again, these was my example. I personally, the way I put this is I make tools I like to find those mentors more organically. So through different iterations of meeting with a lot of people. Obviously, the mentor that they assign, it was quite valuable for special for like admin stuff, right?

That you don't really know what how to do it. It really comes in, end to have someone senior but not manager, senior that you can ask for all. But in terms of bigger picture, A, i think doing your own outreach across the company CrossFit 17 as well. I think maybe I was looking enough, three, four months into a lot of people already knew who I was.

So I think that's good because then you can talk to them. Hopefully, helps. If you've made those connections before you need them, right? Because if you're trying to connect with people, And, you know, and you've got some thing you need to do. It's kind of it changes the relationship a bit.

But if you're if you're already talking to people and they know you from coffee beforehand, it kind of sometimes it makes it interaction a bit easier. Yeah. And I never saw these these interactions and these outreaches to, as sort of those transactional terms. So most people have actually spoke with.

I'm friends with most of them now and we never actually had any professional. A little ability. In terms of, i need your help for something in my house for something, right? Especially if you reaching out to people outside or even technology group, someone investment banking, for example, you guys will never cross pets, most often workwise.

So it just it just nice to show appreciation for what they do and get to learn from days of experience. So they don't know if itself as in 360 values. So you don't need to think that much. I had I think and selling how the business works as well.

It's like yeah. And this thing I will all these moving parts fit together is quite complex and it's your first time working it listens my example my first time working in so just Trying to get the most out of it and listening to all these stories and going out with these people after work, all of the environments.

Is is you don't learn the maybe a hard skills through that, you learn a lot of about you know, how the world works kind of yeah. Definitely. Okay. So you've done your You did your 12 months numeric, guess it was. Yeah, 12 months. You started in June and then finished in June, I guess.

Yeah. And you what did you do something that following summer? Was at what happened after you mirror. So for the summer, I had two options I could have stayed at no more for the rest of the summer before coming back to university. I offered an extent, they are offer an extension which is quite common at no more.

Again, best age art department. But they I also applied to to few jobs. I've got a few offers for the summer and one of them was at AWS. So Amazon, Web Services and that's what I ended up doing for the summer, is in tech sales, which is actually completely different from the ends on technical work.

I went to do textiles for for their for the business basically. It's picking to customers Customers. Well, we would shadow calls as an internet in the summer. You shadow calls with your mentor but you get to do a lot of sales simulations, So your mentor, another grads that already there, full time would simulate the environment of being clients with a specific sort of problem set and you jump on the call as AWS representative and then you move on from there And you're offering a solution or what's your task as a as your shadowing the call?

Yeah, you you're well, you should when you show the colleges mostly learning, right? But I think it's different from what a lot of people associate sales to be because most of these sass platforms and like cloud platforms, they're building process is actually ongoing. So it's not like you're selling vacuum killing.

There's anything is a one-off, right? So you roll this felt more like you didn't consulting and you probably like doing sales, right? Because you your idea and your goal is always to solve the clients cause clients problem in the best way problem possible. And you don't need to think about trying to increase the revenue of Amazon or these note mentality, like we want to find the best possible solution for you, even if it's not the most profitable for, as you neededly, because we believe on the long term value of relationships with our customers, which makes my life as a salesman way.

More interested Can, I don't have to think about all those constraints. So, I'm just can actually give you the best technical solution possible. So I guess on the tech it's technical because you're you have to understand the solution that your proposing. Yeah. Or recommending to your clients customer. And but you're not actually writing any code or getting deep down and dirty with Architecture or deployment or anything like that.

Well the job job definition would not ential entitle that but I i did some of it just because I, well, we do a lot of, for example. One example is we do a lot of outreaching, right? So finally LinkedIn profiles of people that they work at companies that could potentially turn out to be customers where And a lot of the steps that are involved in outreaching are quite mammals.

So, I just put a python crawler to help automate that and was a sort of a side project that work while I was there, right? So they give you a lot of freedom to be a technical as you want, right? You can learn as much as you can talk with solution architects and get to learn and properly.

