Road to Laracon US: Speaker Spotlight with Povilas Korop

Okay, says we're live. Okay, there it goes. Hi everyone. So, we should be live. Yep. Let me kind of give people a few minutes to trickle in. Also, as people are tuning in, let me know how quality is. I am streaming on hotel Wi-Fi uh from San Francisco. So, it's my new setup and hopefully everything looks fine. As people are tuning in too, I'd love to know where you're tuning in from. Um I'll do when we dive into it, I'll talk about what the stream is, too. But this is a Road to Laracon US stream. So, as part of that series, I did the first one with Kent last month. Today I'm here with Pavilus and yeah, it's so cool to see people like meeting each other in totally different time zones. So you're in San Francisco, I'm in central Europe and Lithuania and we both kind of found the time and the the spot and time zone whatever is the background. So yeah that it's generally nice with Laravel community. Now Japan is also in like different time zone of larons. Then there's India, US, Australia, totally different parts of the world. So it's nice that all people hang out. It it seems like no matter what is the time zone or how much it's to travel to like separate part of the world, the Laravel community is active pretty much everywhere across time zones. Yeah, I love it. I love seeing all the different meetups and the like conferences because now like you said, we have Laravel Life Japan too. Um, and it's funny because like at Laravel, um, the company, there's so many different like teams and like co-workers I have that are in the completely different time zones too. So, we're like constantly having to work and like try to collaborate across the time zones. Um, and doing the live streams, I've done that a lot, too. Like you said, you and I had to figure out a time that worked with our time zones. And then whenever we did the Laravel Cloud 12hour stream, I had to collaborate with people across like six to seven different time zones to like schedule them on the stream. Like I started at um 8 8 a.m. my time because I started with like the UK people like James Brooks and um Joe Dixon and then ended with Jess Archer from Australia. So I had to go like 12 hours to fit everyone in across the time. Wow. I remember talking to Jess a few years ago. She told me, not sure if it's still the case, that they have like separate team because of their time zones with Rut and uh Tim. I'm not sure if it's still the case, but it was like I their their own time zone team almost based on time zone. That's kind of the nightw watch team. Um because nightw watch is main was mainly Apac where um it was Leotaa who was in Japan, but then um people from like New Zealand and Australia were like on that team. I think we're kind of like morphing teams a little bit at this point too, but that was like the case for a really long time. Let's see. We have some people. Hi, Kique. Welcome in. He said, "Hello, everyone. Your your hotel Wi-Fi too good." So, I'm glad that good quality. Thank you, San Francisco. That's good Wi-Fi. Is Wi-Fi in San Francisco like generally when you go to coffee shops is San Francisco Wi-Fi is good everywhere in general? I don't know. I mean where I've been in San Francisco the the Wi-Fi has been pretty good but I've been like worked in a coffee shop here. I worked from like um the Excel building in January when we had an offsite here and I worked like mainly from the hotels um like the hotel I was at then and the hotel I'm at now. And then last night I worked from the Wi-Fi from the place I we were having the meet up at because I spoke at like a meetup last night which is why I'm in San Francisco. Um but I know San Francisco is like all about tech. Like there's a lot of like vibe coding here and like startups and I feel like you see people with their laptops out everywhere. So I would think they have Wi-Fi because of that. I imagine. Yeah. Um, and then hello Wilson, welcome in. And Devon or Deon Beck, congrats on being the first viewer then. You probably were. You probably were the first. But yeah, I guess we can go ahead and jump into it some. So, we're doing an episode of Road to Laracon US. This is the speaker spotlight series where I'm highlighting some of the speakers for Laracon US. Blurcon US is in Boston this year, July 28th and 29th. The first episode I did was with Kent C dots. I did that one last month and today I'm joined here with Pavilis who is speaking at Laracon US this year in Boston. And we're going to kind of talk about what you can expect from Pavil's talk as well as a general intro of who he is and yeah, what you can expect to see at Laron US. So let's go ahead and get into it. Um, let's start with a quick intro. So, hi, my name is Aaliyah. I'm a devol engineer at Laravel. If you've seen some of these streams, you've probably seen me on them. And yeah, I work with our online communities. I also go to a lot of uh inerson conferences. And if you go to a lot of live Japan next week, you will see me there as well. But I'm here with Pavilis. Pavilis, do you want to do a quick intro? Yeah, sure. So, my name is Pavilus. I'm from Lithuania, Central Europe. And I introduce myself differently depending on the audience. So I am a PHP developer since like high high school which is like 20 plus years. So I started with plain PHP then it was code igniter and then it was Laravel and now Laravel for like since