Career Conversations with Mike Lin

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Hello and welcome to

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another episode of The Traveling Introvert.

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And of course, this is the Career Conversations segment.

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I would like to welcome our guest here today.

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It's Mike. Mike, how are you?

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I'm doing wonderful. It's a beautiful day out here in San Francisco,

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in the Bayview. More specific, leave the neighborhood

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of Hunters Point Bayview in a new community called the

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San Francisco Shipyard. Okay,

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now I want to know more, but I'm not going to get sidetracked.

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Mike, first question I ask everybody is, are you

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an introvert? I am an introvert.

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I took the Brighmires test a while back.

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I'm an INFJ. Or I was an

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INFJ. I think I

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might be, like, an extroverted introvert now. Okay,

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and what does introversion mean to you?

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So growing up, I was a shy kid.

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I kind of like being left alone,

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just kind of being like,

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tensive quiet. Like I

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said, I was shy. So I think

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for me, like, introversion just the word introversion is

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just thinking

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within.

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And would you say that that has helped you

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in your career?

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Well, the work that I used to do in tech,

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well, first I started off as a designer

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designing websites starting back in 1995.

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I was a concert promoter in college, so I had to design the

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concert posters. And I had a buddy of mine, Chris Jensen,

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who helped teach me desktop publishing.

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So working in tech,

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I was used to just putting on my headphones

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and just doing work

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and just kind of keeping to myself.

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So in that regards, yeah,

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introversion has helped me out because it

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allows you to just kind of think about

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things for

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the most part, like by yourself.

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I think in that regard, introversion has. Helped me out and

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I guess have your workplaces been set

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up in such a way to enable you to do that deep work by yourself?

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They have, yeah. Working as my

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first job was well,

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I worked for a company called Creative Internet

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Design in Pasadena in 1997.

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It was just myself, Ari Petrajaska,

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who was one of three co founders of

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Creative Internet Design, but his other two founders left to

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go work for MGM Studios,

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and there was a female engineer,

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so it was just the three of us. So I

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basically just put on my headphones and do my work.

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And then the other companies I worked for was a

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small design agency called Adjacency. Got it. Acquired by Sapien.

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I was at Yahoo Shopping and Yahoo Travel for four

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years. I was at LinkedIn for four years, four months, and Zinger for two and

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a half years. Yeah, I own all those jobs.

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I was working as either a productions designer,

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visual designer, user interface designer,

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and I could just kind of, like,

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be working on my laptop or

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workstation with the headphones on and just work.

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Aside from reviewing my work with my creative director

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or my team, I was pretty much left alone.

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Okay. And so you've talked about doing

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a lot of UX work and design work. Can you tell me about any

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misconceptions that people might have about your job and or

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industry.

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In terms of tech? I think of

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a lot of people think about what used to be Fang,

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facebook, Apple,

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Amazon, Netflix,

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Google now Google's Alphabet,

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and Facebook is Meta.

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I guess people have an image of, like, techies from, like, say,

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The Social Network, the story about Mark

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Zuckerberg and his founding of Facebook.

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So I guess people have the image of techies, like, wearing t

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shirts and jeans. On my case, it was

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mostly like, t shirts and short

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pants or sweatpants.

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It's kind of accurate, actually.

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I didn't ever in my career have

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to wear suit and tie until until

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I worked for Sapien. And kind

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of like when the bubble was crashing, they wanted people

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to be more professional.

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So I actually had to buy some button

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down shirts. I just got them at a thrift store.

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I mean, I wasn't really meeting clients, so I'm not sure why they wanted

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the dress code. The professional

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dress code. I could go on about what professional means and

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doesn't mean, but I'm not going to.

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Is there something actually, first question is,

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can you tell me about a connection that you have made that has

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changed your life?

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Yeah. So my first job in

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tech in the San Francisco bay

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area was with Bernie Deshant.

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He was one of four co founders

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of Adjacency, which started off

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in Madison, Wisconsin, and they later moved

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out to San Francisco.

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Adjacency had some incredible clients

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considering how small they were.

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They designed websites for Apple,

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land Rover, nordstrom Tire

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Bar, specialized Bikes,

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virgin Music tag,

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Hoyer Patagonia.

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I mean, the list was amazing.

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They got acquired by a company called Sapient,

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and at the time, we're about 50 people,

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actually about 57 people, they got acquired for $50

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million.

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Sapient had actually acquired a company

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called Studio Archetype that was run by Clement Mock

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that was double our size,

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but for half of what we got

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acquired for. So they probably had something like 110

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employees getting acquired for 25 million.

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And Clement really didn't give much stock to his employees. They were pissed

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when we got acquired because the principals,

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andrew Sather, Bernie mostly

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Andrew had equity, was very generous with

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the equity that he gave us.

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So Bernie has a really sharp

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eye, always had really good feedback.

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They kind of took a chance on me.

