Here's the transcript of an interview I did with Tayyab Tariq. The blog post for this transcript can be found here.
Christian: Thank you for making the time I know we haven’t met before so it is partly a little bit strange just to chat and have an interview at least with Gary I had met him before. What is the weather like where you are right now? Are you in Stanford right now?
Tayyab: Yes I am in Stanford actually I just turned in my last final exam yesterday so I am kind of done with education here, I am moving out today so this is my last day here on campus.
Christian: Wow! Fantastic! Are you excited or are you sad, how are you feeling?
Tayyab: I am so excited that for the final exam I was up for like 48 hours already and still I could not sleep last night so I am so excited.
Christian: Wow! That’s right, you told me you have like a 24 hour exam, how does that work?
Tayyab: The way it works is the exam is emailed to you let’s say sometime in the morning in my case it was 8:30 in the morning and you have 24 hours to solve it, the honour code is that you would only use the resources that have been allowed by the professor and in this case it was a couple of books and some like general notes and stuff so we were not supposed to use the internet really and most people abide by that so it is kind of part of the whole massive online courses revolution and everything is kind of shifting online now so it’s really part of that.
Christian: Excellent. How do you think you went?
Tayyab: It was nice, it was nice. So it was not a particularly difficult course I had a very, very good professor so the entire quarter has been great so the exam was not too difficult so it went well.
Christian: I’ve looked at their open course work computer science before but I have been meaning to take that course online but I haven’t got around to it yet. But the professors there seem well obviously it is Stanford so pretty amazing.
Tayyab: Yeah, every time I talk about this or think about this it makes the hair at the back of my neck stand up you know, when I first got here the people who I had admired, whose books I had read as like my text books, the first class I took was from one of those professors whose book I had read and admired and so in some sense like meeting your hero and meeting them every day so it is just amazing and that was the first course that Stanford offered online and the first day the lecture room was jam-packed by 250-300 students and attendance kind of vanished by the second week there were like couple of dozen people in class and I was like what is going on, why don’t people want to be in the shadow of this amazing people?
And it turned out everybody was taking the lectures online and one of the Professors talked to that a bit and he said “You know when I ask students why don’t you show up in class? Why do you take the lectures online?” and he said “You know students say: ‘Professor we can rewind you on video but we cannot rewind you on the lecture’”. So being kind of there witnessing that revolution was just amazing, one of the most amazing things that has happened to me here in Stanford.
Christian: That is fantastic, one of my goals in life is to study at Stanford but that is a long way off and just looking at this lecturing process it’s pretty daunting but I guess we will get into all of that later I guess but I am really keen to hear more about that obviously you sound really excited, but let’s start from the beginning and if you can tell me about if you can tell me about the Pakistan that you grew up in so you are from Islamabad is that right?
Tayyab: Yes I am from Islamabad I grew up in a small town in the suburbs of Islamabad. Basically my father worked for a research institute run by the government so there was like the residential area of the institute was right next to it and everybody was basically kind of living on campus for the research institute and it was like an amazing community in that some of the top minds in the country they are living on your block and on the other edge of the same block because you know it was kind of like a self-contained community so everybody was living in a certain close proximity there was no kind of a, what should I call it, status gap, the janitor and top people were kind of living on opposite ends of the street so it was just a great community and it was not only manifested in life where people lived it was manifested in how they behaved and there was this amazing sense of community there so it was almost like a utopia that you would be in the vicinity of all these smart people and they would be so down to earth.
Christian: So was this a big community?
Tayyab: No it was small I would say 250, 300 houses.
Christian: So pretty tight knit?
Tayyab: Yeah pretty tight knit. Everybody knew everybody so it was just like a great place.
Christian: So that is what your Dad was doing? Was your mother in the same kind of work?
Tayyab: My mother was a stay at home mum, my father was a photographer it was an interesting transition that the family made because my grandfather and like the seven generations before him were all painters and they were all in arts.
Christian: So was there a pressure on your father to pursue the arts?
Tayyab: My father was kind of in the middle because he was into photography, my grandfather was also into photography, but my father was into photography but he was like not like a passion or the glamorous side of photography he was more into the scientific side of it which is why he was working where he was working.
Christian: Is there a tradition in Pakistan to always carry on the work of your father, is that a past tradition or?
Tayyab: Not really, I mean of course you would if you grew up in that kind of household there is a great inspiration right there next to you and it is very likely that you would want to do that. I personally just couldn’t draw a straight line.
Christian: So you aren’t very artistic?
Tayyab: No I am not; I am particularly bad at color and at sketching.
Christian: Yes, the hard part for me was doing lino block prints and things like that at school. You were born I guess you were growing up there in the 80s and 90s?
Tayyab: No I was born in ‘88 so it was the 90s and then I moved out in 2004 when I was kind of done with what is called school in Pakistan so it’s like up to the 10th grade it’s called school and then two years of college it is called University it is a little different in the US where it is like School, High School and College so after my 10 years of Education, I am not very sure how it is in Australia.
Christian: We have the British system as well so we just sort of have Primary School, Secondary School and that’s it. So I am guessing it’s similar in Pakistan.
Tayyab: Yes so my Dad retired and then we moved to the main city Islamabad and life changed a bit but not too much because in some sense it did but you know that spirit was kind of still there and then after my college I joined a university called FAST.
Christian: What is that?
Tayyab: FAST. It’s an abbreviation for Foundation for Advancement of Science and Technology.
Christian: So did you have any siblings or anything like that, that were also into..?
Tayyab: I am the first of seven.
Christian: You are the first?
Tayyab: I am the youngest one.
Christian: Oh the last OK. Wow, goodness me, how many older brothers, how many older sisters?
Tayyab: 3 older brothers and then 3 sisters and then me. It was very nice growing up.
Christian: Well, they always say the last has it the easiest because the parents are a lot more relaxed; do you think that was true?
Tayyab: Yes, that is true and all my siblings were particularly helpful they were not at all the jealous kind thankfully, so what happened was my mother passed away of cancer when I was ten.
Christian: Oh, that’s horrible, I’m sorry to hear that.
Tayyab: Yeah, but all to the credit of my sisters and I just cannot thank them enough and it is without any exaggeration it’s true that I never cried for my mother except for the day that she died, except for that day I never ever cried for her because my sisters were just so awesome.
Christian: Wow, that’s amazing, have they had a chance to visit you yet in California?
Tayyab: No, I have only been here a year and a half.