the version 4 which is like 12 13 yearsish. Uh and I've been a developer for a long time. first uh as a developer at a company, then started freelancing and then started creating content and I enjoyed it so much that I finally switched to being a content creator, course creator, educator, whatever you call that that profession. So, I have a 10-year-old daughter. So, for my daughter's friends, I'm a YouTuber. So, you can imagine what what does it mean for my daughter to tell her friends like my dad is a YouTuber. So, so some sometimes I do that. Um and uh yeah so for 5 years I think uh my full-time job is actually creating content around Laravel and PHP uh and now I added more more spices to to Laravel. In addition to Laravel now I have filament daily channel and also AI coding daily. So I'm trying to diversify and also there's only so many times I can talk about N plus1 query about Laravel. It's kind of covered Laravel over like 2,000 plus videos on my channel. So I diversified into a few more channels. Uh but yeah, my primary job is basically uh in a way translating Laravel documentation and Laravel news to people in a video format in a short format. And I enjoyed my kind of strength as people tell me is like simplify things into five to 10 minute videos like only the only thing you need to know or stuff like that. So then I started publishing some stuff as courses and when people started buying my courses then it became my dream job full-time job. So I've been doing that for like four to five years already. Not sure what the future brings with courses. is pretty tricky now. So I want to talk more with with Jeffrey way and Aaron Francis and content creators like where do we go here because people will watch courses obviously less so the future is a bit different but uh people will still need to learn whatever that new things to learn will be uh and I'm glad to be a part of that future so I'm passionate about education in general and since I have talent for that and people seem to enjoy that with my YouTube channel. That's what I've been doing for last years. I guess I think that answered the question well too of like how you would describe what you do. But is there I guess like any other way or anything you'd expand on too of how you would describe what you do for someone who doesn't know you? Well, for those who doesn't know me, I introduce myself as a developer if it's a nontechnical person. So again, it depends on the audience. developer, educator, YouTuber, not sure what else to add. Basically, I'm generally also active on social media. So, uh some people would call me influencer or like there are other terms for the same thing. So, I'm active on like Twitter, LinkedIn and and other stuff. Uh so, maybe community person, social media person, but generally everything around Laravel. And one second to Davin Beck said, "I know um Pablo from the Laravel V6 when I first started using it." Cool. How long ago was 4.2 or 4.1? I don't remember. I learned from Jeffrey Way. Even before Larcasts, there was Ned Tutts on Tutts Plus and he was educator there. So, he was my teacher back in the day. So, I joined the community a bit later. I remember those years as Taylor created Laravel, but he wasn't really the active voice of Laravel like content and community. He was too busy in the lab creating stuff. So then people like Jeffrey Wei came in. So Jeffrey Wei, Marcel Porard, Bobby Bowman, so the the OGs, the the Avengers, and then I joined the community of content like a few years later uh at Laravel 4ish version. That is really cool. And then you kind of answered this one too about how or you talked about Laravel Daily already and I think you said did do you start that four or five years ago or that's when you started doing that full-time? Well, the full story, yeah, I kind of skipped the details, but the full story was I've been a developer and I just started blogging. I I used to blog back home in Lithuania on like local blogs and forums about it since my teen days. So I've been always passionate about just sharing the knowledge. So I started blogging in 2015 I think. So laravelaily.com was the website a blog about Laravel and there was no strategy about any like income or YouTube or something. Uh and that at that time I lived in London with my wife. So I lived in London for three years and this is where I kind of learned spoken English because with English it's it's very interesting as a non-native speaker. I thought I could speak English. So, in Lithuania, I had good grades with exams and everything. Uh, and I thought, how hard can it be to live in London? And then we went to London with my wife. And then I realized how hard it actually is to to talk real English with natives and with all the accents and and varants. So then I learned real English on the job in a few years. And then I started YouTube channel in 2016 or 17 also without any strategy just go went on video and I was freelancing at the time. So my goal was to find clients basically sharing Laravel knowledge and then I've been doing that for a few more years until I tried to launch a course and then I realized there's even money in there. So that was my shift uh shift to co to to being a content creator for part-time at first and then when the income grew I could uh afford to to go full-time in 2021. I think it was four or five years ago. So that's probably more a full story. Mhm. I love that