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I came in as a production designer. That means that I was coding

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HTML and doing Iterative design for

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clients like Rollerblade and

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Power Bar.

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So he was really a mentor. And then I

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ended up getting diagnosed with bipolar one disorder in

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the summer of 2015 when I had my first Janice episode.

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And he's really been there during the times that

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I've been severely depressed. He's always like a

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person that's non judgmental and someone that I

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know I can reach out to when I'm in

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a depressed state. I mean, I've been so severely

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depressed where I was in Taipei,

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Taiwan, with my parents, and I spent six months

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literally in bed and would go like, maybe a week

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or two without showering or shaving and

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not even caring that I didn't

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do any of those things in terms of well being.

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And so how different do you think your life would be if

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you hadn't made that connection?

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I mean, adjacency basically started my

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career in the San Francisco bay area.

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I had a job offer from adjacency and

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a company called circumstance.

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I got laid off from Sapient in a fourth round,

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and I had a coworker of mine that got laid off in an earlier

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round, and he got a job at yahoo.

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And he referred me into Yahoo.

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And had it not been for the fact that I had

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a job at Adjacency, I don't think

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my life would have taken a completely different course.

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I wouldn't have worked at the companies that I had.

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Yeah, okay. And so as part of that,

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and this might lead on from that, is is

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there something that you do regularly that has

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improved your life, career and or business?

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Yeah, absolutely, 100%.

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So being physically

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active, exercising is

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one of the best things to do for

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your mental health, especially when you're depressed, or in

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my case, severely depressed.

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I go to an orange theory fitness

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studio in Mission Bay in San Francisco,

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and that's something that really has helped me out.

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I reached out to Ellen lawfam, who founded

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orange Theory fitness, and she actually replied back

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to me. I let her know

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when I first started at Ordinary Fitness,

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that doing workouts

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with Ordinary Fitness was really going to be something that was going

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to help me out with my mental health. And she agreed. The says exercising

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releases like dopamines.

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In my case, I find working out and exercising

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way more effective than medication because

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the medication that I've taken in the past, lithium,

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is not good for your liver.

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I've taken medication which has made me gain weight.

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Some of the stuff even has given me, like, penal rectal dysfunction,

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and sometimes I can't

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even sleep. So right now, I'm not on

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any medication.

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I actually art directed

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a t shirt with my designer Damai

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out of Indonesia that says, orange theory fitness

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is my drug.

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That's wonderful, and I hope to see you wearing it in

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the fitness place where you work out.

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Yeah, I've done 97 workouts

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at orange 30 fitness starting two and a half years ago.

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So on my 100th workout,

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I'm going to wear the t shirt that says, oranger fitness is

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my drug. And I'm going to get a photo with the

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staff holding a sign that celebrates my 100th

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workout. And we will then send the photo

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of the t shirt to the owner of the franchise in

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San Francisco to see if we can make it an official collaboration

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between my merge company, t shirts Matter

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and Orange Fitness in the San Francisco Bay area.

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But since I've already communicated with Ellen Latham,

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who is the founder of Orangebury Fitness, I'd like to

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make it international because they have studios around the world.

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That is awesome, and I cannot wait to see the

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photos. That's a great thing. So you said about two and a half years.

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So you were able to keep this up during the Pandemic.

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I worked out

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at Orange 30 Fitness for a couple of times during

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the Pandemic,

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but I ended up getting

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severely depressed again because I

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was worried about money because the stock market crashed

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during the pandemic, and I ended back up in

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Taipei, Taiwan for like, six months. Got it.

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Okay. Yeah. In Taipei, Taiwan,

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there is a track that

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I had a fitbit at the time, and the

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goal of fitbit is hitting your 10,000 steps. So that's

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what I was doing in Taipei that I want is trying to hit those 10,000

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steps. Okay. So with

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exercise being something that you say yes to and do on a regular basis

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to improve your life, what is something that you say no to?

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So I

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have a t shirt that I

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would say it's inspired by Taylor Swift because I'm a huge fan.

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I stand Taylor. It's a lyric

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from her song Shake it off. It says,

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haters going to hate. So I just shake off that negativity.

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I say no to negativity. Okay,

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that's a good one. I haven't heard that one. And so can

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you tell me something that you've encountered

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while going through your career and building your business that

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has surprised you?

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That's a really good question. Something that

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has surprised me.

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I don't know if this is a surprise me, but I'm pretty resilient.

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I actually today was on a Google me call with

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a guy who ran a company that only works with,

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I think, something like five clients

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per quarter. And it was supposed to be like a

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30 minutes call. And I was

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talking to him about my new idea about

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an urban camping airbnb experience.

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And I was showing him the new boards,

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and I have another tab open, kind of

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like showing stuff. And then I go back to the

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main room, and he's not there.

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We're basically like, 15 minutes in.

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And so I was like, okay, I'm not sure what happened.

