Ep 16 - Dan Pilone - Element84, Large Scale Computing, Enabling Open Data & People Focused Growth

03/01/22 • 99 min

Dan Pilone is the CEO and co-founder of Element84, a software engineering company focused on building geospatial solutions at scale. We touch on Dan's experience working on geospatial software engineer problems and how those have changed over the past decade. We discuss the work Element84 has done to contribute to AWS's Open Data program, as well the journey of co-founding a company with Dan's wife Tracey, and how they're thinking of growth through a people-focused mindset.

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About Dan:

Time-stamps:

03:16 - Conversation starts, Dan present himself
07:03 - Presenting Element84
09:33 - Element84’s early days - Moving towards geospatial over time
12:16 - Problems change over time
16:15 - Scale changes too
20:48 - Contributing to Amazon’s Open Data Registry
26:16 - Making Sentinel data more accessible
34:30 - Getting nerdy: What do Dask & Xarray mean for the future of geospatial data processing
40:16 - Moving towards more layers of abstraction
41:52 - Business model behind different open data contributions
45:11 - A game theory approach to Open Source
50:28 - The Openness of Geospatial compared to other fields
56:16 - Co-founding a company as a couple
1:04:21 - Preventing people “careering out” of the company
1:11:19 - People-focus growth
1:16:58 - Element84’s hiring process
1:21:14 - Changing culture as the company grows
1:27:54 - How Dan’s role has changed over the years
1:30:47 - The relevance (or not) of keeping a foot in the code as a CEO
1:33:29 - Opportunity cost from Dan’s point of view
1:36:34 - Book & podcast recommendations

Show notes:

Earth Search
Book & podcast recommendation:
- Great game of business Unlocking the Power and Profitability of Open-Book Management by Jack Stack, Bo Burlingham
- Dear White Friend: The Realities of Race, the Power of Relationships and Our Path to Equity by Melvin J. Gravely II
- Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
- Manager Tools podcast
Tugboat Group
- Interview with Dan & his wife Tracey on co-founding Element84 together

Please feel free to reach out!

03/01/22 • 99 min

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