though. I love that you just started like blogging too. Like while being a developer you start like blogging your journey. Um I I need to do more blogging but like I like posted and built in public my journey as like a developer too. So I love seeing people do that. You've been doing that in in your own way also for a while. So I mean I recognized you from the community from your live streams like a few years ago. So whatever form of content people choose. I I remember I read the tweet by push back from Laravel team. Not sure if you saw that. Like he was proud like he works at Laravel. It was his dream but for so many years he was just like sharing content without any strategy and then when opportunity came then it kind of converted into a real job. So uh I've noticed a lot of people over the years in Laravel community just sharing the knowledge without any strategy of converting that to anything and then at some point when like some job opportunity or partnership or speaking engagement or whatever suddenly people know them from somewhere from from Twitter, YouTube, blog, Twitch or whatever. So those those things do convert sometimes really unexpectedly. Yeah, it makes me think of um Aaron Francis's talk, the publish your work talk that he gives and it's like are you you're supposed to build in public and like post your your work and kind of become known for a thing and then that will just like pay off and it just keeps showing up like postbacks tweet today was like proof of that you know and then also you because you've been publishing your work and like you said you started with blogs and then Larville Daily and now you're speaking at Laron Oh yeah. Yeah. This is my first time speaking actually. Not the first time already. So my first ever talk at Laracon was at Laracon India. Uh so Vshall and the team were trying to convince me for like many years to come to come to India in the first place. Now I can because my kids grew a bit older so I can afford to travel a bit longer. And also I was kind of not not hurry to speak at all because my audience is on YouTube and I'm more more comfortable with like edited content where I can prepare and then do before and after editing. So I'm not a live really live speaker in a way. But I tried that in India. I also went to a few live streams with Nuno and and a few more and I realized like I'm enjoying that and it's not as scary as I thought. Uh so then I applied to Laracon US and they accepted me and I was like whoa that's like uh bucket list item dream come true and achievement # achievement unlocked and stuff like that. So yeah after all those years yeah here I go to Laracon US as a speaker. That's exciting. And this is your because Laracon India it was this year right? So this is your second Laracon winter that you'll speak at this year. Yeah exactly. And also I will speak at Laravel Live UK. So yeah, I'm I'm just going all in on like sharing the knowledge in live mode on different all those on different topics. Yeah, you're doing a little speaker tour now too. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I started enjoying that. I I just saw the other part of the conference, the other side as a speaker. uh like it's a bit different and I was kind of scared of that and I was scared that I wouldn't enjoy the conference as much and I wouldn't see the conference as much but I realized that in Laravel community specifically uh speakers are so engaged in the audience like there's no like them and us there's no like speakers getting away after the talk so Taylor is always in the crowd and other speakers so I realized it's not us and them. It's just like some people go on stage for half an hour and then they join the the tea and the beer afterwards like like nothing happened. So I realized I want to do more of that. Yeah. And I feel like also if you're someone um because for me sometimes I guess if I'm at a conference like I want to talk to everyone but I can feel awkward like going up to people which I know seems weird because I'm like a dev and I'm all about community. I'm always talking to people, but sometimes it can feel like intimidating. If you're a speaker, like more people will just come up to you and like talk about talk to you about your talk and stuff like that. So, it gives you more opportunity for that and for like networking and connecting with people too cuz then you like after your talk, you know, you're immersed in the conference like you said and then you just have people coming up to you and talking to you about things which I thought was really cool. Um, and then we've talked, so you're talking at Laracon US. What is your talk about at Laracon US? what can people expect from your talk? So yeah, the the talk uh on Laravel conference will be not about Laravel but about filament because um I've been passionate about filament for I'm not even sure like four to five years uh since filament one I kind of noticed the project and then it grew massively especially in last couple of years. So a few years ago I started a separate channel filament daily just to separate the audience and it took off. So it has like separately 13 I think thousand subscribers and like hundreds of videos already. uh and I realized that uh it has a lot of potential and I've created so many examples and demos uh for the videos and also have a separate no website filamentexamples.com because it like grew into a separate