But the majority of the interns actually don't come from a technical background so you can have studied geography, history business, maybe business and technology, some computer science, but it's not the majority so that and it's interesting. You mentioned solutions, architects. I don't know. Do you know either Probably don't know.

So Eva was on either was a guest previously and he was a solution's architect. That was his A summer internship or pace. My comment below which so is a different being a technical salesperson is different to being a solutions. Architect, is that right? Can you explain? Yeah, about the difference between those two roles.

So as my role in specific was the man generation which means for the first maybe year or two when you join as a graduate. What do you do? We do you deal mostly with SMB so small and medium businesses and you do the first outreaching to the client, you do the first approach but then you pass it on when the account starts to become a little bit more mature, It passed on to an account manager, right?

So, in terms of the way things will be organised Obviously can be by sector territory. But usually, you would have account manager, which is the normal text sales tracked, less technical person that manages the accounts in the relationship with the customers. And then you'll have this solution architects that have the more A deep divides with the customer on the actual problems, right?

But the first point of contact would always be the account manager. Okay. So they work, it's a lot of synergies but usually, if you have a solution architect, that kind of works with multiple account managers. Yes, So is associated with multiple accounts, So, that's interesting. I because all of those roles we've talked about are account manager, solutions, architect and salesperson.

I think sometimes students don't realise that as a computer scientist. Up at the whole. But you.

A solutions architect and a technical salesperson. I think sometimes students don't realise that as a computer scientist, these kind of technical but not necessarily coding kind of rolls. Are an option because people don't think oh, computer science, you're going to be a software engineer And of, but there are there's a wide variety of things that you can get involved in as you're saying on right at the beginning, why, why would you study computer sciences?

I guess you'd have that insight into knowing that all these different kinds of roles and responsibilities of things that you can do as a computer scientists. That's, I think that's also related to how I ended up caring. That internship. All how I thought about applying to it. Because while I was working on Umura, the cloud team that we there was working in, we were customers available as.

So I was working on the, on the by side of all transaction process. So I got to go to the conferences. I got the chance to speak with the account, managers from AWS right, the solution architect formative. US from the perspective of the customer and I could see how my manager at Noor and the rest of the team would interpret those relationships and what feedback they would get from each call.

So I found that oh, this is some really cool inside that I think most salespeople don't have because they've never been on this side. So i thought, let me try reverse the roles and for the summer and I'm gonna go from the buy side to the cell side of that transaction, which was kind of a change, was it easier to get that you always plan on doing a summer internship after your placement always it something that came up during your placement year like, oh actually, I'd like to work on the other side of the fence.

I wasn't something. You always intended to do In specific. The sales rule was was kind of came up through through time, while being an over. I always known. I wanted to feel up that summer, I just didn't know if it was going to be with an extension at no more or with some other job as a, I got an offer as a normal software, engineer job for the summer, but I thought the sales one would be more of a diversity of experience and call it.

And I think it's good to get to have that diversity experience. Because yeah, you don't want to get What's the word type cast as you are? You are a one of these I think earlier in your career it's very good to move around and try and try different roles.

So that 30 you understand what all those roles involved. But also you work out what's best for you because it's not always You know, it's not always the first job necessary you're going to spend the rest of your life doing that And that's true. And I also think there is very important to The level of self-awareness to understand where your weakness and strength lie, And most people say you should focus on where your strengths are.

I like to think kind of the opposite. So, the way, for example, I'll give you an example. I wouldn't do that the way around. I wouldn't do a placement of 12 months of tech sales and only three months of software development because I already know that I, I'm more inclined to, to feel more comfortable and social environment, the sales environment.

So that's a strength that I have. My technical knowledge, was zero when I came to uni. So if I got a allocate that time to build that diversity and like making myself, well rounded I'm not going to do to 12 months of the majority of the time of something that I'm already good at.

