Growth, Hackathons, and Gratitude Lessons from an Eventful 2025

Zach Stepek:
Hey, this is Zach Stepek. I’m here with Carl Alexander for another episode. And Carl, we are wrapping up what was a pretty interesting and amazing 2025.

Zach Stepek:
Why don’t we start just by talking about what we’ve been up to the last couple of months? I know we were both at CloudFest USA.

Zach Stepek:
We’ve, you know, we’ve had some things happening. Right?

Carl Alexander:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s an understatement. I started writing my year in review, and I think it’s going to be 15, 000 words, basically. Wow. I’m at 2500 and I’m. I literally am in April.

Carl Alexander:
Okay.

Zach Stepek:
So that’s intense. That is it.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah. It’s been. It’s been a year. It’s definitely been a year. For sure.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah. Like, the fall was very busy for me till just now. I did WordCamp Canada.

Carl Alexander:
We were both at Club Fest in Miami. We’ve had some business stuff happen, too, that we can get into. Yeah. So it’s been. It’s been quite the year, for sure.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
How about you?

Zach Stepek:
It has been. It’s been a really interesting year. I mean, I think most of our listeners know that I started at Big Scoots at the end of April, and my first week I was at Press Conf.

Carl Alexander:
Oh, yeah, I remember you talking about that.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
You had the best anecdote. I forget who. I forget who had Big Scoots was like. But it’s like, oh, wait, you like, you. You. You know, everyone was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Zach Stepek:
I just. I sat down and everybody in the industry comes by and says hi. Right. And that’s not an experience.

Carl Alexander:
They read who was it again?

Zach Stepek:
I think it was Tim and. Oh, yeah, it was Tim both that said it. So. Yeah. But, yeah, it’s.

Carl Alexander:
I mean, James, for the first time in Miami.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah, he’s a great guy. He is a great guy. I really enjoy working with James. I like working with the whole team. So we’ve had an interesting year of growth. And, yeah, I’ve been focused on building partnerships, and it’s been great.

Zach Stepek:
You know, and that’s why I was in Miami, you know, to get to know that side of the industry a little better, because I haven’t been on that side for, you know, anything, but the last, you know, three and a half years of. Of my life. So getting to understand who the players are and, you know, getting to know other people who are my peers in the other companies in our space has been really good. And so that was that was the primary reason for that trip. And it looks like I’m probably going to be in roost in March.

Carl Alexander:
I’m hoping to be there as well. Yeah, as well for sure. At least for the hackathon. Talk about the hackathon in a second. But yeah, at least for the hackathon there. I hope to be there at the very least. But yeah, it’s definitely a fun experience. The Cloud Fest in Europe.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah, I haven’t been yet, so I’m looking forward to exploring Europa park and.

Carl Alexander:
Just enjoying get sick on the roller coasters, do Voltron.

Zach Stepek:
Luckily I don’t drink, so I don’t have the problem of the drinking and roller coastering, which I hear is something that happens.

Carl Alexander:
It’s intense. Like, I’m not super motion sick. I don’t really get motion sickness that much anymore. But it took me like a couple hours to recover from Voltron for sure.

Zach Stepek:
Wow. Well, I’m gonna have to see if I am allowed to ride by that time.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, I mean, they don’t even eat. Like, it’s not even about drinking. Like, don’t even eat before you go. Like, okay, save yourself the potential disaster and wait until after you’ve gone to figure out if you should. If you’re. If your stomach can handle. Was definitely cool. Like, I went with.

Carl Alexander:
Chris Taylor. Like Craylor, like the, the podcaster. Little did I know he’s a coaster nerd and he was giving me all the details. It was fantastic experience. He made the whole thing for me because I, you know, it was, it was a fun roller coaster. But I will probably never go again.

Zach Stepek:
Okay, that’s fair. I mean some you can only do once. You know, there’s I. I had the fortune of living in a state that had one of the first inverted coasters. And so we had Batman at Six Flags Great America just outside of Chicago in Gurney. And.

Zach Stepek:
So I love.

Carl Alexander:
Who knows, they might have made it. Do you know the story between of Europa Park?

Zach Stepek:
I know part of it, yeah. Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
Like it used to be the testing ground they sell. It’s a company that sells roller coasters and the executives would come and try them out. That’s why it’s a middle of nowhere Germany, basically. Because it made no sense that there’s an amusement park that’s like so far, you know, it’s not really in Frankfurt.

Carl Alexander:
And yeah, it was because of that. It was, it’s like it was their testing ground and they’re like, yeah, why don’t we like turn into amusement park and then Europa park is born, essentially.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah. And it’s my understanding that that roost is basically in the Black Forest. It’s. There’s nothing really around, so, you know, it’s just a beautiful little slice of amusement park fun. And there’s, you know, a small city nearby, but it’s kind of dwarfed by the amusement park. Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
So, yeah, it’s a small state train. You get off the train. It’s like those, like, little stations you see in movies where it’s like, you know, just the little brick station. And that’s it. You get off and that’s it. That’s where you. That’s where you end up.

Zach Stepek:
Sounds like a good time to me. I’m. I’m hoping to be able to go.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, it’s gonna be great.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah. So. So we were in Miami. The weather was perfect. It was a great time.

Zach Stepek:
Great time of year to be in Miami because it starts to get cold in the Midwest around that time period. And so I got to go experience warmth one last time before coming back to the frigid wasteland I call home.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, same. It’s a really premature winter this year, too.