its own repository with examples uh in addition to YouTube and also it became kind of my separate site income in a way not not too strong but still something uh and yeah I've been enjoying filament and I've been also taking the same angle as I did with Laravel back in the day like the main things you need to know as a developer and the less less known things like tips and tricks because filament as a system is pretty huge and the documentation is pretty huge. Uh last time I checked I think it was the size of Laravel like comparable. I'm not sure which which which is like bigger now. Uh so it it has a lot of features and also features are interconnected. So the same action could be in like table action or uh or form action and other stuff. Uh so I started uh sharing and finding and sharing more like less known tips, tricks, how to customize things, how to override the core things which are hard to customize and stuff like that. So at Lacon US I submitted a talk uh my basically my goal is to impress the audience with filament examples like what that system can do because the typical like definition or description of filament is admin panel they they don't really even introduce themselves as that filament on their homepage is like uh actually I need to double check how do they call filament now but it was something like set of component components for user something really uh yeah built apps and admin panels fast with Laravel Foundation and polished UI. So build apps and admin panels. Okay, so they changed that a little with version five. Uh but yeah, but a lot of people don't know the the capabilities. So it's not just for CRUDs for like tables and forms. Uh it has a lot more things to to basically customize. And yeah, this is what I'm passionate about and who will probably pick like the most impressive examples from what I've done and what I've seen to show on stage of flower. I guess that kind of leads me to like how would you describe what filament is then? Because I know you said like a lot of people think it's just an admin panel. Like how would you explain what filament is to people? I guess it is an admin panel. That's the correct definition. But uh I would add like it's admin panel on steroids or something like admin panel with a lot of hidden features. Um because probably many people misunderstand admin panel as such. Admin panel probably is like the same as uh SQL client like table plus or or PHP myadmin or whatever for like table management which is like table and forms and filament goes beyond that. It has like powerful dashboard, a lot of plugins, a lot of customizations. Um, and the community is really really active uh with a lot of people involved. So, Discord is pretty huge and again plugins and uh uh a lot of a lot of tips and tricks. So that admin panel grows into uh basically you could you could create userfacing app as filament admin panel but make it an application a SAS for a startup uh and you wouldn't be ashamed of that. So this is probably going to be one of the examples that I will show how to use filament for userfacing app because uh everything is so customizable. Not everything probably but I mean you can use filament components on a public website as liveware components which opens up a lot of possibilities. So this is just one of the examples. Uh, so yeah, I guess I would describe filament as admin panel with on steroids with benefits or whatever you call that. Mhm. No, I I love that. And also, don't they have the a um I don't know if it's called a paid plugin, but they had something came out with that's paid. Isn't it like a skill? It gives you access to a skill. Um yes, they have uh if if I understand correctly what you mean, it's called filament blueprint. Yes, they released like it's their first plugin, the first paid plugin. So, I've been good friends with Dan, the creator of Filament, after I visited a few Laravel Live UK. So, we we we got to talk a lot more. So, I know a little of backstory. So, Dan is such a great creator in in his own lab and now with a team. So, he's been focused for many years on building the best tool ever, but he wasn't focused on like business or income or or paid plug-in ecosystem. There are paid plugins. It's been for a while, but they never really went for that. So, this year or was it last year? I don't remember. Last year, probably or was it this year? I think it was early this year. Yeah, I'm not sure. But yeah, so they released their first uh plugin. I actually I I reviewed it on my channel. It's um it's basically for planning the admin panel in the best way. It's like with AI we're doing plan mode with cloud code or whatever. So, filament blueprint is a I'm not sure if it's a skill or something, but basically the result of it's built on Laravel Boost. Um yes it's a plug-in for boost or add-on for boost something like that which allows to uh well basically the result is the plan of cloud code or codeex or whatever you use with code snippets of filament which then the allows the implementation with almost whatever model the cheapest model uh be much better and much more up to standard with like latest versions uh because quite often AI models generate the code with uh older filament versions. So Laravel doesn't have that anymore. It used to have like a year ago if you worked with cursor it could have generated like Laravel 10 skeleton code with like older console kernel middleware