NAN132: The AI-Augmented Engineer

Eric Chou (0:08)

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Hello and welcome to the Network Animation Notes Podcast, where we explore the latest network animation from a practitioner's perspective. I'm your host, Eric Chou, a network engineer who loves everything about network animation. Today, we're joined by Garrett Masters, Senior Network Administrator with over 11 years of IT experience, spending routing switching, firewalls, and Azure Networking. Garrett is a creator of Gtalk Stack, a platform dedicated to the AI-Augmented Engineer. I can't wait to talk to Garrett about AI networking and his unique path. Welcome to the show, Garrett.

Garrett Masters (1:21)

Hey, Eric. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Eric Chou (1:23)

Yeah, it's great to have you. I mean, I think I came across your channel, the Gtalk Stack channel, about MCP and AI. And obviously, that is a very hot topic, if you will, right? Like, you can almost go anywhere, go to any conference, and it's almost mandatory to talk about AI and so on. So I think it's great to have you here, especially to talk about this overlapping area of what is known as network engineering and AI, which I think it's going to be a great episode.

Garrett Masters (1:55)

Yeah, absolutely.

Eric Chou (1:57)

Yeah, so before we begin, maybe you could tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you end up being a content creator, right? Like, after 11 years of your IT experience?

Garrett Masters (2:08)

Yeah, so I would say kind of a happy accident. You know, I'm not...

I think most of us IT guys are, you know, not... Getting on camera isn't our first instinct, you know, so...

Eric Chou (2:21)

Not our first or second or third, I guess.

Garrett Masters (2:23)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, I was like, I started doing some SMAI work on the side, and I learn personally by teaching others. I learned something myself, and then I kind of affirm that knowledge by teaching others. So, I'm like, oh, you know what? There's... I did some chatting with Jem, and I did some deep research. I'm like, hey, is there any people out there doing networking, AI stuff? You know, there's some people out there. But at the time, there wasn't a lot. So, I'm like, maybe I'll just start recording some shorts and some long form and just kind of doing the learning in public thing.

So, that's kind of where I started. I just kind of picked up the camera, started recording, and here we are. I only have like 250 or so subscribers at the moment.

But the videos have been doing pretty well, and I have fun making them. And like you said, I learn a lot about the stuff as I'm doing it, because there's the initial hurdle of doing the lab, building the thing, and then you also have to kind of know what you're talking about to be able to make a video about it, you know? So, yeah.

Eric Chou (3:34)

Yeah, you know, the common thread I come across with people, not just making content, but especially making content, is that people who are successful in doing this are the ones who would do this for free anyways when no one is watching. You know, and that goes into, you know, what you talked about on, you would have been teaching somebody about this because that benefits you, right? Like that drives your, you know, endorphins and your brain likes it. You know, that brings you joy. So you wouldn't be doing this anyways.

Garrett Masters (4:07)

Yep. Yeah. That's just how I've always learned. You know, I'm a visual learner, but then also like, you know, you learn something and then you teach it to somebody else.

And even with just like non-AI stuff, networking basics, you know, when you're teaching some of the junior admins, just kind of, you know, you're talking through a technology that you haven't, you know, touched or talked about for a year. And you're like, oh, I guess I know more about spanning tree than I thought I did, you know.

Eric Chou (4:30)

And you know, that's funny because everybody, when this sort of topic about, if you don't use it, you lose it, spanning trees always comes up, you know, super fast. Like, I don't know, Ms. Pearlman would be very proud.