Zach Stepek:
It has been. It’s. We’ve got a ridiculous amount of snow on the ground. My driveway has been plowed three times now. Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
Montreal had the. The less least amount of sunshine recorded for all of November. That was brutal, too. We had a total of 40 hours for all of November of, like, light.

Zach Stepek:
That seems really low.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, it’s low. It’s. I mean, yeah, if you think about it, it’s like, you know, maybe like four days worth of sunshine if you.

Zach Stepek:
Have a full 30. Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
Across 30. So it’s. It’s kind of wild. For sure.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah. That’s. That is insanity.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So.

Zach Stepek:
But that’s.

Carl Alexander:
Miami was good, though. But that was your first hackathon too, right, that you participated?

Zach Stepek:
It was, yes. Carol’s been trying to get me to do them for a while, and we’ve. You know, we did the episode where we talked about the hackathons last year. Right? Yeah. And.

Zach Stepek:
And just. So if you are interested in what a cloud fest hackathon is all about, go back and look at that episode. Really listen to that episode that we did with. With them last year.

Zach Stepek:
But.

Carl Alexander:
And I did both this year.

Zach Stepek:
You did. And this. This one was fun, great people in the room. It was a. An interesting project.

Zach Stepek:
You know, it was a little different because I know that in Europe there are multiple projects and you guys.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, exactly. The format is very different. It’s A very different format in Europe. First of all, Miami, it’s just one day.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
So not only is it one project, but it’s just one day. And in, in the one in.

Carl Alexander:
In Germany, it’s three days. And yes, there was, I think, eight teams. So you kind of show up and then the team leads will kind of pitch you on what they’re trying to do and then you get to select what you’re going to work on.

Carl Alexander:
So.

Carl Alexander:
It was a lot of fun.

Carl Alexander:
In both cases. I enjoyed it. Both. I will say to you as a warning that a three day hackathon before a three day of CloudFest is massively draining.

Zach Stepek:
Oh, I’m sure, I’m sure. I mean, the one day was draining.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah.

Zach Stepek:
And I can imagine three is at least three times as draining, if not. Oh, an exponentially larger amount of draining before.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, exactly. And then you kind of either they’re modifying the format a bit too, so it’s going to, they’re, they’re kind of adding an extra day now. So it’s, it’s, you’re going to be there for like essentially seven days.

Carl Alexander:
Because the, before this year, the hackathon like kind of flowed into the WordPress day, and now they’re just making it three days than the WordPress day. Then the three days for the actual cloud fest.

Zach Stepek:
Okay.

Carl Alexander:
Itself. So it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a thing, you know, like, it was, I was definitely not prepared for that when I, when I went for like, how demanding it would be for like the whole week to do all that.

Zach Stepek:
Well, I’m definitely interested in participating again, you know.

Carl Alexander:
Oh, yeah, it’s, it’s crazy. It’s so good. I’ve literally, I’m pitching everybody I know to go.

Carl Alexander:
My, he doesn’t listen to podcasts, but my, my, my hardest challenge is to get Tom McFarland to come basically.

Zach Stepek:
Right.

Carl Alexander:
If I’m, I’m still working on it, I don’t know if I’ll succeed.

Zach Stepek:
But why do you not listen to our podcast man?

Carl Alexander:
I don’t think he listens to podcasts actually much.

Zach Stepek:
That’s fine, I suppose.

Carl Alexander:
I mean, yeah, to be fair, when we chat, we don’t talk podcasts. I don’t think he’s a big podcaster.

Zach Stepek:
Person, so just leave us with one less listener. It’s okay, Tom.

Carl Alexander:
That’s.

Zach Stepek:
Well, we’ll get over it, I suppose.

Carl Alexander:
I mean, my goal is to just get him on here. That’s already a challenge in itself. Already told Bob I want no time limit, and I will pay for whatever extra for, like, the transcriptions, basically.

Zach Stepek:
Oh, boy.

Carl Alexander:
Because, yeah, I like, I. You know, like, we. There’s so much to go, and I love tangents, so it’s just, like. It’s just a wild time, and it’s always a good. It’s always good fun, and that’s what I want with this. That’s what we want with this podcast, right?

Zach Stepek:
Absolutely.

Carl Alexander:
We want to make it fun and wholesome and, you know, something that gives you a lot of enjoyment. But, yeah, it’s good. That’s why, like, Tom would be, like, crazy. But it’d be great. But hopefully it comes. Or I can get somebody, maybe Trip. Trip J to come or something like.

Zach Stepek:
You know, I would love to have Jay Trip on. He’s. He’s actually not far from me. He’s in East Troy, Wisconsin, so he’s just about 45 minutes to an hour northeast of me.

Carl Alexander:
I meant for the hackathon, but also for the podcast.

Zach Stepek:
But, yeah, that would be cool, too. Yeah, he needs to be at the. At the hackathon as well. I agree.

Carl Alexander:
The hackathon was great. Like, just, like, just fantastic experience.

Zach Stepek:
Remarkable group of people. Yeah. You know, all people that I either knew or had been in, you know, in. In contact with or heard of in some way, shape or form. Yeah, it was a really powerful group of people that were there. Yeah. You know, that was probably one of my favorite parts was just that the amount of WordPress intelligence in that room was amazing. It was. It was amazing. So, yeah, it was fun. That was probably my favorite part was just seeing all of the community members and working together toward a common goal.

Carl Alexander:
And it was.