And then only three months at bringing my my weaknesses up, right? So you got also take any two consideration, how you allocate that time to explore. Yeah. Right that makes sense. So go for go for weaknesses, that's interesting. Yeah level of look at level of yes is so the valves as was really to the book recognition I bring today but there's this really good quote that he says If you can build and you can sell you pretty much instoppable.

Yeah, so just think about which one you're not the best that yet Mica is? I was not as good as I wanted to be at building. That's already quite okay at selling, right? Not the other way around. If you find yourself in the other way, around, if you've been coding since you 10 and you can build something like this, then maybe go export something that makes you talk with a customer a little bit more.

Yeah, definitely. Okay, so you've done your you had a pretty pretty packed. Two years then you have a pandemic, you've got the while three years, isn't it? Now she'd done two years undergraduate study and you've done a year and industry at Nimara and then summer internship. AWS And you come back to final year.

So can you tell us a little bit about your experience, experience of this last year has been and also what you did for your project. Sure. Um so actually doing all this time that I was working on Mura and able to bless. I also add for a little for about a year.

I was working at a startup as a co-founder. So also at that to to keep the busy and also got to meet a lot of interesting people time in my spare time. Because i think i think work, when once we get to the worklife, it's, it's like, uni right there is a framework on how to succeed, right?

Obviously, it takes hard work, but I think the interesting part is finding out how that frame reports like that pattern. Once you figure it out. Yes. There's more changes that you make throughout your career, but it's pretty much more or less the same, right? The framework that I still had no.

Add an explore yet was entrepreneurship. So I was like, okay, let's let's do these as well to see how we goes. And through that kind of meeting, one of interesting people and one was one, one of them were part of a startup in Tokyo that actually sponsored my my 30 project.

So I was excited to come back to university because I knew that it wasn't just going to be university. I wanted something extra because I was already used to have so much going on at the same time, then coming back and just do University. I think I was like, okay, I don't think I'm see myself doing only that again.

So, My project was was done within the context of an internship for for startup in Tokyo. So you proposed the project in collaboration sort of you, you rather than so there's for people who don't know, there's two kind of two basic ways of picking a, finally, a project that this university in many other university is where you can propose your own project where you can pick one that's been Proposed by an academic star.

So in this case you propose to your own. Yeah and then found a supervisor who would supervise it? Yeah exactly. So from from the university perspective, I approached him already with a project in mind but my proposal was was sort of drafted together with the company so something that they would find useful.

So my actual input was not not little but because I liked what they propose so they propose something and then I propose university. So I pretty much just broke a deal between within the boats and yeah, So who was he was your supervisor for that project? It was a professor in Wang, right?

And Again, big props profession that really helped me throughout that time and it was, she was brave enough to accept a project there was not directly in the area of expertise. For completely different from the other projects that she was mentoring these here. And she was a great supervisor.

So I whatever. Mark I end up getting, I think it's mostly, thanks for yeah. Good. And so tell us a little bit about what the project was and what you did Sure. So again the just a little bit more context to start up into specific, the word in machine learning and artificial intelligence solutions for sustainability problems, basically.

So they work with Japanese government and Japanese corporations in building automation, tools, and AI, persistent ability education, all these types of more less less sort of just for profits. Applications of AI. And one of their concerns and one of their obstacles on a daily basis was to keep it with all of these new research, especially, you know, catchy PT coming on and just the speed of new papers being released was so fast and they didn't found that they had a lack of sort of market fit for a product that would allow them to be sort of more like to Twitter or Instagram.

For example, that you can just scroll through new stuff, new posts, right? Either really don't want to see the first post that Cristiano Ronaldo, published 2010, even though it might be in the most liked one. You want to see something recent, right? Same thing. We can make papers, They don't really care about the most relevant paper in the fields.

The care about the most interesting ones in the last six months. Yeah, right. So the time frame has to be a little bit shorter so that was sort of the project to build a recommendations system with that specific set of constraints. So, people would be reading a paper. And, That I sort of tweeting it but not tweeting it within a corporate environment I guess so, within the confines of the company or would it be within the confines of the clients?