Christian: Wow, they must be so proud of you.
Tayyab: Yes they are.
Christian: That’s lovely.
Tayyab: After we moved out we moved to Islamabad, a few years before that actually my brother moved to the US in the early 2000s
Christian: Which part?
Tayyab: He initially moved to California then he for his PhD to Georgia Tech and then now again in the Valley so now we live like 8 miles away from each other it’s great having that here.
Christian: I am guessing then he’s also into computer programming and things like that?
Tayyab: Yes he actually was my inspiration to get into computer science, he was ten years older to me and when he started his BS in Computer Science I was 10… 8 years actually, so I took one of his books and I started reading them.
Christian: Do you remember which one you started with?
Tayyab: It was called: “Teach yourself C” it was thin blue colored book I can still remember it and you know I had not studied Algebra and Mathematics in school yet so there was this topic about this thing called a variable X you know I practically lost my sleep at night wondering what kind of thing is this X, sometimes it’s 3, sometimes it’s 5 and I just could not grasp and I just did not have the foundation and it was a funny, interesting time.
So that is what inspired my interest into computer science and I started pretty early, I started around, I started actually understanding it around 10 and from there it kind of never stopped. After college I got into computer science degree again and after my degree since my brother was doing his PhD he encouraged me to pursue graduate studies and during my Undergraduate I applied to a few PhD programs but I got rejected from each and every one of them because I hadn't even done my undergrad I had not done any solid research and I had applied to the top schools so I could see that coming when I was applying but after I graduated that is when the older story starts.
Just as I was about to graduate one of my friends was doing work on an online work platform and he told me about oDesk and I was like “Yeah so what?” So then he told me “You know I am working on that platform and I am making quite a lot of money” and then I was like “I’m listening now.”
Christian: He got your attention.
Tayyab: He got my attention and I created my account during my final exam and applied to one job and I immediately got a response there was this guy in Switzerland who was running a start up and he said so just give me the sample code so that I can get to know you and then I will get you started on your first project and during my final exams while preparing for them I wrote that short piece of code I sent it to him he really liked it and by the time my exams were finished he hired me on oDesk.
Christian: Was it an hourly contract or was it a big project?
Tayyab: It was an hourly contract I was making 5 dollars an hour which was great for me because I had a 9 to 5 which on average paid me like 2 ½ dollars an hour but that was great by the standards because the cost of living is much much more than I was able to in Pakistan.
Christian: Yes, if 2 dollars 50 an hour is good then 5 dollars an hour must be really good.
Tayyab: But I never thought of it as something that could become very, very serious but nonetheless I found the work very interesting the guy was great it was a great learning experience for me and I was making good money although working was kind of hectic because I was doing a 9 to 5 and on top of that I was putting in 20 hours a week for this thing but then again I had nothing else to do. I was not married, I had just gotten out of college, so that were the only two things I was doing you know working and meeting my friends and having some fun time.
Christian: Tell me a little bit about that as well, so with your friends were they programmers and what did you guys do for fun? Just that kind of stuff.
Tayyab: We were all mostly in computer science, actually all of us were in computer science the tightly knit inner group was all in computer science.
Christian: In Pakistan, where you were, was it cool to be into computer science or was it the cool kids played cricket or, tell me a little bit about that as well, was it separate from everyone?
Tayyab: It was definitely not cool I can tell you that, but there was this craze nonetheless in the sense that the IT industry was booming and I actually got it at the tail end of it because by the time I got in, the telecommunications industry was booming and everybody was going into telecom and they did not realize then that it would take them 4 years to graduate and by the time they graduated the telecom industry boom was gone and all the people who entered into that telecommunications degree were practically out of jobs.
But the IT industry was not doing great but it was like much more matured and it could take care of itself there was always room for more people.
Christian: And more opportunities if you’re good.
Tayyab: And besides it is kind of more diverse with a telecommunications degree you can only do one thing but a computer science degree you can do anything from a bank to a school.
Christian: So most of your friends were they doing computer science as well?
Tayyab: We were all doing computer science and we were just, like, our group was like any other group that you can think of, of college students, yak in the evening go out for food, pretty much pointless stuff. Nothing meaning full, you know?
Christian: What’s the situation with alcohol in Pakistan?
Tayyab: Don’t ask, don’t tell kind of a situation. Since the majority is Muslim and religiously it’s kind of not allowed to use alcohol so I am one of the people who wanted to abide by that and my friends were okay with it and the friends who chose not to, who wanted to consume it, it was not too much of judgmental situation there at least within young people.
Christian: Well it sounds a little bit like marijuana in America then.
Tayyab: Yes, actually that is a very very appropriate analogy. It is like that. Even the law enforcement would not go after recreational users.
Christian: That’s interesting, one quick question, what is the equivalent of like late night pizza or late night burrito what’s the equivalent in Pakistan?
Tayyab: It’s a late night pizza.
Christian: Oh, really? Okay. Is it the same kind of pizza? I have been to a lot of countries and pizza seems to be different everywhere.
Tayyab: I mean we don’t call it like Pakistani pizza or anything but we have done our own spin on it, it’s very spicy, it has to be super loaded with meat kind of like our food which is really spicy and we eat a lot of meat so the people are kind of cool with that and it’s like I am not so sure with the term but it is like a dasi pizza.
Christian: A what sorry?
Tayyab: Are you familiar with the term “Dasi”?
Christian: Daisy? No.
Tayyab: It is like a pizza from the Indian subcontinent they are called daisies.
Christian: How do you spell that?
Tayyab: D-A-S-I … Pakistan has done its own spin on the pizza, it has to be spicy, it has to be about meat a lot.
Christian: Have you found the same pizza in California yet?
Tayyab: No.
Christian: Maybe that’s going to be your first start up, Dasi pizza.
Tayyab: Maybe. So when I was working after my undergraduate with this Swiss company so I visited them in Switzerland in December 2010 and it was a very interesting team, it was a very small team - four people: myself, another guy from France, there was one Italian and one Kiwi-born Swiss.
Christian: Wow, what a combination. How many hours had you worked for them online before you went and visited them?
Tayyab: I kind of skipped that part of the story so I was working for them part-time and at the end of the first month I discovered that I had made more money from the part-time job than from my full-time job. Then another month passed and this guy offered me to work for him full-time and I was a little hesitant because there was kind of even if you did sign a formal contract there was no way for me to get hold of him if he chose to abandon me.