Zach Stepek:
It was good. It was good. So the conference itself, I had a great time. You had an announcement that happened during the conference?

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, I mean, to me, it was like, you know, one of the reasons I disappeared is like, I.

Carl Alexander:
Am announced. Its official. Well, it’s an exclusive partnership, so BuiltFast, which is a company started by former A2 employees and executives. Paul Carter was the COO, I believe, at A2, and Justin Mazzi, who’s their CTO. Still CTO there.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah. So leading up to that, lots of negotiations and then just. I ended up speaking at Cloud Fest, too, so. And I was able to talk about what’s changing and what the partnership brings to the whole WordPress ecosystem. Right. So that was really exciting for me. But, yeah, leading up to that was very demanding for me to, like, business negotiations and stuff are not something I have a wide.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah. I don’t really have any. I was green. I was green as. I was very green. I was going to swear now, but I was basically. Yeah, I was very green. I was very green. So I had to basically get up to speed like very quick on like a lot of things. So it was, it was very demanding cognitively as well to, to do these negotiations, even if they’re awesome humans and things like that. It’s.

Zach Stepek:
Anything that involves like legal documents, it just gets, it gets difficult no matter what you do. Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
I mean, legal documents are not there for, are there for. In case something happens, Right. Yeah. You know, if everything’s going great, you don’t really care about the legal documents. As if something starts going sideways that, that you want them, but you got to just, you know, cover your bases.

Zach Stepek:
Yep.

Carl Alexander:
And, and just make sure we’re all on the same page and just figuring ourselves out and learning about each other.

Carl Alexander:
I loved doing it with them because they’re very human and it just felt very human to have these talks. It was just like a lot of laying your cards on the table and just being, you know, meeting you where you can and where you can’t and being honest about it. So because we’re similar boats in the sense that they don’t have any funding.

Zach Stepek:
Right.

Carl Alexander:
Like they’re self funded like me and, and all that stuff. So there’s a lot in common.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah, no, absolutely. They’re small and agile and.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, they’re small and agile.

Zach Stepek:
I know a couple of members of the team over there and yeah, I.

Carl Alexander:
Mean I was hanging out with a lot of them at Cloud Fest too. Like there was a Kelly Gray that was there too that does part time product. Yeah, Kelly’s great and she’s, she does part time product for them. So it’s just, it’s lovely, amazing team. I’m super happy. But that stuff was incredibly.

Carl Alexander:
Draining on top of everything else that was going on in my life. So it was just.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah, no, absolutely.

Carl Alexander:
It’s been a big year for me. So that’s why the 50, that’s why there’s 15,000 words in the pipe, you know, like, because there’s a lot, you know.

Zach Stepek:
Well, and you know, this was just one piece was the announcement with built fast and vector and everything that’s happening there.

Zach Stepek:
You know, and it’s been, it’s been an interesting year just across the board. Like if we look at what has happened in the WordPress project in the last 12 months, if we look at.

Zach Stepek:
What just came in the 6.9 release, if we look at the fact that we’ve been, you know, it’s been announced that we’re going back to three yearly releases as a release cycle.

Zach Stepek:
You know, things are starting to accelerate.

Carl Alexander:
Were you there for State of the Word?

Zach Stepek:
Actually, I was not. I wanted to go, but it ended up just not being in the cards this year, so.

Carl Alexander:
Got it.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah. I did try to watch it online and like many of us, it did not work very well.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, I feel for them, like technical issues. It’s.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
You know, there’s only you. It’s often out of your control when these things happen.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah. The events team tried very hard to get everything to work, you know, where it, where it was supposed to.

Zach Stepek:
You know, I, it’s my understanding that the, the WI fi in the building just wasn’t up to handling a live stream like that, given everything else that’s happening. So. And they had a cellular backup, but it couldn’t handle the, you know, the load of the stream either. So.

Zach Stepek:
You know, it’s a lesson learned. The events team will learn as they go and improve as they go. And I don’t, I don’t fault them for what happened at all. You know, the recording was perfect. Yeah. You know, so it was, it was obviously all connection issues and nothing to do with the, the event itself. So. But I went back and I watched and, you know, the interesting things that are happening with AI, of course, we’re a large focus of the event.

Zach Stepek:
You know, talking about MCP inside WordPress and how the AI team shipped many of their goals into core WordPress in significantly less time than they thought that it would take, which was a pretty cool thing to hear. And, you know, just seeing where that is all moving and giving Our platform that we build with such a.

Zach Stepek:
Leg up on the competition by introducing all of these ways that it can now communicate with these large language models. Right. I hate the term AI. It’s not really artificial intelligence. Right. But that’s the marketing, gimmicky way to say it. And so that’s why they get away with it.

Carl Alexander:
I mean, you’re talking to the person that has to explain that serverless has servers.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Carl Alexander:
Like, I, I don’t think you can get more than this. I don’t think you could. You can’t. Like, you know, I’m very aware of, of marketing terms. Yep. Like I, I lean into it a lot.

Carl Alexander:
And you just have to go with, you know, you. Once that’s out there, it takes a life of its own and you just have to accept it Even though like if you’re like me and you’re very autistic around basically language and naming things properly, it’s just it, it’s always kind of obnoxious, but to be fair it’s catchy and it, it sticks, you know.

