Eric Bell

07/25/23 • 27 min

One year's worth of weekly ISNP episodes - it's episode 52! To celebrate, we chat with Eric Bell, the founder and managing partner of Baxtel, a company that helps enterprises find data center space or as he calls it “a Yelp for data centers”.
Eric tells us how he discovered his passion for tech and how he overcame the challenges of starting his own business. He also shares his tips on how to deal with a dysfunctional team and how to find meaning in your work.
We explore what the words “interconnection, data center, and cloud” mean to him and why he uses them as his banner on LinkedIn. He explains how they relate to his vision and mission for Baxtel and the industry.
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The internet is just a collection of private networks. And they all have to meet someplace.
These are physical networks of fiber that crisscross the country and continents and underseas, and they eventually meet physically in certain buildings.
The internet lives within these buildings.
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Eric's Links:

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Thanks for being an imposter - a part of the Imposter Syndrome Network (ISN)!

Make it a great day.

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Thanks for being an imposter - a part of the Imposter Syndrome Network (ISN)!

Make it a great day.

Previous Episode

Matt Vitale

In this episode, we feature Matt Vitale, Sr. Network Automation Consultant at Network to Code with 13 years of experience in the networking field.
Matt shares his personal journey of dealing with impostor syndrome, from landing his first network engineering job at Finish Line to presenting at NANOG 87 on overcoming impostor syndrome in network automation.
Join us as we hear the story of how a simple configuration error led to a major outage at Rackspace and about the importance of being open to making mistakes as also recognizing and celebrating your own mistakes.
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“I realized that more people felt imposter syndrome than I realized.
I always thought I was alone, or it was just me and one other person that I'm close with.
And it turns out that a lot of people do.
I think even just bringing that kind of awareness, really can at least help open conversations”
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Matt's Links:

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Thanks for being an imposter - a part of the Imposter Syndrome Network (ISN)!

Make it a great day.

Next Episode

Tom Nadeau

Today we chat with Tom Nadeau, the CTO of Spirent.

Tom shares his non-traditional career path, from his early days doing AI in undergraduate and autonomous robots cleaning the underwater side of boats, to his current role at Spirent, where he works on some cool projects like satellite technology and rocket science.
Tom also talks about how he moved over to Networking after AI didn’t work out, how he bumped into the inventor of SNMP, and had one of the hardest interviews of his career.
He also shares his insights on how to navigate difficult situations, how to make the best of it when things don’t work out, and how to build relationships even after making mistakes.
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One of the secrets to being successful at the IETF is the people that roll their sleeves up and do the work.
A lot of people are going to want to talk about things, they're going to want to tell you to do things.
That’s fine, but the most successful people are the ones that sit down and just write it down, build it, and get it going.
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Tom's Links:

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Thanks for being an imposter - a part of the Imposter Syndrome Network (ISN)!

Make it a great day.

The Imposter Syndrome Network Podcast - Eric Bell

Transcript

Machines made this, mistakes and all:
[00:00:00] Chris: Hello imposters. Welcome to the Imposter Syndrome Network podcast. This is where we all belong, especially those of you who think you don't. My name is Chris Grundmann and I'm here as always with the one and only Zoe Rose SecOps. Hi, this is the Eric Bell episode. It's also episode number 52, which technically, if not practically, is our one year anniversary.

[00:00:37] Chris: We've got