routes uh in a different places no bootstrap app and stuff like that. Uh in last like 6 to 12 months it changed and it doesn't do that anymore. for the latest models but with filament it still happens so you may get obsolete syntax so blueprint is one of the ways to get that like the best it's similar to laravel best practices skill but in a different implementation that you get the plan modus for planning and then you get uh you can uh give your AI agent the implementation with much better quality gotcha it makes me think like basically What Laravel boost does for Laravel 2 is like what um blueprint does for filament. Laravel boost became so huge. So it's not like it's hard to compare to to to anything. Laravel boost u is yeah it's it's it's a beast. It has like tools and MCPS and everything and Yeah. So so it's it's a core thing but with sorry what but with so many additional like skills on top. Yeah. But the core is great. Yeah. Also, hi Ashley. We have Ashley. Oh, Ashley. Speaking of Larville Boost. I know. Boost and Larville Live UK because Ashley's also speaking Larville Live UK. Yeah, I'm speaking to meet Ashley. Yeah, the Oh, you haven't met Ashley in person yet? Yeah, I have actually. I have. Yeah, I have a few stories of me and Ashley meeting in in Laravel Live UK even before Laravel boost. So yeah, I saw his passion about AI even like before it before it was official cool and on stage. So yeah, excited to meet him again. And hi Nib, welcome in. Um, also so we went over what your talk is and you explained wanting to show people that they can do more with filament in the talk. So who would you say that the talk is for? So, is it for people already using filament, people who haven't tried it yet, or really just for anyone just to show them that even if they are using filament, they can maybe do more with it than they even think? I think I will try to to cover two audiences. Uh, both of them you mentioned. So one audience would be people who just used filament for like basic cruds forms and tables and they haven't tried to go deeper because to go deeper the thing is with filament if you want to customize filament under the hood it's tall stack which means then you have to go deeper into live wire tailwind and sometimes alpine and all of those uh so you need to learn basically with filament some people I know they started using filament without even learning Laravel. So and without even knowing what PHP is. So filament is possible like Laravel is possible to start using without PHP knowledge much at least in the beginning. So similar you can extend that to filament. So you can install you go Laravel new you install filament you launch a few commands and you have admin panel. So uh I mean quite a lot of people who used filament on that surface level uh may be quite surprised by what filament can do and maybe they want to go deeper. So that's one audience and then another audience uh would be those who haven't tried or maybe they tried other admin panels like Nova, like backpack uh and uh others uh which maybe like that audience may be surprised by again what filament can do can offer and maybe they would be um like motivated to try for their projects because with any new tool for example I see the same thing with native PHP P. Now native PHP is great and I have a course about that and I've talked about that on my YouTube but until you try you kind of have disbelief in a way like is that for me? Can it do this or that? So if my mobile app has something some features is it good? And and until you actually try you're not sure. So same with filament I want to show people who haven't tried that it is possible. It is relatively easy to start well to start it's very easy but it's relatively easy to go like level two and then for those who want to go level three and beyond then I will show a few examples on top. Mhm. I love that too and I think it makes sense as well and especially like what you said about native PHP like you can see the tool but until you like try it you can't really understand what it's going to do. So you could see it and just come up with some assumption like oh well this won't work for what I'm trying to do but you don't really know unless you like dive into the docs and start trying to build it you know and that thing takes time so to actually try native PHP to me took quite a lot of time because well it's a new thing I'm not a mobile developer originally so I had to like learn a lot of things along the way how to how to do stuff with mobile and how to even test that and uh basically to create some application with whatever framework or tool uh to understand it you have to you cannot just give AI agent like well you can now technically but then you have no control over over the code or the outcome so to try any new framework or tool and this is by the way what I've been doing on Laravel Daily and especially now with my third channel AI coding daily I even coined kind of a phrase on my YouTube kind of header uh which says says I will try AI tools so you don't have to because to try any new tool it takes effort it takes time it may fail uh you may misunderstand something so yeah for many years I've been a guy trying out the plugins trying out the new features of Larl so for example tomorrow I'm planning to shoot a video about pass keys so the new like sexy feature for pass keys and starter kits but I'm pretty sure a lot of people