Zach Stepek:
It’S kind of like that’s why we call it all AI even though it isn’t. Right. Yeah. Because it’s stuck and it’s what people want. People want this artificial intelligent assistant that can do whatever they want it to do. Right. This is the, the direction society is moving and. Yeah, yeah. So it’s, it’s really interesting. Like earlier today I was, I was listening to.

Zach Stepek:
Matt Medeiros and Brian Coords talking about.

Zach Stepek:
AI and Claude code and all of the things that they’ve been doing with WooCommerce and, and AI with WooCommerce and just really interesting stuff and it’s just, it’s, it’s a complete landmark shift in the way that we do business. Right.

Carl Alexander:
I mean it moves really fast. You know, one of the reasons my year in review is obviously going to be 15,000, is 15,000 words is I’m probably going to talk about my experience.

Carl Alexander:
I’m pretty ahead of the curve. To give an idea. In March, I was the only one using Claude to do stuff. There were AI projects, but I was actively in my team. I was the only one actively working with AI to generate code. Same thing in Miami. Everybody was using it, but I was using it in a way that like each time I’ve been at these things I’ve had follow up calls, consulting calls or whatnot to like just coach a bit where I’m at, where with things or where I see things. Like I’ve had a couple of those during, during the years. But look, clock code didn’t exist 12 months ago.

Zach Stepek:
That’s right.

Carl Alexander:
Like I think it came out this year.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah, Anthropic hadn’t entered that space yet.

Carl Alexander:
It was still like when I was at the hackathon, I was just using it straight into like I had like this tool repo mix. I would package the code, give it, have it work on it, copy it. Like I was doing a lot of stuff by hand, but it was just like, yeah, so it moves, it moves at a pace that is absolutely.

Carl Alexander:
Can feel overwhelming to people.

Zach Stepek:
We already thought technology was hard to keep track of at the levels that we did. And then AI just accelerated everything to a whole new level of innovation, a whole new level of things to keep track of. There are more tools now than There have been ever for development.

Carl Alexander:
I always tell people you can, you don’t have to do too much FOMO about that. Like I feel in some ways it feels a bit like JavaScript.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
Like there’s a lot of creative destruction going on. Like stuff that you were doing six months ago isn’t necessarily relevant six months later. Yeah, I mean, so what we’re doing today probably won’t be relevant necessarily in six months.

Carl Alexander:
So just, I always say find a place you’re comfortable and you can camp there for a while and just do it that way for a while and you’ll be okay.

Zach Stepek:
I tell people to look at it the way that I looked at JavaScript evolution like you mentioned here. You know, jQuery is still ubiquitous. It’s all over the place. There are still projects using jQuery. However, the vast majority of the JavaScript market has moved to next JS, which is just a really opinionated stack built around React. Right.

Carl Alexander:
And Vercel.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah. And so you look at that and that’s evolution. Right. Just, just a few years ago we were still using Create React app and.

Carl Alexander:
We’Re now, there’s still a lot of change. I talked to JavaScript developers. It’s still all new tools. Again, it’s always changed. I think it’s like Biome or something. Like, I don’t, I’m, I’m actually not very deep in the front end stuff right. Anymore. And when I do, I use stuff like Laravel’s Livewire or things like, or Alpine JS like much more like I sprinkle the, like Alpine JS is kind of like the interactivity API. Right. Like you kind of strip, you kind of sprinkle some stuff, some front end magic on it. But I, I don’t, I don’t do full front end.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah, I, I love livewire. It’s great. I love. I, I actually responded to.

Zach Stepek:
Joey Kudish put a, a tweet out the other day about how he’s building on Laravel with Livewire for pretty much everything right now.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah.

Zach Stepek:
And I said, yeah. My perfect stack for most like line of business apps right now is Laravel with Livewire and filament.

Carl Alexander:
Tall stack. Yeah, tall stack. Tailwind, Alpine, Livewire, Laravel Tall stack, baby.

Zach Stepek:
Tall stack plus filament. I really like filament. It provides a solid foundational base.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah. I use it for one client. Basically the filament.

Carl Alexander:
Lemire stuff is all bespoke like I. But it’s, it’s such an old app anyways. Like a lot of that stuff didn’t exist. And if I did, I’d probably just buy Caleb’s like flux, like the components basically.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah. There’s so many, there’s so many more things now. Like we didn’t have SHAD UI a few years ago or any of those other things that are out now. Right. And so as always, things evolve, things get better. Things get more complex as they get better though. Because in some areas it’s easier, in some areas it’s harder. And that’s just the constant flux of being a developer in this industry of constant change. Right?

Carl Alexander:
Yeah.

Zach Stepek:
So very cool stuff.

Zach Stepek:
I did want to talk briefly about another journey that we’ve been on. I know we were just talking about our collective nutritional supplements that we are taking.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, tell us about your journey.

Carl Alexander:
Mine’s very long, so it’s like. Tell me about yours.

Zach Stepek:
Well, I made a decision that I needed to turn things around a bit. Things had gotten a bit of out of hand during COVID and with some of the back issues that I had had and still have, things were getting hard, so it was getting more difficult to move. I had, you know, things were, they were just, they had reached a point where I needed to make a change and so I did. And so far in the last four months, I’ve lost £50. And we’re just gonna see how far we can push this until I. There’s barely any of me remaining.

Zach Stepek:
That’s the goal.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, so that’s the goal. Well, I love that for you, man. It’s like great.

Zach Stepek:
It’s been great. And you know, we were talking about protein goals before we started recording the show.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah.