I talked to my brother and he said “You know you have no responsibilities on you I am here to catch you if you fall so go for it, take the leap”. So I quit my 9 to 5 after 3 months of working there and I started working with these people full-time and in December I visited them.
Christian: Looking back now how big of a decision do you think that was with everything you know now?
Tayyab: I think it was a good decision…
Christian: No, I mean, how big, was it is a…
Tayyab: It had a significant impact on the way I think my career is going to turn out and my career ambitions in general so if I could just walk you through the story so I went there to Switzerland and I told you what the team was and it was a part of Switzerland that is right next to France so the language spoken there was French so everybody other than me knew French but the Italian guy had his own kind of spin on French then and we would have like a 30 minutes discussion and at the end of it you would discover somebody would say
“Oh, I didn’t say that”
“But I thought you said that”
“No I didn’t say it”
“Then what were you saying?”
“I was saying this”
“But that was what I was saying”
“Yeah, that is what I was trying to say”
It was like kind of a comedy of errors at that time, it was really interesting working with those people.
Christian: It could be a good sitcom.
Tayyab: Yeah, it absolutely could be actually there was one maybe you would want to look it up; it’s an old one it was called “Mind Your Language” it’s a British comedy.
Christian: I think I’d enjoy that, I used to be a language teacher so I think I’d enjoy that. So was that your first time outside of Pakistan?
Tayyab: That was. That was my first time outside of Pakistan.
Christian: What was that like, did you have much culture shock?
Tayyab: Not much of a culture shock because of the internet and TV you know what the world is like so there was not much of a culture shock there although my brother thought that I would get a culture shock because he did when he moved to the US but those were different times so maybe you know about this so General Musharaff took over as president in 1998, 1999 actually and at that time there was just one TV channel which was state controlled and we were kind of coming out of a phase of very strict Islamization and then there was an outburst of these channels, dozens and dozens of channels and there was like the media got very open, you got access to the world and people started to soak in a lot of that knowledge so it was a very different experience for me compared to the way it was for my brother going out for the first time because I had soaked in a lot of that media and he had not.
Christian: So you grew up in different worlds.
Tayyab: Exactly, that speaks a lot to your question about what kind of a Pakistan did you grow up in. So, from one channel with a state controlled media to like dozens and eventually a hundred private channels, [inaudible] country it was just a lot, it was interesting, there was turmoil, too, but it was interesting time nonetheless.
But there was not much of a shock but it was like a dream in the sense that the office was at the foot of the Alps and I was staying in France and I was working in Switzerland so every day because the guy I was staying with lived in France and basically the countries have a… so every day I crossed the border on a small boat that crossed Lake Geneva which by the way is absolutely stunning so it was like a dream that you wake up in the morning you open your window and right in front of you is Lake Geneva and everyday you take a boat ride across it twice actually and great people to work with so I stayed there for two weeks.
The idea was that we’d be able to come up with a plan so that, that Swiss company could set up an office in Pakistan so I started, kept working on that till the point that I heard from Fulbright, so the way the Fullbright works is that you have to apply and the application process takes one year so I applied for a scholarship and they said that: “You have been accepted for a scholarship now you have to chose the Universities that you want to apply to.”
Christian: Can you just tell me a little bit more about how you found out about Fulbright, what the benefits of that are and what the process was for application?
Tayyab: The Fulbright is the US government’s flagship foreign scholarship program it is actually a cultural exchange program so scholars from the US go to other countries and scholars from other countries go to the US. It’s been 60 years now since it has been there, there was a senator Fulbright who through a bill of congress brought this thing into place the idea was that if people get to know the US and the Americans get to know the rest of the world, it would hopefully bring harmony between people. It was too ambitious target perhaps but…
Christian: It worked for you.
Tayyab: It worked for me and it generally does kind of work and that nonetheless you are an ambassador and you understand your culture more and you understand the US culture more.
Christian: So did you have to interview for this or was it an essay or?
Tayyab: First you take a GRE then you put in an application then they shortlist you and then they interview you and when you pass the interview then they say “Select some US universities that you want to go, just tell us your preference” so I told them “Stanford, Georgia Tech, University of Central Florida” so I gave them three options, you usually apply you to four, so they took all of my three options and then they applied to State University of New York for me. First I got accepted at University of Central Florida and I was not really interested in going there because the Fullbright program is kind of restrictive in the sense that they do pay all your fee and they give you a stipend but it is restrictive that they say you cannot work in the US after you complete your degree you have to go back to Pakistan immediately. It’s not like I did not want to live in Pakistan it was just having that option at your disposal is great.
Christian: Yeah of course because you don’t know at the end of your degree exactly what you’re going to want to do.
Tayyab: Yeah, so it was restrictive in that sense but I finally got to know that I got accepted at Stanford then I was particularly depressed at that time for some other reason and I was walking to a friend’s place and I got a call, so somebody from the Fulbright office in Pakistan was calling me to tell me that I got accepted at Stanford.
Christian: Wow! What was that moment like?
Tayyab: Literally jumping in the street and people were looking at me like is this guy crazy or something? And then there was this kind of a choice for me do I go with the option of setting up a company for the Swiss company in Pakistan or do I go for my Fulbright and once I knew I could go to Stanford then it was really a no-brainer but then I could not abandon the Swiss guy so I told him I’ve got this great opportunity I can suggest you some people in Pakistan and you could work with them and maybe I could partner with them to set up a company in Pakistan and he said then it would become too risky for him to set up the company so he just outsourced it as a project so me and a few friends of mine in Pakistan so they ran the project, I ran it for three months before I left for the US and then my friends ran the project for like 6 ½ months more.
Christian: Were your friends already into outsourcing or online work before then?
Tayyab: They were not into online work but they were particularly adventurous in that they had not taken up any jobs and they were doing a start up of their own.
Christian: So they were keen on the work.
Tayyab: They were keen the problem was that there is no seed fundings available in Pakistan very easily and they saw this project and they thought this could bring them cash for them and so that’s where the common interest was. Then I got here at Stanford and this place is just amazing.
Christian: Tell me what was it like, can you tell me about when you told your family you got accepted.
Tayyab: It was great, like my brother was very excited.
Christian: Was he in Georgia at the time or was he in Pakistan?