don't even how that works like fundamentally the past keys. So for them to try it out, it would take effort. So I want to be that guy still after 10 years uh on YouTube. I still want to be the guy who transforms the information. I try out things. I demo simple projects. I show the examples and show like the minimum things people need to know so they wouldn't spend hours deep diving just to understand the thing. So, I will probably try to do the same with filament on Laracon US stage. Yeah, I love that you're taking like something that you've kind of become known for, right, on your channels and stuff and like bringing it into your Laracon US talk, too. And then we have Graham here. Hi, Graham. Graham will be at Laraveville Live UK. Great. See there. See you there. Bernardo, hello. Um, he met you last year at Denver. Cool. Yeah, last year my first Laron US not as a speaker and that American energy is like something else. So I really enjoy that was um so that was your first ever Laracon US was last year and first time ever in US in general. Yeah. So Oh man. So that that was something and also now I've seen Laracon US and US for the first time and then I saw India for the first time this year. Uh, and then I've been to a lot of floweron US, uh, EU and then UK. So, so different cultures, but so awesome in their own ways. Uh, so I'm I'm enjoying traveling, not traveling that much. So, traveling, for example, with family to to southern Europe like Italy or Spain is like one type of traveling. and the conferences all over the world like talk to my people, people who do stuff, who are creative, who are passionate, who are energetic, but that energy is a bit different uh depending on the culture, but still after every Laracon or Laravel or even local meetup. So, I've been traveling locally now. I've been to Laran meetup in Austria in Denmark. Uh so kind of close to me. So I always come back so like pumped about like doing more videos as well but also creating tools about whatever I do. But uh like it brings me so much passion when I come back. So much energy. Yeah, I feel the same way. I always feel like really like recharged after and it makes me want to just like go and like build side projects and create things. But what would you say was your favorite part of Laron US last year? Like what feelings did you take away from attending LARCON US last year? Um well it was huge like thousand people or something like that. I think like 1500. Oh really? Wow. I didn't know the official number. It felt like a thousand. Oh wow. It was even more. Uh and to be honest I was always in the hall. I've listened to just a few talks like Caleb's and a few more like official Taylor of course. Uh which was too long. I remember it was like they had to present so many new things. It was like painfully too long. It was almost like two hours I think. Like it went over I think it was. Yeah. So but it was great but yeah but yeah uh so that's a separate topic but anyway I spent most of the time just talking to people or people approaching me who saw me in live mode for the first time. So the vibe but this is not only about Laracon US. is about every Laracon but I guess in in US people are more like they're approaching more actively they are more as I said energetic but there were people not only from US of course but people are more um actively engaging in conversations they're more active so I didn't even have too much time to like be on on my own like just to think about it people were constantly approaching me and I saw so any friends that I've met personally for the first time and also last year there were so many like OGs like Jeffrey way Adam Watton uh Caleb um Laravel shift Jason so like so many people I like wanted to say hi and of course Laravel core team which is now hard hard to even know who is on Laravel core team who isn't or isn't yet so it's it's it's a blur line so talked to a lot of uh people in addition to Taylor and Taylor of course. So my personal general feeling about Laracons in general is you meet people you talk shop but you also talk about things outside of Laravel. Uh I'm personally interested in business side like how how's it going for example with Laravel shift like the the revenue the income. So uh because I'm I can consider myself a businessman because I also have income from like courses and tools about Laravel. So I'm interested in that part uh as well. So so many conversations where you don't have such conversations on Twitter or YouTube basically anywhere you you can ask questions and you should of course if you attend any larons you should approach people even if you don't speak English that well that shouldn't be the barrier. Uh I know it's hard but yeah it shouldn't be the barrier. Uh and I come back with so many ideas just because I have so many conversations. So this is my alarm. I'm I mean I know a lot of people who just come to sit and listen to the talks which is another way to do that. is nothing really bad, but I usually take away much more from real outside conversations outside of official stage conversations because you see a lot of basically backstage. You see why people do things, you see the reason behind decisions around something. So, some partnerships even happen like uh I see like Dan from Filament last year talked to Taylor and probably Taylor recognized Filament as as a thing more uh after they talk. So, a lot of things are happening