Zach Stepek:
And we were talking about how my nutritionist gave me an absolutely insane daily protein goal of 280 grams of protein.

Carl Alexander:
Oh yeah, that’s a lot I, I have to do. I try for 160, 180.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
And, and that’s, that is a lot for most, that’s a lot for most people, you know, like.

Zach Stepek:
And I don’t hit 280 most days, you know, but I get as close as I can and I, I hover around 220, 240 every day and yeah, just trying to, trying to reduce the bad decisions. I’m drinking a lot more water, a lot more hydration.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, that’s never going to change. Basically I’ve got. The Pepsi is forever.

Zach Stepek:
Hey, you know what though? It’s at least it’s diet, right?

Carl Alexander:
It’s diet caffeine free.

Zach Stepek:
Oh wow.

Carl Alexander:
You want caffeine free diet caffeine free. I, I actually prefer the taste. That’s nice. That’s. I don’t really react very much to caffeine.

Zach Stepek:
Okay.

Carl Alexander:
Like most people.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah, I don’t, it just, it calms me. It doesn’t amp me up. It calms me if anything.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, that’s usually, that’s probably ADHD related. So I do energy drinks for that definitely when I need to focus.

Carl Alexander:
And I wanted to share something because I had my own first back issues. I had maybe a slip disc, I’ll never know. But this book, oh, it’s flipped but it’s called the Back Mechanic. It’s by sword.

Zach Stepek:
It’s perfect on this side we can see it just.

Carl Alexander:
Okay, cool. Great back mechanic, absolute gem. This guy is basically the world leader and basically the back stuff I’ve been rehabbing my back cuz I basically was in a car accident in February. Then I did a move to. I, I only realized that doing my year in review, I did a move in the snow two, three weeks later and later I like had my first old person injury. You know when you sneeze and then like, and then like your back locks. So it’s just like. And then that happened two, three more times. So. Yeah, and it’s been really helpful for me because I was really bummed out because my weightlifting journey, my health journey is very different. Next year is going to be 20 years that I go to the gym.

Zach Stepek:
That’s awesome.

Carl Alexander:
Like almost every five days a week almost. You know I think I started at three. Um, so like fall next year is going to be 20 years. So it’s very impressive. But it was, it was a real bummer because I, you know, like I do a lot of back exercise. My back is very strong. But it’s just life happens, you know, life Happens and things happen. Well, I was a passenger in that car accident. It was, I was in that. But it was a pile up. We got rear ended at 43 miles an hour basically in a pileup. So just like. And I was the best one out of that.

Carl Alexander:
But you know, you. Who knows if that was a cause I’ll never, I’ll never. It doesn’t matter either way.

Zach Stepek:
Right.

Carl Alexander:
Like the reality is just something happened and I have to be more careful about how I do my exercises.

Zach Stepek:
Yep.

Carl Alexander:
And stuff like that. And I had multiple. I made it worse during the year because I was thinking I’m like still young and stuff. I’m 42 and I, I thought everything was fine and you know, but if you have back issues and stuff like that, this is the book to get because it will help you diagnose stuff. It’s very hard to know. The back is very complicated. It is extremely complicated. It’s very hard. Like I saw physio. I want to say it in French physiotherapist, but I was like, I saw physio basically. And I saw. First it’s. He’s doing all these tests and nothing’s hurting and I’m like, maybe I’m just crazy. And then eventually it just hits the right thing and then like complete pain basically. So just like. So it’s very hard and then it’s hard to know what to do, what to like, how to like strain, like what, what you should remove, like what is now a bad thing to do with your back that you should avoid and things like that. So yeah, great book. It’s gotta be my book list for the. In my year in review. But basically since you brought up back stuff, I thought I would talk about it because it is fantastic and worth every penny.

Carl Alexander:
Because it’s very like. I love. One of the reasons I got into fitness is because I love biomechanics. I’m an engineer and I love the biomechanics. And he will explain to you the biomechanics of how this works. Like obviously he’s not explaining it like you’re a PhD person. He explains this for, for everyday people. But that’s perfect because like you can understand and he has self assessment things you can do and all that great stuff so that you can kind of pinpoint. Pinpoint. You know, obviously me it involved the sciatica but it was not like the same way. Most people have issues with the sciatica. So it was just like nobody kind of had good answers for me and it was just like he offered, like, he had one exercise in there that ended up being magical. It’s called nerve flossing. And it’s just like. It’s a way you move your legs. You just basically move the sciatica without stretching it, and fantastic stuff. But that was in the book, basically. So highly recommend it if you have back issues to just take a look. Try to do the self assessment.

Carl Alexander:
There’s called the McGill Big Tree, which is like. Basically the exercise like that he recommends like, curl up, side planks, and then the. Oh, my God, I want to say.

Carl Alexander:
Bird dog. Basically bird dog, which is like, you, like, stretch forward and like the whole thing. So great, great book, Great book.

Zach Stepek:
So, yeah, I’ll have to check it out because I have two bulging discs and an impinged nerve in my lower back. So, yeah, that’s a lot. But it is.

Carl Alexander:
Losing weight’s gonna help it. Losing weight’s gonna help a lot. Cause it’s all about endurance.

Zach Stepek:
Yep. I feel way more mobile than I.

Carl Alexander:
Was, than anything else. So, like, a lot of people think, oh, I need to, like, do a million. Like, really, like, get my app. But you can actually make it worse because then things get, like, imbalanced.

Zach Stepek:
Yep.