Tayyab: He was in California. So I told him and he was actually, you know, he walked me through the process of applying and everything, he helped me along the way and of course he was very, very excited that I got accepted at Stanford and also excited because he was actually getting to see me and I could live nearby so his excitement was kind of two-fold, my dad was very excited. The thing about my dad is that - so the family transition that I told you about from arts to onwards, it was a realization that we needed to invest time into formal education so my father was doing a job he was not doing a business of his own, he realized that we as a family need to invest more time into education and he inculcated that spirit into us and he and my mother worked very very hard to make it possible for all of us so that is like a kind of something for a captain of a ship to get the ship to the other side I was the youngest one and I got admitted to one of the top universities in the world so it was like the icing on top of the cake for dad.
Christian: Wow, he must be so proud of you.
Tayyab: Yeah and the thing that he toiled for all his life and my mother toiled for with him and they were actually kind of like making that dream come true. It was great, everybody was very excited so I got here, I didn’t get a chance to visit Islamabad since I got here in September 2011 it’s been around a year and a half.
Christian: Was the Swiss company the only one you worked for on oDesk…
Tayyab: Yes…
Christian: Or online I should say?
Tayyab: That was kind atypical of an oDesk contractor, usually the way oDesk contractors work is that the first 6 months, 4 months, 6 months and you keep moving around, this particular one you know I just applied to the first guy, I got my first job and just got better.
Christian: And you just went from there, that’s fantastic.
Tayyab: That was how the oDesk guys got to know me because they were running a marketing campaign to get more contacts onto the platform and I got talking to their marketing team and so those were some of my first link to the US and when I got here I met all these people I went to oDesk’s office I went to a couple of conferences with Gary and it has been a great experience.
Christian: He’s pretty good, isn’t he Gary as a speaker and just face-to-face, lovely guy.
Tayyab: Lovely guy and a great great speaker.
Christian: Yeah, when I saw him here in Sydney I was, you know I first saw him I didn’t know what to expect if he was going to be very corporate or what but really funny you know but just really clear. So just quickly with it sounds like that guy in Switzerland really believed in your talent obviously I’ve hired people on oDesk before myself and you can go through a lot of people but one of the things I’ve always been very conscious of is the sort of the power dynamic and the issues of respect and culture and things like that, how did you find that and how about your friends who worked on oDesk can you talk a little bit about that.
Tayyab: It’s definitely less bureaucratic on oDesk compared to a 9 to 5 job in Pakistan most, if not all, people I know on oDesk all of them enjoy that as contractors that the system is not very bureaucratic and it really cannot be because nobody can manage you all the time, that’s the entire point and then the communication skills that you develop and that you have to develop to survive on oDesk most people that I know really value that, that their communication hase improved a lot because without that you just cannot survive you have to get better at it.
Christian: Yeah, I think that’s a very big issue I’ve had as well with people I have outsourced work to - communication really is important.
Tayyab: And on the culture end, so people definitely get to know a lot about the culture, one of my friends his name is Immat the guy who introduced me to oDesk I was talking to him recently and he was working for an employer in Australia and I was telling him about the video that you sent me and how it absolutely made my day and he was telling me about a similar story where his employer, and Pakistan beat Australia and after a very long time they and it looked like pretty bad for Australia because you know that is how it works, either you’re going to lose pretty badly or you are going to win like in another situation that is how they are.
Christian: It’s amazing isn’t it?
Tayyab: The employer told my friend that you know: “I do not follow cricket so much but my mother does” and he was like “Why did they have to lose to Pakistan?” you know these guys have not been doing well in the recent past and he was particularly disappointed and everything. Those kinds of exchanges are interesting there are people I worked with had no idea what cricket even was.
Christian: Yeah I always feel like I have a little bit of an advantage if I am working with someone from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh because if they ‘re into computer programming then I’m pretty sure they’re going to be into cricket and I really love my cricket, I can tell you.
Tayyab: It’s great to be able to connect on something other than work so when I was in Switzerland all the guys I worked with were like very, very professional and it is kind of speaks a bit to the Swiss culture also that they try and keep private and work life very, very separate so that went for the CEO of the company who was Swiss.
The Italian guy had a completely different style where his mum would call in the office to check up on him because it’s kind of part of Italian culture that your mum is like important, and for everyone mum is very important but it is something about the Italian culture. So that was interesting to see that contrast right there and the third guy, the French guy and he was hosting me in his apartment so he was very young so he was living alone so it was kind of an interesting thing.
And you were talking about the pizza and I was with an Italian guy and he took me to a special pizza place and he said “You know, all the pizzas that you have eaten in your life they are not pizzas. American pizza is not a pizza, the only kind of pizza is Italian pizza.” He was very Italian about it. And that was like a completely different kind of a pizza that I have never seen in the US and I have never seen in Pakistan.
Christian: It was very thin I’m guessing.
Tayyab: Yes it was very thin - I mean know the kind of pizza that Italian pizza is. So Americans have their own spin on it, Pakistanis have done a spin on the American version of it so that’s the kind of cultural thing that you learn and I would actually like to talk a bit more to the impact of the online work that I have seen around me?
Christian: Yeah, sure, go for it.
Tayyab: It is just amazing that a number of people that have gone this way. I find I had trouble explaining to people what is it that I am doing actually.
Christian: You mean you had trouble explaining in Pakistan?
Tayyab: In Pakistan: “What are you doing? You quit your job? You’re working from home daily and you want to take that chance, do you even know the guy”. You know it was interesting.
Christian: Yes, very skeptical.
Tayyab: Skeptical, yes because the culture was not there and people started to see that there was a lot of value in that even if you are making like $10/hr it is a lot of money by the local standards and you just couldn’t get out of college and you’ll make like $20,000 a year. Put that into perspective: what that really means is that you have paid off your college loan because the college degree cost you between 4,000-8,000 dollars, maybe 10 the more expensive one. Take this to the US how many US graduates can say they had paid off their college loan in a year? You just cannot…
Christian: So it is the same, it is like being able to do the same thing and people have never heard of it so of course they are going to think ‘this sounds too good to be true’ maybe?
Tayyab: Exactly and you know people were able to do that and I see more and more people that do not want to work in the 9-5 and they go this way and Pakistanis have done their own version of a startup which is kind of a hybrid of outsourcing and a real startup that builds a new value product. The idea is you do some outsourcing you get some cash and you pump that into your own company. It’s typically 3 or 4 guys two of them will be working on the cash flow another two will be working on the actual product and then there’s a lot of people are working around mobile development encoding their apps on the app store, on the Android store so the culture the way there’s been a mushroom growth in people who have chosen to work online either as individuals or as groups or as companies it’s just amazing.