in the hallway basically. People become friends and of course there's after parties, pre-parties, a lot of events. So the whole Laracon experience is like the stage talks as much as people work hard on those and I will work hard on those uh on my talk. Uh my main like advice for people or my takeaway is talk to as many people as possible especially people who you are friends with or who you follow online because that's the unique experience and unique opportunity for you to ask them something or just to say hi. uh and also so many opportunities happen after LACons. I see so many people getting like hired, getting partnerships, getting deals, getting speaker engagements, getting uh just working together, going on streams. Uh like yeah, happen just because people talk. So and and Laravel community is again I've been to other conferences is unbelievably friendly and warm warm welcoming like you can go we have not we but I mean at Larons it's always emphasize so-called Pac-Man rule so when you stand in circle talking to people you have when someone is approaching you have to uh make space as in Pac-Man shape for someone to get into the circle and talk. Yeah. So this is one one of the things um and yeah so everyone is friendly and welcome and this is what what makes Lara cons special in addition to talks and in addition to stage experience. No I love that and I think so many Larbell employees and probably community members um agree to like I always say I think the hallway track is like the most valuable part of any conference especially Laracon uses. It's just like building those connections with people and I kind of credit Laracon US 2024 for me getting hired at Laravel and I was like scared to talk to people but it's like the talks and stuff there at Laracon US and the community made me fall in love with Laravel even more and so then I started like posting about it and building with it more and then also reached out to Taylor like push back did and ended up here. Um, but definitely the hallway track is very invaluable. And then what would you say that you are most excited for for Laracon US this year in Boston? I think I want to talk to more people about AI as much as some people are like tired of that topic. But I think uh the question in the air will be like where do we go from here? uh and no one knows the answer and I want to have more conversations with people around that uh and I know the core team is passionate with again Laravel boost we mentioned. So I think uh I want to get some ideas about like where do I go from here personally with content and Laravel in general and and where do we go as as community as developer profession back end or front end or whatever or content creators in general or Twitter social networks. So for example Twitter became really much worse in terms of algorithms. So it isn't that like sexy to be on Twitter, but it's still number one place where they release and announce everything, but there's no like real alternative. So that's why I want to talk to a lot of people who I don't talk to on Twitter anymore because they're not there anymore. Uh I know I know quite a lot of people who left Twitter and left social media altogether. Um like come back after the year was Ian Lansman who came back on Twitter after like left for for a while. Uh, so yeah, I think Chris did too. Chris Morel, because he was off for a while. He was on Blue Sky. Yeah, right. Yeah, I didn't realize that and maybe I wasn't following that actively, but yeah, you're probably right. Uh, so yeah, I want to talk to a lot of people about AI and how do they do things with Laravel, but not necessarily because there are so many ways how to approach things, what tools to use, what like IDs and hardnesses and models and their versions and stuff like that. So uh the same hallway track but uh related to AI will be probably my uh what I'm expecting and what I'm waiting for and probably for a lot of people as well. A lot of people are currently now in a weird weird mode with like uncertainty about our future. So yeah, this is I think and even last year we talked with Jeffrey way like in 2025 and we were like patting each other on the back like hard times coming brother. So yeah. So so so what changed in a year? We'll see. I'm uh I'm excited to talk about that specific topic in the hallway. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think you're right. I think a lot of people like are wanting to kind of know the same things too. Also, hi Harris. Harris. Yeah. Hi. Hi Sid. Sakawat. Shakawat I think. Welcome in. Oh, we have Florian. You're late. Florian. Hello. Hotel. Hotel. Leia. Okay. No, we have hotel. My Laravel backpack in the background. Like a San Francisco tech bro. my San Francisco hotel. Um, but what would you So, we're gonna start kind of wrapping up. We have three or some more minutes left. For anyone who might be on the fence about attending Laracon US, what would you say to them? Um if you think that Laracon US is just a set of talks that you can buy ticket for and listen to 20 talks uh you underestimate the experience of Laracon US because uh or any Laracon again US is probably special because it's kind of the official home and probably the biggest one with the most amount of stars that you can meet. But also it starts just go to Laracon website and see how many events are happening. There's day zero. I'm not sure if there's maybe day minus