Carl Alexander:
And. And things like that. So it’s much more about endurance than it is about strength.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah, no, absolutely.

Carl Alexander:
Things like that.

Zach Stepek:
That’s what I’ve been. I’ve been doing when I. When I work on. On anything. It’s, you know, trying to take things lower weight, do things, you know, for a longer period of time at lower, lower rep, basically. But, yeah, just trying to not overdo it and make sure that I give myself time to heal.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, absolutely. Takes a long time. Very hard for me right now, like, I. I tried a little thing last week and I was like, oh, no, no, I am not ready doing that yet. No, I can’t do it. For me, the big thing, I’m gonna nerd out just a few seconds, but for me, it’s like spinal compression basically. Like, so, like, I can’t. I’ve had to stop deadlifting. But what I tried last week was like military press. You know, when you, like, put. You stand up and you push it. Can’t do that one. Basically, still, I have to do it sitting. I can do them like sitting because it doesn’t compress this. You can, like, lean kind of against the bench and, like, grab the spine. Much more steady that way. But, you know, I tried a light amount and then I was like, I’m fine, I’m fine. And then later in the workout. I’m like, ah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is not, this is not ready yet. Maybe it’ll never be, but, you know, I’m. I’m Taipei. So I, I, I took a little risk, and then I was like, I was like, no, okay, we’re going back to the, the safe stuff. It still hasn’t been long enough.

Zach Stepek:
You have to test the water. You have to see.

Carl Alexander:
You got to test the water. I can’t help it. I can’t help it. I’m like, it. It’s very. It’s been a very frustrating injury for me because I was doing so much back work because I, I got traumatized early in my life because my mom was a dentist. Okay, well, she, she is a dentist, but she’s retired. And I remember when she, at one point, when I was in my early 20s, like, she woke up one day and her back was locked.

Carl Alexander:
And that really, like, I was like, you know, I work on the computer all the time. Like, I need to do all this stuff, and it’s just like, I need to have a really strong back, and I have a really strong back. But you can’t. That’s what the, that’s the, the unfortunate things with life is like, life happens, and you can be in a car accident and you can do a move in the snow two weeks, three weeks later, and then you end up and you make. You basically have an injury, and there was nothing you could have done about it. It was. It had nothing to do with the fact that I, I was doing anything wrong, you know, it was just. That was life, you know, and you have to, like, take those hits, you know?

Zach Stepek:
Yeah. I mean, last year I tried to learn to fly in a car while unconscious. It wasn’t. It wasn’t something that was expected, you know?

Carl Alexander:
No.

Zach Stepek:
I had bronchitis. I got into a coughing fit so bad that I couldn’t get air, and I lost consciousness while driving and went flying, you know, terrifying. Missed three very large willow trees by a matter of feet on each side. And so terrifying. It. It absolutely was. And, you know, so that exacerbated the existing injury, made it even worse. And then, you know, the fact that I had so much excess, just that I was dealing with, it didn’t help. So, you know, now moving toward a better place there. That’s great. We’ve got about 15 minutes, 15 minutes at the most.

Carl Alexander:
I’m gonna do 50. What are we gonna do?

Carl Alexander:
So let’s talk gratitude. Let’s talk gratitude.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah, definitely.

Carl Alexander:
I mean, that Was a good start. You know, like, you’re, you’re on a health journey. You’re, like, getting better. Like, that’s a lot to be grateful for. That, like, this is working out super well for you.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
And that you’re seeing progress and hopefully, like, your back starting to feel better.

Zach Stepek:
It is. Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
And all that.

Zach Stepek:
So, yeah, I’m very grateful for that. I would say one of the other things that I’m, I’m very grateful for is the ability to choose what level of toxicity you want to allow in your life.

Zach Stepek:
And having the boldness to be able to say no in environments that would introduce more toxicity is a life skill that a lot of people don’t learn. They are very hard.

Carl Alexander:
Boundaries are hard. Boundaries are hard. I, I can relate to that. I do. I still am not the best at them, but I’m getting better.

Zach Stepek:
Well, we have this desire to.

Zach Stepek:
A lot of times to make the people around us feel better.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah.

Zach Stepek:
And sometimes to our detriment. I think, I think you’re very similar to me in that regard.

Carl Alexander:
Could not have said it better.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
Cannot have said it better. I think, you know, I, I, I think we’re both.

Carl Alexander:
Very empathetic people.

Zach Stepek:
Yep.

Carl Alexander:
I think I’ve struggled a lot this year.

Carl Alexander:
Protecting myself. Like, I, I think I’ll talk a lot about it in the year review, but just, like, just. I didn’t necessarily cope with it the best way, but I coped with it. But it’s just sometimes there’s just so much signal coming your way, and it’s like, it, it hurts. You know, you hurt for other people, and it’s hard to, like.

Carl Alexander:
Realize that it’s not your fault.

Zach Stepek:
It’s hard being an empath the way that the world is right now.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, exactly.

Zach Stepek:
It’s very difficult. And so, you know, and I’m not talking politics here. I’m just talking.

Carl Alexander:
I mean, we both, so we both gave her money. I’m thinking Tessa, for example. Yeah.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah. I mean, I, I love Tessa. She’s great. And, you know, she’s been on, on our podcast before talking about.

Carl Alexander:
I worked with her this year. Yeah.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
She’s. She’s amazing. Like, you know.