Christian: You were saying it wasn’t cool when you were growing up but do you think it’s becoming cool now because I feel like in western countries it’s starting to become, I don’t know I am not young anymore I guess I am not a school kid but it seems like it is starting to become a lot more cool to code.
Tayyab: A little bit but there is a long, long way to go.
Christian: Yeah because you have to read a lot of books and do a lot of work before you can start.
Tayyab: Yes but you know the kind of cooler kids are the ones that are more into developing games more on the art side but I think that is kind of, I mean, if you are writing a piece of software for analysis of stock market it can only get so exciting, right? But if you are developing a game it kind of by definition is exciting.
Christian: Yes, because people who aren’t into it can pick it up know, what it is, have fun and enjoy.
Tayyab: Yes there is a lot of glamour around developing a game and stuff like that; there is less glamour around developing a more mundane kind of software.
Christian: So can you just tell me a little bit about when you came from Pakistan and when you first arrived in Stanford and the process, you’ve mentioned it a bit before, can you talk a little bit more about that?
Tayyab: Do you want me to talk a little bit about the Fulbright process?
Christian: No, just when you arrived in Stanford and started going to lectures and meeting people.
Tayyab: People were definitely much more receptive than I had actually thought but then again this is like the best of places in terms of people being receptive and open to new ideas and more accepting in terms of new cultures and people so I was kind of like I am lucky to be in this part of the US and I got to stay in Austin then and Austin was great.
Christian: Well did you get to start by south west or?
Tayyab: No there was Fulbright orientation program for all the Pakistanis so it we at UT Austin so we got and it was so great and it was not like they were not accepting but they had their own flavor of acceptance and the people here have their own level of accepting and it’s very hard to define what that kind of difference is.
Christian: Well yeah I mean America is the United States so state by state can be very different I am sure.
Tayyab: People here are very very cautious about you know they don’t want to offend anyone on basis of their race or something like that and all of them mean well and but they are still very good. People in Texas were like we mean well so we are going to be open and we are going to speak from our hearts and if we say something somebody else does not like they will let us know and we will say that we didn’t mean it. So they were more of risk takers which makes it more exciting.
Christian: So they were socially entrepreneurial I guess.
Tayyab: In some senses yes. Then getting to meet all the profs here and in some sense you get to know your own culture well better in a place like the US and people ask you questions, why do you do this? Do you do this? How do you spend your time? For example you were asking me about how do you spend time with your friends how is it like and you know to have actually to think about it and say to someone gives you a better understanding of where things stand. [inaudible]
Christian: Can you tell me what is the strangest or oddest or funniest questions you have been asked so far?
Tayyab: It’s really difficult to say.
Christian: For example for Australians as a nation we tend to travel quite a bit so we’ve all been asked really different questions and my friends got asked in Australia, this is a very common one, it goes:- so you are from Australia do they speak English there or do you speak Australian? So we always say things like “Oh no, I learned it at University” or something like that.
Tayyab: The people are particularly surprised they say: “Oh your English is great!” And I am like “Ahhhh…” Because you know where I went to college there where people spoke much better than I did. But that is just because I have learned it as a second language after I grew up but not practically learn English as first and a half language kind of a thing. I found that surprising but people like to quote something from my friend he got asked a more interesting question but that was back in the days, he is much older than I am. So he was in New Jersey and he was playing table tennis with someone and his name was Shazad, so somebody asked him Shazad: “Do you have water at your place in Pakistan? Like running water?” And he came from a particularly affluent family. He said: “Dude you have absolutely no idea!” And he started to describe his lifestyle which was amazing, he said “I live in an house that spans like 2 acres and the car drives in from one gate and goes out the other and I have a different guy to chop my vegetables and a different guy to chop the grass and I have a different guy to hold the door when I am walking and I get my breakfast at Dunkin’ and my meals at KFC so you absolutely have no idea what you are talking about.” Then Shazad he did an expression of what the guy’s face looked like afterwards and the question itself you know: do you have running water at your place? I mean I would accept there are places in Pakistan where people do not have unfortunately access to running water but in the urban cities are more or less like any urban city that you would find.
Christian: Yes, I think the other thing people don’t seem to realize is people who grew up without running water you’re very unlikely to ever meet them in America, I mean I am sure it is possible but the chances are first they move to the city where they have running water before they go and move to the United States.
Tayyab: To kind of defend the people here in the US I would not say that they are not ignorant I’m sorry if that sounds rude but they in some sense are a little ignorant even compared to the European nations they don’t know a lot about the culture of other countries but nobody is going to make a movie or a documentary about everyday life in a country. I mean it just would not sell if I make a movie about hey the young guy wakes up and he brushes his teeth he goes to work he comes back he hangs out with his friends and goes to sleep, nobody will want to watch that movie but if you go and make a movie about something that is more unusual that kid who was in a village and he grew up and walked to the US and something like that people are going to see that but that is the only thing they get to see and that is where they form the impression about the other culture. So sometimes they are not to blame entirely for it.
Christian: Yeah I understand where you’re coming from I know what you mean you know we are, when I have been travelling as well I also whatever country I am in I get some very interesting questions no matter what. So let’s just quickly talk about, so you haven’t had your graduation ceremony but what are you interested in doing next, what’s in the pipeline?
Tayyab: What I have in the pipeline is that the friend that I told you about, the guy who introduced me to oDesk, it is an interesting story with me and him in that when I was going to go to the US I went and talked to him I said that I had talked to the Swiss guy that’ll I hook you up with some of my friends and they could take care of the project so I went first time to Uhmat and I talked to him and do you want to do this like a partnership or something and he was very hesitant and he was very polite about it but he was hesitant and he said that “You know fine I am not sure about what I want to do right now and I am not decided myself yet so I would not want to drag you into that uncertainty” and I said “Fair enough” so I did that venture with some of my other friends.
Later on he formed his own company in some sense using oDesk and Elance that he was doing some outsourcing, so he formed his own company started with another one of my class fellows so they were the two partners who started a company and they were doing great and in the meantime I was here in the US and I was interning at a startup and they wanted some development done but they were really cash-strapped and had to outsource it and I said that I know these great guys and I could outsource it to these guys and I could introduce you and then you could decide.