Only within the company. But but actually there was a client that they had that is actually currently exploring the idea or an adaptation of the idea to commercialise to make it actual product that they can sell to the public. Um, but but yeah. So the idea is to replace that user flow that you can have on a twitter and you can just scroll through papers on your way to work.

Make it passive right When I open Instagram. I don't really know what I'm gonna look for. I'm not looking for anything, I'm just looking to be entertained browsing, right? So they want to be entertained but in the proactive way in each of content they're looking for or they reading through is kind of relevant to their fields of work, right?

So you built this recommendation system and yeah how is they experience of doing that you enjoy that? It was a sounds like it's quite challenging job because It was not just an academic project and as sense of well, let's see what we can do with this. It was more of a Of this is something our customer would actually quite like something that's a bit like this.

Yeah, definitely. I think I also try to make it as academic as possible just so I could understand and take the opportunity to dive DP to recognition systems and how they work. I think it's a fascinating world. Most of the things we use nowadays, every day is like, based on recommendational search engines, right?

Um, but it was definitely challenging. I think I was lost for the first maybe a couple months 19, maybe paint, just a visual picture of how the filled works. But to be honest, that's one of the things that Uni taught me. Just I'm not expecting to know something prior to start working on it until I don't think until now I've actually started a project that I knew more than 50% about what I'm gonna do.

So I think you get pretty used to it through uni so you don't have that scary about it. You get good learning how to learn. Yeah, so you know it's not any specific knowledge. You have the skill is like diving into a completely new field that you may have nothing about.

Yeah. Making sense of that environment and trying to To achieve some goal. I don't know, maybe once you do it once or twice at some point, you just like being there done that, right? So, if you just just know, okay? It's gonna be a little bit of a pain and my not be as motivated that the first few weeks because a lot of friction between what I'm trying to learn.

But you know, that eventually it's going to click and when it clicks then you just sort of snowballs from there, I think. Yeah. Okay, good. All right. So thats finally a project and your you've literally just well, I say last year last exam was less than 24 hours ago.

I actually started with start a 2pm today. So you're kind of just coming down from my, I've finished my degree. Now, I've done my exams and But what, what comes next? What your plans for the summer and beyond, yeah. It's still a bit of a question mark So I'm actually, I'm okay, maybe not as much of a question mark but I'm starting.

I'm gonna keep working with the startup in Tokyo full-time for the summer only starting in a couple weeks. And this this time I'm gonna have a chance to actually work within of one of the product teams because these project was quite solid. In the sense that well I was a one-man army working on it and now I'm gonna have a chance to actually learn from them.

Directly working inside by side and I got news a few two weeks ago that I got a commission offer to keep learning and follow this process and go to Cambridge for for another year of masters. So if everything goes according to plan, that's what I will be going to on that October.

It's an Enfield is an Enfield which we could lead to PhD, which is something I have in mind. Especially in the field that I'm going to explore. So I'll keep that as an open door. I mean that that field of research you talk about sort of Are we talking about generative AI is at those that you're interested or as abroad and It is, it is actually machine learning systems.

So they have they have one of the biggest sort of machine learning systems group in Europe. Probably the world. So, I love these idea of intersection between machine learning and distributive systems, right? Because I think it's the sweet spot between turning all of these syring through actually applications that can be used, right?

I feel like, The motivations was, was I feel like all of these models and this critical concepts that we now achieving Well, those models with trillions of parameters, right? I think, at some point, they might have surpassed the engineering capability. The sense that it's not feasible to buy more lands and build more data centres in order to support all of these innovation.

So the gotta be some systems engineering that we got to do to make these machine learning models more. A accessible to everyone. Everybody can work on it. Yeah. And I think they're interesting problem there is that the I was reading the other day that these you know there's a huge cost in running, you know, charging PT.

But all these large language models is that the computational cost is vast and okay, some of that can be recovered with a subscription fee. But it's not sustainable because it you need to find. You need to find either ways of cheaper ways of doing it or quicker ways of doing.