Carl Alexander:
Like, I did work with her this year, so it was just. It, it. That. That’s part of why I wanted to do gratitude for this, this thing, because I am, I think, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m very grateful, like you said, that we have the ability, I still have the ability to be able to control that stuff and put boundaries and and control.

Carl Alexander:
What I can let in to my life. Absolutely.

Carl Alexander:
I’m part of. That’s part of the reason that I’m so grateful for the partnership that, you know, I was able to get. You know, I don’t know where it’ll end up, but, you know, I. I talked last year how grateful I was that I could still work on my own. For me, it’s. It’s been really important in my life. You know, it’s going to be. I mean, I’m approaching 15 years.

Zach Stepek:
That’s awesome. On my own.

Carl Alexander:
And this year was the hardest one. You know, I think it’s been hard for everyone.

Zach Stepek:
It’s been a rough one. Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah. So the fact that I can. I’ve somehow survived another year, I’m immensely grateful to that. I still have clients that enjoy working with me, that can work with me. Some of them have stopped, not because they didn’t want to work with me, but things happened and they couldn’t.

Carl Alexander:
Anymore. So it’s just. All that stuff for me is I’m incredibly grateful. I’m incredibly grateful that Paul and Josh and Justin showed up when they did. I probably would have had to find a job, to be honest with you. Like, and, you know, that’s still not out of the woods, but. But at least, you know, I’m grateful that I have another year that I can give it a shot, you know, and then we’ll see where we are next year. That’s. That’s part of, like, my. My year in review starts, basically. I feel like I’m in the Lords of the Ring trilogy, basically.

Zach Stepek:
We’re in.

Carl Alexander:
I’m like, two towers this year, basically. I can’t. It’s the first time where I’m like, I’m excited slash scared to write next year’s one because, like, I don’t know where it’ll be, you know, like, it’s like I’m. I want to. I want to know how the story ends.

Zach Stepek:
Know.

Carl Alexander:
I want to know how this story ends. Well, not ends, but, you know, like, this kind of.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
How trilogy. This chapter ends, you know, like, this whole. This whole trilogy ends of, like, you know.

Carl Alexander:
Deciding to. To be more into the open community. Like this podcast, this change to this podcast is part of this journey.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah, absolutely.

Carl Alexander:
This idea that I wanted us to be more open to everything going on in the open web, and not just WordPress per se. Even though this is still a lot of WordPress, what’s going on in the open web, I think is part of that journey. So that journey Continues still. So I’m excited for the third book next year.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah, we’re definitely going to branch out and.

Zach Stepek:
Get a little crazier with the guests. Like, it’s gonna be.

Carl Alexander:
Absolutely.

Zach Stepek:
It’s gonna be cool to see. I can’t wait to see how it all works out.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, I still. I. I wanna. I’m. We’re gonna get my friend’s mom to come. My friend’s mom was CIO of Canada, so. And she was. She was like. She was one of the early engine. Well, she worked at IBM, you know, like, as an engineer. Like, she’s an actual engineer. Like, you know, know, like the programming, but also, like, she was CIO of an. Of an airline, Canadian airline. Like, just awesome person. Like, tons of history, tons of knowledge.

Carl Alexander:
That’S seen a lot. You know, like, bringing guests like that, to me is really interesting.

Carl Alexander:
For. For the show and for. For people listening to just have these different experiences of technology because, you know, technology has been around for a long time and it’s just, you know, there’s different stories and different people and, you know, we’re like, getting older. We’re getting to be like old people in this technological world, too. Is. Which is like. Yeah, it’s a bit difficult to wrap my head on, but, you know, that’s the reality. You know, we’re. We’re. We’re kind of boomers, you know, so.

Zach Stepek:
We’Re the old guard at this point.

Carl Alexander:
Which is we’re getting the boomers of tech.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
So that’s, like, interesting to me, too.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah, no, it absolutely is. And, you know, given that I’ve been in this industry now for 26 years, you know, I started my first company at 1743. Now.

Zach Stepek:
You know, that’s 26 years of experience in this space. And I’ve had the good fortune of meeting a lot of really great people.

Zach Stepek:
One of my favorite people just retired. His name’s Steve Weiss and He was at O’Reilly. He was actually the person who brought me into O’Reilly to write a book during the Flash era.

Zach Stepek:
And then he had gone to LinkedIn learning or lynda.com for a while.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah, lynda.com before.

Zach Stepek:
Yep. And, yeah, it’s just really interesting too. To see as people who I’ve looked up to are starting to make the decision that it’s time for them to retire. Right.

Carl Alexander:
And I follow AWS, like, their CTO was like, who does all these? Like, the keynote. Said that was going to be his last keynote. He was like, giving space for younger, other People to.

Carl Alexander:
Spread their wings and show that they have great stuff to talk about, too. Because sometimes you just take a lot of space and you have to know when it’s time to give your space to somebody else.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah. Generally, we hope that’s before you’re jumping on couches screaming about developers. That’s a Steve Ballmer reference for anybody who didn’t get that.

Zach Stepek:
But, you know, that’s. It’s just.

Zach Stepek:
It’s really interesting to see as the new generation starts to establish itself. And, you know, it’s really. It’s exciting seeing people. I’m thankful for the fact that we have folks like Christian Taylor and Mark Zymanski who are, you know, in this industry who are starting to talk about what it’s like to get into this space. And as someone newer to it, it’s. It’s great to see.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah. Yeah, it’s. I mean, we don’t get a lot of new people anymore, and that makes me sad a bit, but it’s. It’s great. Those. Those two are fantastic. They’re great examples. I mean. And.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah. I mean, I’m. Yeah. Like you said, it’s just. Just grateful. Grateful to be one more year doing what I love, basically.

