The Best Thing is Curiosity!

Dave Temkin was a precocious nerd with a natural passion for tech who got in on the ground floor of internet technology and networking as a high school junior by parlaying his curiosity and can-do approach into a series of jobs that led to success.

In this #NomadFuturist podcast, Temkin shares a career trajectory that has encompassed work in networking, critical infrastructure, disaster recovery, ad tech and fintech, ultimately leading to his current position as VP of Network and Systems infrastructure at Netflix.

Temkin was blessed with the good fortune to find a mentor early on who encouraged him to follow his own, authentic path.

“You need a mentor…someone to help you and call you out when you’re not doing what you need to be doing.”

In terms of managing this Covid moment, Temkin sees the challenges his resources are facing whether those be childcare, wildfires or eldercare. “The best we can do is be empathetic.”

He also discusses the challenges of being able to continue to produce content safely during the pandemic.

“What I’m really excited about is the way that we are going to be able to engage with content going forward…how we figure out how to engage with people and how that intersects with technology and social change… and how that makes people’s lives better.”

His career advice:

“The biggest thing is curiosity…asking everyone a lot of questions. Eventually someone engages with you and sees that potential.”

Dave Temkin is the Vice President of Network and Systems Infrastructure for Netflix, where he and his team built the Open Connect Network infrastructure to serve streaming video to over 150 million members. He is also responsible for the Network, Compute, and Storage infrastructure used to produce content at Netflix. Prior to Netflix, he worked on building the Yahoo! and Right Media delivery networks. Located in New York City, Temkin is active in several non-profit groups and is passionate about developing and bringing new talent into the networking industry.