It always that, you know, that aren't going to be so costly. Computation doesn't quite interesting problem Because ideally you don't want to call innovation to be kept by how appliable it is, right? So if every time a researcher is trying to solve a problem and he got to think, okay?

But in order for us to actually test these live, we'll need an environment that comes with x amount of course. Right? So the more accessible you make it to everyone, these will be right. I think it's part of If you look back at maybe the dot combo, right? Some of the companies that survive the most was not the ones that actually had an end user approach to it and product but the ones invested in the infrastructure that supports all the other companies, So the Paul comes the, the AMD so people that buy build the sheets, build the telecommunication channel, so There's a next generation of AI systems and infrastructure, right?

That gotta be built in order to support all of these projects right Because they might feel on my succeed. But regardless if project is below top of its fails are succeeds. You still it's you still it's still needs whatever you come up with, yeah, okay, good. So That that's sounds good.

So you've Finish your degree, we you coming to graduation next month? I guess. Hopefully have really yes for yeah. Hopefully, see you at graduation and And if we could, there's a few other questions. I ask all, I guess so. The first one is minority report. So we talked about this a little bit at the beginning.

And are there any minority groups that you're a part of and what's your experience been of being part of that minority? How can the university perhaps employers as well? And make being a member of the minority group. A better experience. Yeah, sure. Okay. So, obviously coming from Portugal. I don't, I don't the normal common mannery groups that people might think about.

I don't, I don't belong to any of them, but I curious factor that I just, we started seeing the last few years, this since Brexit, right? I will speak specifically for the numbers of portraitary, Portugal, and Portuguese, students since I'm, but I imagine you can generalise what the rest of music is European, right?

The number of Portugu students, that came, I think these youtube university was like, maybe sub 10, right? So that in that's across the whole, you know, I'm I think so. I think so. Okay. About all around it off in a minute. So if we are, I can edit this bit down so that's just waiting for the finishers.

Yeah, right. Okay. So And yeah, so not not so many Portuguese students in the university as a whole, but also As a member of the European Union that's become. Blessed represented over time. You were just is natural. There will be if there is not financial initiative to coming, right.

Again, I'm only here because I got the funding. If I didn't get the student loans, I have definitely not be here and I cannot even imagine what I'll be doing now. Something completely different. But so I think that's, that's definitely going to be a challenge. And I think UK was to know a little realised that through time as less unless students come and basically saying goodbye to lesson last talent, at some point, right?

Because the average European student, cannot afford to pay. Abroad tuition that just it's it's the reality of your right? So I think, especially with coming with a used students. Coming to the UK. They're not just coming here to study that coming in to work as well. You exactly. And I guess I was part, you know, you'd already decided so sorry.

You'd already decided. Um, Before you came to University, you want to do a placement. So I guess partly attraction studying in the UK was the opportunity to work in the UK as well. Yeah, was definitely not to go back to Portugal immediately. So UK is a stepping soon but hopefully in the future working more places globally.

So that's out of the European bubble and in Simpson, So part from financial incentives. So that is there anything else that university could do to make? The university and a better environment for students from the European Union. And to be honest, I don't really think other thing that really matters more to.

You can put as many European Union flags, you want to cross campus. If you know if if we don't have the funds to come, they'll at least a loans to come, we want be able to. So Get. Yeah, good. All right. So the next one is Um, i want you to imagine you all the next ice chancellor.

So, the Vice Chancellor of University of Nancy, Roth, always. Coming to the end of a term next year. I've just appointed you. Vice chancellor, and And what would you do? What would be the first thing you do to improve? The university of students If you have the power and the responsibility.

So well that's a big question, right? That's a big question, public offers. Um, you might send me up for it for like election. Um, I think I think one of the facts that I found the most, the weirdest coming to university they should things. One thing is, I feel like this own notion that a good researcher is a good lecture.