Zach Stepek:
Absolutely.

Carl Alexander:
Absolutely. You know, I love doing this podcast. Even if we didn’t have a chance to do it as much this year, I still love doing podcasts. I did a bit of live streaming, too, at some point, too.

Zach Stepek:
I jumped into.

Carl Alexander:
I wish I could do more of it.

Zach Stepek:
It’s hard. You know, you did. You have to be very regimented to be able to sit down for three hours and work and live stream it the whole time.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah. Or even if it’s just one hour, it’s not as simple as you. As you can imagine. You have to find something that is not too hard. Because if it’s too hard, I can’t talk at the same time. I can’t. I can’t do it at the same time. So it has to be kind of that, like, weird difficulty space where it’s like, it’s not too hard of a problem, that it’s like, okay, you just have to do a. Like, if else here. And then you’re like, this is not interesting, but it has to be so finding that and being able to communicate. But also, it’s just a question of.

Carl Alexander:
You can’t do everything. And, you know, and. And you got to pick what. What’s truly important. And again, another thing I’m super grateful for is I. I have the opportunity to choose what’s important. For me.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah. No, absolutely. You are very fortunate in that area.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah. I trust me this year I’ve, I’ve, I’ve appreciated even more than, than the previous years because I’m one of, I’m one the of. There’s not a lot of people like me left. Like the life self employed like all of this like where I’m a, I’m a real dying breed here.

Zach Stepek:
Well. And independent hosts are a dying breed too. So that’s why I love, I’m very grateful for the opportunity to be at one of them.

Carl Alexander:
Yeah. I mean I, There aren’t a lot also. No, there aren’t. And if we roll it back a bit with the built fast stuff. But that was part of our dis. Honestly, that was part of our discussion.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
You know, like we both want to be. Stay independent. We both want to just be. Have you know, a sort of like an opportunity to build the business we want to build.

Zach Stepek:
Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
You know, that’s always tricky and you don’t always have that opportunity.

Zach Stepek:
Yep. Always great to be able to do that with people you respect and trust and you know, it provides a dynamic that just isn’t there otherwise when you get to work with other people. Yeah.

Carl Alexander:
I’m so grateful.

Zach Stepek:
It seems that your connection is deciding that it does not like you being on video anymore.

Carl Alexander:
That’s fine. I got the same thing from you. But I hear your voice.

Zach Stepek:
That’s funny. That’s funny.

Zach Stepek:
So we really are at the end of our time here. I just want to leave us with one thing and that is I want to ask you what one thing you’re looking forward to most in the upcoming year.

Carl Alexander:
Oh my goodness.

Zach Stepek:
I know.

Carl Alexander:
I think I’ve said it like a million times already. Like, I hope I can still be doing this.

Zach Stepek:
Yep.

Carl Alexander:
Next December. I hope I can be here and Crawl Boy is behind me. And I don’t have to say like, I work for X now.

Zach Stepek:
Right.

Carl Alexander:
I can just say like, you know, I’m still doing my stuff and I’m still, and I still have this amazing luck because I know that it’s not all luck, but there is luck. And I, I, I think I’ve been very lucky and I hope I continue to be lucky.

Zach Stepek:
I hope that for you too, man. And I, I really, I think if I were to answer the same question.

Zach Stepek:
I’m looking forward to learning in 2026. I want to grow in areas that I haven’t grown before and that’s great. You know, I’ve, I’ve had the, the great opportunity to work in a number of different areas and a number of different parts of the industry and really digging deep into this partnership world that I’m in now. And I want to get better at that, but I also want to get better at my other things. I want to get better at concert photography. I want to get better at expressing myself creatively, whether that be writing or, you know, art or photography. I think those things are, you know, both equally important goals for me over the next year.

Carl Alexander:
So that’s great, man. I hope that for you too.

Zach Stepek:
Thank you.

Carl Alexander:
That’s personal growth is really rewarding.

Zach Stepek:
And with that being said, I hope to be half the man I am sitting here today. Next year when we record our.

Carl Alexander:
Physically speaking.

Zach Stepek:
Yes, exactly. Physically speaking, I would like to be half the man I am today by the time we record our next year in review.

Carl Alexander:
That’s great. I hope that for you too. And on that, I think we’re good.

Zach Stepek:
Awesome, brother. Well, it’s always great doing these with you at the end of the year.

Zach Stepek:
If you have any ideas for things you’d like to hear, Carl and I talk about guests you’d like to have us bring on. If you want to be a guest on the podcast.

Carl Alexander:
If you want to be a guest, honestly, yeah, we would.

Zach Stepek:
Love to hear from you.

Zach Stepek:
And if you just can’t stand anything we had to say today and you want to complain to somebody about it, use the hashtag bugbob.

Carl Alexander:
Bugbob.

Zach Stepek:
I got it in.

Carl Alexander:
Got it in.

Zach Stepek:
I had to. I had to. One more time for 2025. Hashtag bug. Bob, we appreciate all of you who listen and thank you for giving us this platform because it doesn’t exist without you.

Zach Stepek:
And we really hope that we’ve brought some value to you over 2025 and can continue to do so in 2026.

Carl Alexander:
That’s right. Thank you.