So I introduced them they hit it off they did a summer project which went great and in the meanwhile I had started to think about what I am going to do when back so I talked to him I said “Why don’t we partner when I get back?” And he said “Oh, you know we are too far in to it to partner now”. He had been running the company for like 6… basically the company had in some sense taken off and I tried to prove to him that no I would still bring in value and I could justify my partnership and this and that he was not convinced so that was the second so that was the second time he turned me down. So in December, in this January actually; 2 months ago we talked again and this time now I was able to convince him, he was pretty much already convinced he had a change of mind and his partner was able to convince himself that I would bring in value and now I am looking at a partnership with him when I get back so it’s a company “Red Buffer” so they are doing outsourcing with a lot of clients some in Australia some in Europe, some in the US and some other people that I got to know through oDesk. One person who is not on oDesk now but he used to be when I worked there so I met him recently and he wanted to do a start up of his own and he was looking for developers so it kind of became a good synergy in the sense that he was looking for developers I was moving into this partnership with this “Red Buffer” so I introduced him and he really liked the team so I am really excited about that project also.
Christian: What’s “Red Buffer” about, what’s the startup doing?
Tayyab: “Red buffer” is providing software development services especially around the web and mobile to startups mostly so basically we are kind of a… do you know the concept of an MVP?
Christian: Oh yeah, I’m into Lean startup.
Tayyab: Oh good, makes my job a lot easier. So we are kind of an MVP secret sauce kind of a thing that we work with start ups and we help them build their projects of course when they are starting up they want to minimize their risk, they want to minimize the cash that they are spending and they do not want to build expertise developing software especially if their startup is not about software itself per se it’s about adding value in a process for which they require software, either they get to learn to make the software themselves and to do it takes a lot of time or they could hire somebody in the US or in Europe which takes a lot of money or they just hire us and we’ve done this before we’ve been doing it for almost a year. [1:00:04]
Christian: I guess the advantage for you guys as well is, see I’m in the startup ecosystem, I work full time but in my spare time I try and work on startups and I use oDesk and other sort of websites but generally speaking it’s sort of set up for online work but it’s not startup specific so I guess in targeting that niche I know a lot of guys in startups that use online work and online workers but it’s hard to find someone who is on the same page in terms of what your goals are.
Tayyab: The value that we really are able to add is number one we’ve done it with so many startups now that we know what the common pitfalls are and at times it is kind of difficult to communicate, if you are somebody 30 years old sitting in the valley it’s very hard to convince you that some person sitting in Pakistan some 25 year old sitting in Pakistan has a better intuition or can tell you a bit about the pitfalls of a startup. It’s not hard to sell our services as software developers but it’s hard to sell the advice that we have to offer in some cases.
Christian: Do you think there is some cultural issue there as well? Do you think there is a little bit of they don’t want to believe that it is possible that someone in Pakistan could know as much as they do?
Tayyab: I don’t think it’s a cultural thing in fact I think that people in the Valley generally are more receptive than compared maybe to people in Pakistan but having said that they are rightful in having their doubts in the sense that it’s just a hard thing to sell you are younger, you have never been in the valley, hard to prove it and the thing that you are selling is you’re trying to tell them “Dude, trust me I know” it’s becomes much more difficult because those pitfalls are just like so hard to explain and if they were easier to explain they would just not be pitfalls.
Christian: I see what you mean, without giving them a ten hour computer science lecture, it’s hard.
Tayyab: Actually most of them are not around computer science a lot of them are around the product itself for example I was talking to a startup here at Stanford and what they wanted was they were looking for a lead developer that was kind of before I struck this partnership deal so they were looking for a lead developer and I told them I’m going for this partnership and they said you know we still want you to work for us so why don’t you be part of them and still work for us? I said “Yeah that could work” and then I had the startup that I worked for as an intern I was the kind of sole lead developer and I had very good terms with the CEO whom I also got to know through oDesk and I went through a lot of VCs with her and I got to learn a lot so these people were young, they were very excited, they had an idea in their head but they had not already defined it yet they were looking for seed funding and everybody they went to would kind of push them in a different direction and they would get excited about it, you know these people are very persuasive but the thing I had learnt about VCs what they do is that everybody is going to have their own niche and everybody is going to have their own hammer in something and no matter what their niche is they are going to hammer with the same hammer, if somebody is into monetizing business through advertising, they will say take your subscription plan move to advertising, if somebody is into subscription they are going to say take your advertising plan, go into subscription and it gets much more complicated than that. Every time they met an investor they got excited and they would start going different direction so I grabbed hold of one of their guys and I sat him down and I gave him like a 45 minute preamble that “Please dude, don’t get offended this is why I am saying this and this is what I have learned and I am not saying that you don’t know what you are doing but I just want you to have this at the back of your head next time you meet those people” and two weeks later he came back to me and he said “You know, yeah, you were right I talked to my partner about it and I did not tell him where the advice actually came from and he was actually able to better explain to me: ‘Yeah, that is what is going on’.” To be able to sell that kind of a thing it’s difficult but it’s interesting and it’s where all the value is so we have placed ourselves as an MVP secret source and I said secret source because the startup that work with us not all of them can go out and say publicly that they work with us because of the constraints from their investors those are understandable but they make private referrals, my partner is going to be visiting Sweden shortly on business development one of our clients who is there was so excited with our work that he said more people should have access to your skills and he said: “Why don’t you visit me and I set up some meeting for you with some people that might be interested in this kind of a thing?”
Christian: That’s fantastic I will tell you what I’ll keep “Red Buffer” in mind just for myself. So obviously with a computer science degree from Stanford you can pretty much write your own ticket wherever you want to go. Has there been an interest from big companies to try and keep you there, is that something you’ve been curious about?
Tayyab: Big and small both because even people who are like smaller companies thought that they would even hire the kind of lawyer that would get me out of my exchange VISA requirement which is very good but I really wanted to honor that moral than a legal thing.
Christian: I understand but when you go back to Pakistan that VISA ends, correct?
Tayyab: Yeah that VISA ends but the VISA requirement is that the amount of time I spend here in the US I should spend the same amount of time.
Christian: Ooh I see so you know so for every minute in Silicon Valley another minute in Pakistan.
Tayyab: Yeah I have spent less than two years but I will still have to spend two years in Pakistan before I can move to the US then again I have been a great proponent of meritocracy over geography it should be about merit it should not be about where you are located unfortunately still it is a bit about where you are located.