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So I disconnect. I log back in. He's not

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there. I go check my

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LinkedIn inbox, and I

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see that he's blocked me.

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I have no clue why. You know,

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it's like,

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well, he did say that, you know, with the companies that they work with,

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that they have to

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be generating like, monthly $50,000,

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and they've actually spent $150,000,000 on ads.

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So in the form where they put, how much do you make monthly?

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I'm like, well, if they're looking for companies that make $50,000

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monthly, I'm going to put kind of like the little wavy thing, like approximately like

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$50,000? Yes. But in my case, it would have

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been like approximately zero. I pretty

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much filled up the form to tell them what they

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wanted to hear. I think

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probably the reason why he dropped off the call. He's like, why is this guy

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telling me about this airbnb camping experience when I only work with companies that

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make at least 50,000 monthly?

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But he did block me on

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LinkedIn, which is kind of curious. I mean, he's like,

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British, and he also

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has, like, a mustache.

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He kind of looked like a pedophile.

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And so you wanted to get to talk because you filled

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out the form, so why did you want to get to talk to him?

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He was able to scale, according to his website,

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these companies, like, working and doing ads and

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really accelerating the companies.

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I'm basically a rocket ship. I'm a rocket ship.

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I'm on the launching pad. All I need is some

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fuel and someone to hit

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the button to go and then I'm a

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rocket. And that's actually

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what they call like,

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startups, so called unicorns that are worth

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over a billion dollars. Get ready for a ride

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on the rocket ship. It's going to be the most amazing experience

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of your life. LinkedIn was the most

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amazing professional experience

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of my life.

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That was a rocket ship.

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And so, I mean, he must know

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that people do that because you can't be the first person who's done that.

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And maybe if he'd been a little bit more curious and

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or asked questions, that would have come through

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instead of just blocking. People don't have curiosity

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anymore. At any point, he just

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said, hey, pause. Things aren't working.

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I don't think it's going to work out. It's not a good fit. But no,

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he just left the conversation and blocking on LinkedIn. Yeah,

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communication would have been nice. Communication would have been

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nice, especially he specifically says

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that with the clients they work with, since they work with so

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few that it feels like an extension of your team,

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you'd think that he'd have more people skills. Yeah,

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you're right. All right, so final question

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for you. It's the mystery question. Is a hot

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dog a sandwich?

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Is a hot dog a sandwich?

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No, the hot dog is not a sandwich.

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Why?

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Like a sandwich has, like, the circular buns. A hot

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dog does not have a circular bun. I mean, unless you put like,

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you know, like like, let's say three hot dogs, you know,

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between two hangar hamburger buns, then I

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would say it might be a sandwich, but no, it's not. No way.

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Emphatically, I disagree. Okay.

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I like that. I like when people are like, no, this is what I think

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and why. Thank you for that answer. So please let

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my listeners know where they can find out more about you

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and what you do.

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So I was actually an

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early LinkedIn employee when I started at LinkedIn

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in May of 2006. I was a 42nd well,

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there are 42 people at the company. I was a 43rd employee and the second

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visual second user interface designer

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there. So I'd say, take a look at me on LinkedIn.

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It's LinkedIn.com in

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Mikelin.

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M-I-K-E-L-I-N-I have

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links to press articles

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about what I've done with T shirts

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matter. I have press

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articles about what I did with my Scope Day event.

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My instagram is instagram.com.

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Mikelin SF.

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M-I-K-E-L-I-N-S-F-S-F as

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in San Francisco? The T shirt company is Tshirtsmatter.com.

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The instagram is instagram.com.

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Tshirtsmatter.

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Tshirtsmatter.

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The hyphen

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is really important. There's actually a company that's Tshirtsmatter.com

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without the Hyphen. I've had people looking at the website

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saying, hey, you have this product. I'm like, no,

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you're on the wrong website.

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Yeah,

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there's also linktree L-I-N-K-T-R-E-E

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capital T, capital S-H-I-R-T-S

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capital M. Lowercase A-T-T-E-R.

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That link has links to everything. Thanks.

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Awesome. Thank you so very much for sharing your

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stories and your time with me today. I really appreciate

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it. And, yeah, that person who ghosted.

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All right, thank you so very much. And this is Janice

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last thing. I'm currently working on self publishing my memoir

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in the next three to six months. And the name of my memoir

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is called The Way Out is Through My

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Mental Health Journey living with Bipolar One Disorder by Mike Lynn.

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And that's inspired well, that's a song by Nine

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Chanel's on the fragile, the Way I Deserve.

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I have so many questions now. That is a great title and

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I am intrigued. Yes. So we're going to make

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sure all the links are there, and please let me know when that does come

Speaker: 00:25:20

out, so then we can add of that too. Thank you all

Speaker: 00:25:24

for listening. This is Janice@thecareintrovert.com helping you build your brand and