one at this point. So I'm traveling like a few days before. And I'm like last year it started like two days before. So it starts at the hotel. You meet people. Uh then you go um go for beer. Then you have like golf or whatever. They have dodgeball this year. Then there's after party, pre-party. uh and uh also while you're standing in line for example uh before entering Laracon you have like 10 conversations even there the same hallway track uh so so it's not that much or not only about the talks so you're buying a ticket to experience uh to meet so many people that are probably passionate about Laravel or about web development in general as much as you are and you could consider of course it's not really a cheap thing but you can actually consider that as investment in your career because as I mentioned already there are so many opportunities happening after after the conference if you are active of course you shouldn't be like salesy and then pushing your your your product or your like message but still those conversations meeting people I mean after my first LAN I came back different person and it's still happening every year now I'm more into the community, more well-known person. But since the very first year, I was so inspired and uh and just yeah came back different person with so much energy to do whatever you want to do. Is it your like project freelancing or something or creating content or or maybe applying to work at Laravel core team? Who knows? So Laracon US and Laracons in general is not about the talks only. So you're paying for a lot of experience and you and you will probably get tired. So you will come back energetic but physically so tired especially if you come from like abroad with long flights. Uh but yeah so many ideas should be in your head after Laracon. So that that would be my reason like my pitch that I'm not getting paid for but hopefully it will convince someone. No, I love it though. And like you said, it's expanding and expanding. Like I think the native PHP team is even doing like an event the day after. By the way, I will be there if anyone attends Laron US. I will be at their vibes event that because I have like before my flight, I have the full day to spend. So I will be there with the guys. So you can buy again. I'm not getting paid for that, but you can buy. You're just good at marketing. After so many years. I have to. That's like that became part of what I do. I'll say hi Adam. Uh he said the networking alone is worth the cost of the ticket. Yes. Again, if you're active at networking, you should not be afraid to to approach people and everyone's very nice. That was my thing about the Laravel community. They're so nice. Like when I went, I was a JavaScript developer. I like had finished the Laravel boot camp the day before Lar US 2024. So, I was like, I don't really know Laravel or like I didn't really use PHP much either. So, I was like, I'm gonna be an imposttor. They're going to smell JavaScript on me. No one's going to want to talk to me. And everyone was like super nice. I felt like I was adopted. I had like the Larels showing you and even last year I remember someone came from like Ruby community or or like totally orn net I don't remember who it was and and where from like totally different people separate people or someone came just to uh to the mostly technical uh meet with Aaron and Ian totally not Laravel developers but supporting the community vibe or just live nearby so you don't you don't have to be a Laravel developer even to come to Laracon in general the community is friendly and welcoming and that that those hallway tracks are not necessarily about Laravel or PHP at all. It may be about business talking shop and kids and families and stuff like that. Mhm. Yeah, I agree. I've gotten some of my JavaScript friends to come too. Um, but this website I have pinned here, Laron. Uh, to buy your ticket for Laron US, which is in Boston this year, July 28th and 29th. But also on the website, we have listed all of the community events. So that's where you can see the schedule for like day zero for dodgeball. Um you should be able to see the events like for Larrom which is the mostly technical pre-conference party as well as uh Laravel's meetup and stuff like that. And then you can uh select the day so you can see the different events on that day as well. So that's the website that you would go for that. But thank you everyone for watching the stream. Thank you Pilis for being on the stream. Do you have any kind of closing words you'd want to say and where people can find you online? Uh, well, my YouTube channel, Laravel Daily, and everything starts from there. So, on that channel, I I will talk about everything else I do, I guess. Let me trying to get the link. So, oh, it's a YouTube YouTube comar. Yep, this one. I got andaily.com if you want to support me and buy courses, but that wasn't my uh my intention here. One second. I can still drop the link. you marketed for Laracon. We can market for you. Yeah. So, you said I'm good at marketing. I'm actually pretty bad at marketing. Here is your Twitter and then larville.com. Thank you, Leah. There you go. Yeah, thank you all for being here. Please follow Pavilus and if you would like to talk to him, be sure to be at Laravel Live UK where you can talk to him there as well as Laron us that we talked about here. And thank you all. Bye. Thank you guys. See you.