Christian: Right there’s a great book I would recommend I don’t know if you have heard of it or read it called “Who’s Your City?” by Richard Florida and it’s a great counter-point to the book “The World is Flat” by Mr. Freedman. It goes into about why or where you live can make a difference in the opportunities that you come across and I guess even within a country like Pakistan if you grow up in a research institute it might be a bit different if you grow somewhere else.
Tayyab: Absolutely, so I am not at all contesting the fact that this is the way it is in the world I am just saying perhaps it should not be.
Christian: Yes ideally, sure.
Tayyab: And whenever I say that and people especially people who know about how I worked at oDesk they always say “You speak like a true oDesk person they should hire you on the marketing team”. But I actually really believe in that, we should be able to make that work and the whole long term idea of getting into “Red Buffer” is that we accept that the reality is that we are constrained the way the world is setup, we are constrained by our location and there is no funding available, there are no VCs in Pakistan there are very few but they are very reluctant to invest in anything software so the investment environment is completely different even if you build something great out of Pakistan selling it to the US is difficult I mean take the simplest fact if you want to develop a product the first thing you do is you go out and interview people and to setup use the people and if you are developing for the US market or the European market it becomes very difficult to go out and interview those people because you can only do so much setting an interview up over Skype and of course when you are not living in that culture it’s difficult for you to understand the requirements and the sentiments.
Christian: And the base assumptions and things like that.
Tayyab: Yes, which prevent you from developing a good product so what we figured out is that the best we can do one of the good things actually we can do staying in Pakistan is first of all get in touch with all these great people who are doing this great work elsewhere in the world, in Europe, Australia, in the US, maybe in the Middle East anywhere in the world where somebody is doing great work we want to get in touch with them, we want to work with them so that we can learn from them and see how things are moving, develop our network and at some point when we think that we are ready to take up a product of our own we’ll not only have the network, we’ll have the know-how, we have the skillsset we’ll be able to understand cultures enough that we’d be able to pull it off.
Christian: Have you thought about setting up your own startup ecosystem in Pakistan asking all of your friends from Silicon Valley if they would like to move there for a while and all work together?
Tayyab: Ideally I would want to do that but that is a long-shot because you know the reality of the situation is very different, m own brother I talked to him when I had just first gotten the taste of this independent working and I was trying to move into setting up this office I was very excited about it and I was naïve in the sense that I really did not realize how difficult it really is and it’s not all your all, you know in a year I get you to quit your job and get over there and he said “I really appreciate that sentiment but let me give you a taste of reality” and I would appreciate if you keep this number private he said that I make like x so if you want me to quit that and move to a company and I am only going to be a partner in that company that company needs to have a revenue of what? Or a profit of what? Like two, three, four dollars because otherwise there’s no incentive for me I might as well continue working for the dollars that I’m getting right now and it’s much more secure he works for Google and I mean it just doesn’t get any better than that.
Christian: Your brother works for Google?
Tayyab: Yes.
Christian: Wow, that’s awesome!
Tayyab: It is. The reality of the situation is that you have to be pretty awesome to attract these people and that’s how it should because these are great people. These are very competent people and you have to compete to get them. It is not an argument to say “You know because I am also from Pakistan you should move to Pakistan and forget your bright future for me”. It’s just not an argument. So there is a lot of hard work that needs to be done before these people can be persuaded and again I’m not about persuading people to move anywhere if they want to be in the Valley I would like to work with them but I will not persuade them to move.
Christian: It‘s been great talking with you is there anything else you would like to say or you want to talk about?
Tayyab: That is pretty much it and I just wanted to ask when are you going to write about this?
Christian: I’m still trying to work out the article with Gary because I just haven’t written it to my satisfaction yet because it is my personal blog and it’s my own I do digital marketing so I am always working on other people’s websites because it is my own personal blog I really enjoy having total control about my schedule so I’m in no rush I would rather write well rather than write quickly so I don’t really have a sense of release date.
Tayyab: What about my favorite cricketer which I thought was the [inaudible] question.
Christian: No I was going to leave that till after the official end or whatever you want to call it but yeah, who is your favorite cricketer then?
Tayyab: I mean it’s actually very difficult to say I would want to name three people Shahid Afridi, Shoaid Acktar.
Christian: He’s pretty amazing he is more of a one day player though I am more into the test matches to be honest with you.
Tayyab: Yeah, so the test matches it is definitely Wasim Akram, bowling typically, especially in test matches is boring but that guy made it such that you can actually sit and enjoy each and every ball.
Christian: He’s great I mean I’m a left armer and I’d call myself a very talentless all-rounder but I do prefer bowling, so left-arm, swing bowling. I tell you, it was 1999 I think in Bellerieve, Hobart, I think Wasim Akram was bowling really well and I think you guys were all over us and it was Justin Linger and Adam Gilchrist and I think we needed 300 runs or something do you remember this one? And I remember he got the wicket I think it was LBW or caught behind but the umpire gave it not out.
Tayyab: And he got like really
Christian: So clear…
Tayyab: Yeah he kind of knew who he was and he had that magic.
Christian: Yes, he;s a great player man and who is your third?
Tayyab: Shoaib, Shoaib Aktar.
Christian: The Showman.
Tayyab: Shoaib and Afridi are like the entertainers and Wasim Akram is more of an artist.
Christian: That’s true that’s a good way of putting it. I tell you who I quite like from Pakistan is Inzamam Ul-Haq. I mean not necessarily because of his cricket, just because of his attitude - I love it like he was the ultimate, like, does not care what any opposition player thinks of him and in fact if the opposition is getting upset with him he is just going to do it more whatever it is that’s getting to them.
Tayyab: And without actually being mean about it.
Christian: Oh yeah, not mean-spirited at all it was just very much like well you don’t like that I am doing this, well that’s okay I am just going to keep doing it.
Tayyab: He is a bit like I am sorry I mean so blunt but a lot of Australian cricketers they use this tactic of pressuring people which is kind of part of the game but they are particularly aggressive about it and for my own particular taste I do not appreciate that a lot. I mean Shoaib Aktar used to it but he did it more through his bowling than through words that came out of his mouth and I really appreciate Steve Waugh in that he kind of almost never did it and he was the calmest and he had this sense of sobriety about him and he was just like you just look at him and you respect him.
Christian: I think what’s happened a lot is if you don’t have that deeper sense of understanding of what he’s doing and I think some of the other players didn’t in a way they are sort of like it’s like a child thing something an adult does and he’s like “I’m going to try that” and it comes off as very clumsy and it doesn’t have the same impact, you know what I mean? So I think they saw this tough guy and Steve Waugh was tough but they try to emulate that and they go overboard or it doesn’t work.