That's i think, any logic person can assume that one is not imply the other. So again, too much credibility of a lot of the professors that I add they might be some of the brightest that academics in the field. That doesn't really mean that you can teach right? And I don't really imagine and I'm not really sure if there is any process of evaluation from the university side to see for person is qualified, to also teach a small more than you used to be the more than used to be, But I just more that could be done.

They're more they could be done. Or sometimes in not saying that you got to filter out people because they can teach because, well, first and foremost, how you qualify what is the ability to teach, right? But I'm pretty sure you could. The university could sponsor courses before a person becomes a lecture on teaching skills, right days.

Education is all fields, so give a little bit of actually education to the lecture beforehand. So that's one that I will do. I think that would make that's the most common critique that I year across as student, body for the whole for use. And I'm not seeing that changing anytime soon, but hopefully one day and another one is regarding the format of exams.

And How how we come from an understand because there's a lot of different courses. So there's a lot of different exams but we come from from an high school perspective in which, when we study for our exams in high school, same weekday levels here, you know, the format of it exam, you can see past papers of the exam with solutions, you can see the marketing scheme for exams And it's mandatory that the country does that for every student right here.

It is up to each lecture to be as flexible on not with body provides, right? So navigate that space this challenging because you don't know what they expectations are and expectations on each course again. At least slightly different. I think he's unnecessary and big booty around what to expect from an exam.

And I never understood why you cannot post best pick. I think, I think, in a way you don't want to give away the answer from previous papers, sort of to save yourself, some track, some time, some critical thinking, and how to build a better examples here because you can reuse a lot of the components.

But if you think about it, it just makes it a bit of a health or of life for a student and stressful. It is stressful and, and Because it doesn't mean that is no mor or less, right? It just he doesn't really know what to know. In order to succeed at the exam.

Yeah, definitely. That's too good suggestions. That's the first suggestion is To improves or training of yeah, new album. There is a new academics program but that can always be better. I think in that making sure that people who are good at research, Can also teach yeah or no. Know how how much it should be done.

And then the other one about exam, former, That's not that's not coming up for. That's quite interesting one. Um, The next one is. We have a code display list. So all of our guests recommend a piece of music that goes on to the code display list alongside A podcast, a book and a film.

So, which tune would you like to add to the code display list? And can you say a little bit about why it's important to you? Maybe I cannot give a specific tune right now. There's nothing come up to my but I can't use it type. Yeah, and he's actually quite specific.

It only existing Portugal. I think it's called fat spells f a d o. And if you've ever been to lose one is probably you can see all across town, right? It's part of our identity and father, we sort of, I don't really know how to describe this mix between Jazz Blues and maybe some opera right.

I don't really know what to reference it with in terms of more popular mainstream music. Is it like I mention this today, Astrid Gilberto the famous? A Portuguese. A song. Died recently. And it was, it was a big hit in the 60s but it's like it's a massive bit.

Is it sort of like bottom over Samber kind of style? Or is it something very different? I don't want to say more dramatic, but we a little bit more, it's sort of a bus and overboard a little bit more, contemporary, more. More older even older like more more A more sad, the songs are supposed to be is something is always about.

A most songs in portrait input his father. A lot of them, at least I think are about sodad, so that is a word that he has no translation to English but basically is the feeling of missing something or missing someone, right? We don't in English. I don't think you have actually ever worth as a noun to the describe.

What that is? You can just have miss something, but as a verb, right? But so a lot of it's more, it's more sad than Boston of I wouldn't listen to fat to do a little bit of dancing. I don't while I clean Okay. Father father we'll put that we'll add and I make we're well I'll do some research about about the genre and maybe we can add a sort of An archetypal.

I'll give some questions after I can go on my phone. Yeah and then the other one is one Pakistan. Yeah. I think you mentioned before that, you do listen to quite a lot of podcasts. So many, that's a there. Anything you've any that you particularly enjoying at the moment?

All right, i can tell you, I can give you my weekly ones, the ones that also listened to So this we can start up by just and Jason Kallaghanis. If I'm not wrong, that's a great podcast. Just beautiful to save. Today's is like 45 minutes an hour long sometimes, amazing gas.

So that's that's great. Once a week here. Partners up with some of his friends that are like some of the big VC investment people ever and he does a podcast called all in which I think comes out every Saturday and that's A more morning depth about the topics, They also have gas but they are very smart group.

Everybody, one of them was a VPI Google, the other one as a VC firm. So just is High calibre people talking about. Whatever they want to talk about. You guys. Yeah but the ones I love to hear the most to be honest are brilliant idiots which Charleming the God and then we shorts and it shows the comedian.

What's that about comedy? Just what's going on? What's going on in the world but from a sense of know you know no sensibility no just say whatever you want to say, right? And and flagrant 2, which another podcast I understands slaver in Flagrants flagrant two. Yeah flagrants. Yeah okay.

Good. Okay, so that's my comedy. Put, most my podcasts are comedy. And there's one book, any any book that you recommend that? Other student for read you've enjoyed? Yes, so I really don't want to butcher his name but the one that I read, Most recently, i think i should have got a long time ago.

I'm gonna repeat it is the Almanac of Navalra Ravikant. Okay. So which is basically compilation of a lot of quotes and thoughts from the file Navali. Is again, another legendary VC Is the founder of Angelist and is a He has so it someone, right or And team fair is actually as well, collaborated in branding this book just a condensed way of is philosophy, philosophical ideas about wealth and happiness, right?

And terrorists before Do terrorist as a podcast is though I think is the order of the four hour week, right? Yes. Yeah, Okay, great. Okay. And then the last one last but not least one film I want film. It might be something you've seen recently if you can't, or it could be something you sore ages ago and you think it's classic

Training day, right? We'll set about training day. You've never seen anything. Doesn't Washington making a great world. It's I think that I don't want to give it away, but the moral is to, you know, understand when to say, no be The accept the fact that you sceptical and you critic of things and don't just play along with it because you feel like you have to, Right, right?

Because sometimes it just might be too late until we realise, right? I just don't be afraid to say no regardless of what do you think that can like impact, right? You and your answer? That's good advice. I'm gonna believe you've never seen training there. That's already just washington energy.

Yeah, it's like, from what 2000 to 2001? I'm not saying that. I usually like dams are Washington films so make sure I can see that. And that's one then following on from the devices. I've built a time travel machine for you and I want to imagine that you can transport yourself back to 2019.

Four years ago, when you started to degree, What advice would you offer your formerself about getting the most on? You sounds like you've got a lot out of being at university. What advice would you feel for myself? And perhaps fellow students about making the most of your A quite short time at university.

It's probably flown by life. Um, I think i think when in doubts, keep pushing, that's what I would say. When you in doubt, if this is like the right thing or not just keep pushing because Either either, the pushing will make it clear that is not the right thing or you will just announce to be the good thing.

So when you are in doubted, because you're not really sure if he's what I want or not. So, just keep pushing until it's clear. Right, it's not it's not to just go down that same route but keep going until you make sure that it's clear as I kind of stepping out outside of your comfort zone, a little bit and being uncomfortable with uncertainty.

Yes. But yeah, getting with it a little bit. Yeah. When winning down because I think we have a tendency to over calculate everything at some point right? Which we try to rationalise the seasons and we try to make sometimes just stick to the plan, I had a plan when I came, I was in doubt a lot of times throughout it right for especially first and second year before I got that placement and and I think you know if I could go back just say look it does I don't really know how it's gonna play out but in doubt just keep pushing Okay, good as good advice.

So I can say thank you Pedro for joining us today. And good luck with the next steps could let work with the the internship with Tokyo sounds great. And so you're actually get some time. Hopefully, to go and visit, hopefully, yeah, we go to, I'm gonna having like a Japanese bank and work for a nice to actually, to actually looks and what?

Yeah. It's a good luck with that and good luck with the further study plants are, first study in the future? I appreciate. Thanks again for coming. And thank you for having me. Thank you.