Tayyab: It’s hard to be Steve Waugh.
Christian: That’s true man; he’s got to be my favorite player of all time I have got to be honest with you. Also just from a sense of understanding the game and understanding people and knowing how to apply pressure without saying a word, it’s a really a very difficult thing to do is to be that intimidating and that formidable but you’ve never actually crossed any line.
Tayyab: That perhaps is also a common thing with Inzamam also yesterday I was talking to a friend about him that how he would come into a pressure situation and take the best bowlers, walk down the pitch and hit him and knock out of the park.
Christian: He was so effortless I have got to say Inzamam’s batting it was just a flick, almost a flick and it was a six, I can see him walking down the pitch and doing it just flicking it, through over midwicket, you know, cow corner, somewhere like that and that’s it, you know - very simple.
Tayyab: That was in some sense a manifestation of you know just understanding it and being able to apply pressure.
Christian: I think he understood and Sourav Ganguly was really good at this as well when you are playing Australia if you do something Australia doesn’t - like keep doing that, whatever it is if it is getting really upsetting the Aussies because I think that’s the only way you can win if it is run now our team’s not so great if it’s when Australia’s playing well that’s kind of the only way you can throw them off the rhythm and Sourav Ganguly used to do that he found out Steve Waugh got upset that he was always five minutes late to the toss so he was like okay from now on I’m always going to be five minutes late, that really got to Steve Waugh.
Tayyab: There was a time when the Australians were like unbeatable, unbeatable.
Christian: Yes just forget about it, you get out number six batsman and then suddenly you have got like Adam Gilchrist or someone like this coming in - forget about it.
Tayyab: I think that is what changed from there of course some of the talent also retired and moved on but you know the Australian team was playing from the discipline at that time, not exactly from talent, discipline and talent but a lot of it was discipline but people were starting to figure that out. That’s the problem with method that people would eventually figure out. With talent there’s only so much you can do the kind of Shahid Afridi’s and Adam Gilchrist I mean they are like so unconventional and they’re just so talented it’s just so difficult to understand them, you would bowl them the best of balls and they would throw it out of the park. Talent is hard to counter, discipline it’s easier to understand it so once you understand it you can always find a way out.
Christian: Yeah and what you were before about those days – some days Pakistan turns up it’s just hopeless and then some days they turn up and they are just unplayable and on those days no one ever has an answer, the hard part for Pakistani cricket is having more of those days than the other days. That’s always been the challenge; they’re playing South Africa now in a one-day series.
Tayyab: The series has tied right now.
Christian: Have you been to any test matches in Pakistan then?
Tayyab: No by the time I kind of I must confess when I was much younger at least till I was 16 I was a mama’s boy so I didn’t go out and by the time I started going out the cricket had ended.
Christian: Or a sister’s boy, at least.
Tayyab: I was like that and you know and by the time I kind of started going out the cricket just vanished from the country.
Christian: That’s right, they didn’t have so many tours. Well I’m similar I grew up around my mum, my sister, my female cousins so I had a lot of catching up to do, I’ll put it that way.
Tayyab: Yeah, that’s a good way of putting it.
Christian: Just quickly: tests one-dayers or 20-20 which do you prefer?
Tayyab: 20-20 because it get’s done quicker which speaks a little to what the US has done to me because if you look at all the sports that are played in the US they are very short and kind of concentrated.
Christian: It’s amazing how often they play too like baseball they play like 100 and whatever - I don’t know it’s some ridiculous number of games.
Tayyab: Exactly, that kind of speaks a little to the impact that the US culture has had on me. But there was a time when I was in school where I would watch the entire test match each and every ball of it and if I had to go to school I was like get out of the school uniform and just like sit in front of the TV I don’t care about homework, I don’t care about anything but it’s been a transition from test matches to...
Christian: Yeah I’d say the same for me because I used to, I mean who has the time so much but I love test matches I tell you, I really do I’ll put it this way I went a few years ago I was living and working in Korea, South Korea and then also I had an American friend and he and I decide to go trekking in Nepal when our teaching contracts were finished so we did that and that was a lot of fun I was there on a one-way ticket so I didn’t know where I was going to go after Nepal and I decided I was going to fly to Jamaica because that’s where the Australian cricket team was going to play some test matches and a long story short I ended up getting on the wrong flight, missing my plane in London and ended up in Barbados and got to watch the match there instead and I’d love to see a test match if they start playing again especially I think was it Karachi I think that’s where Mark Taylor got his 334 back in 1998.
Tayyab: Yeah I don’t exactly remember you are much more of an enthusiast than I am.
Christian: Maybe you blacked it out because that was a good day for Australia. I’m sure you must be exhausted; you said you didn’t sleep for 48 hours?
Tayyab: Pretty much I got like a few hours sleep last night but before that it was 48 hours. It’s amazing what your brain would do to you when you are excited.
Christian: It is this is why you can’t read nonfiction before you go to bed, right now I am reading a book set in Iran called “Whirlwind” and that’s okay I can sleep after I read that but if I read “Lean Startup” if I read any of this kind of stuff before I try and sleep forget it, just forget it, I can’t sleep- too excited. Well thank you, you’ve been really generous with your time, thank you so much Tayyab.
Tayyab: It was great talking to you, just great, great…
Christian: Yeah, maybe we can catch up again back in Pakistan I don’t know what the time zone will do to me then I didn’t realize this was going to be a Saturday otherwise I would have scheduled it for a bit later so I could sleep in but now I’ve got the whole day ahead of me.
Tayyab: I’m really grateful that you got up so early in the morning for that. Thank you very much.
Christian: Well I got up at 3.30 for Gary Swart so that was much more difficult and that was a work day
Tayyab: But then again, he’s Gary, right?
Christian: Well, you’re Tayyab man you’ve got first in your class in Pakistan…
Tayyab: I’m just being humble, I’m not short-selling myself.
Christian: Yeah, OK, great, sorry – my bad, my bad. So it’d be great to catch up again.
Tayyab: Thank you.
Christian: No problem, no problem at all. Thank you very much for your time and have a wonderful day.
Tayyab: You are most welcome and it was a pleasure talking to you.
Christian: Alright, thanks mate, have a good one.
Tayyab: You too. Bye.
Christian: Alright, bye.