Meet the pioneering team of Sinper: Yu Zou, Jose Vazquez, Roger Torres, and Manny Perez. Under Manny’s leadership, this dedicated group focused on TM1 with a hands-on approach, building solutions and protocols independently. Their commitment to excellence and innovation has kept the core principles of IBM Planning Analytics/TM1 consistent over the years.

Yuzu, drawn to TM1’s technology and Manny’s intellectual honesty, joined in 1995 after earning his PhD in physics. His interest in the technology and the office location in Warrenville, New Jersey, made Sinper an ideal choice for him.

Jose, with his computer science background from Cuba, joined in 1996. He was intrigued by the challenge of multidimensional databases and became an essential part of the team’s innovative efforts.

Roger, Manny’s cousin, was impressed by Manny’s hands-on style and the trust he placed in his team. After moving to the US, Roger joined Sinper, contributing significantly to the team’s success.

The team’s early work involved creating protocol stacks from scratch and fixing bugs, with each member specialising in key areas: Roger on rules and feeders, Yuzu on releases, and Jose on bug fixes. Manny’s philosophy of maintaining a small, talented team has been central to Sinper’s success and growth.

Explore their journey in our 7-episode series, where we dive deep into their experiences and contributions.

(disclaimer: this transcript has been automatically transcribed so it may contain errors)

Maybe we just. First of all, thanks for coming here today. This is really an honour. And I guess maybe a good way to start the conversation here is just to get a sense from each of you your origin story with TM1 and Sinper and Manny. I guess maybe it’s easy to start on the left and go clockwise here. So, Yu Zou, when did you enter the scene?

I joined in late, like 1995 with Sinper. Back then it was still Sinper. I had, I think, about six, five, six months before that, I just finished my PhD with physics. So I was doing the postdoc at the time. But most of the people I know or I work with, they all started to go industry because they big accelerator they’re going to build. They decide not to build anymore.

So they all started going industry. And most of the people on the east coast is going to Wall street. On the west coast, they go to software firms. So I was kind of like going to join those people into, you know, maybe find something in Wall street. So I send out my resumes and one day, what kind of job at Wall street would that be? They would be quantitative analysis, right?

Yeah. So they essentially help with the price models, like the options and things like that, because there was some high demand people with hard science or math degrees. And they tend to like people like that. So I was kind of, like, interested in those because most of the people I know is going there. But then, you know, I got somebody gave me a call to say, you know what?

There’s a technology company kind of like in your backyard, and you want to check it out. So, you know, I applied and they set it up. So I had an interview with the. With people in the Sinper and the. The people who are they? Well, Manuel was there, Maria, and Roger’s already there. Oh, right, okay. Yeah, Roger’s already there. And I think there’s Greg, Richard, Richard, who’s on the marketing, who’s the president of marketing, VP of marketing, and also Carol and Nancy.

And I think they’re on the accounting office management. So they all interviewed you? Well, I came in like one versus seven kind of thing. Well, they’re not really. Interview, interview. I went to say hello to everyone, but I think definitely Roger, Maria and Manny, probably also Greg. They need to have. They will render opinion. I did not know, but. So back then, there were two people on the server on the development?

Yeah, there’s Manny and Roger, I think Roger has joined several months prior. I had done. I mean, so I think the reason I got on there are three things that’s kind of really kind of like strike with me. One is the technology is very, very interesting. During my data analysis for my work in academia, I was doing something for multivariate analysis. And so I was using a package called Interpols.

And it’s really for packing data, but it’s more not sparse data, but it’s just like multivariate data and use it to do data analysis. So I was very interested in multivariate stuff. And so this technology comes along and it’s very interesting to me. And, you know, I think the interview, I would say, went well because I eventually got hired. But the conversation was Manny, was very interesting, and I’ve seen a lot of people, but Manny was striking me from the very beginning because this intellectual honesty about him, and that is quite rare.

You can clearly see he knows his stuff, but he’s curious, but he’s honest. And so it was quite interesting. It’s just like, you know, I kind of like, would like to work with somebody like that. And I think the third factor is that our office was in a very pretty area. It’s in a small town called Warrenville in New Jersey. It’s in the valley. And so I went there in late October, and they had, I guess, the full display of full autumn colours, gold and red, the whole venues.

So it’s quite sublime. So I think I came away and said, you know, wow, this is really interesting. They’re paying me peanuts at the time compared to what you would get to work on the Wall street forms. Did you understand what multidimensional databases were? If you were looking at multivariate databases, was that close enough? To what? Well, no, but I didn’t do my own research at that time.

As soon as I had the first interview, I got some. They actually give me a disc of the TM1, disc that you can install. Oh, yeah? Like what we have here. Yeah, no, kind of like this. Kind of like this. But I think it’s maybe version four. I also done some research at that time, as the internet was coming up. I was only, you know, in academia you have access to all those things.

So I studied airspace study like commissaire, and I actually played with TM1, and I come up with this. This is really good technology. And I also really like, they’re all in memory. And I was just, to me, to be honest with you, many years later, when people talk about server anything, they say, I have a server, but this stuff is on disc to me, that’s not a server.

All right. Server means it’s only in memory. Wow. Later on I changed my mind. It was, that was it kind of novel. It wasn’t like there weren’t that much software database at the time. I don’t have much experience. Industry experience. Right. All I have was on the academia. I was hired mostly because at that time they needed to do a conversion. They have just signed the deal, wanted to make it available on Unix.

And I had a lot of experience doing Unix stuff. I think it’s fair to say at that time they’re simple. Did not have anybody know Unix at all. So I had a pretty rich experience on Unix. So the first job I got actually is the task is that get it to work on Solaris. On the Solaris? Yeah, sun Solaris. Yeah. So this is a side note. So I actually knew that we did not have a compiler on Solaris.

And so I actually got a at that time, also like this gets installed in Linux on the PC and get the DM model to work on Linux first, then convert it to Solaris. Right. Okay. So that’s how I get started, I guess. I mean, the technology is amazing, right? So you like, you were like amazed by the technology right from the beginning. I guess when you saw it for the first time on your disc, you just install it yourself really quick and just start using it at home.

Yeah, I want to know how we’re doing this. And also that, you know, the timeline ideas that you go to industry. You want to pick a product that has real potential. Sure. Right. And with the right people. So, yeah, I figured it’s a good product, good experience. It gave me started on the industry. I definitely did not expect that we just keep working on it. But it was, I’ll be honest, most of the stuff, I usually get bored with the sense, but TM1 has not been boring.

Never been boring. Still not boring. Yes, it’s never boring. Nice one. Okay, well, maybe with that we’ll come back. I’m sure there’s a lot more to talk about there, but. Yeah, maybe just with Jose. Maybe give us the. Your origin story at Sinper. TM1 and Manny. Yeah, I started. I started at Sinper when it was the summer of 1996. And I had just came to US in Cuba.

And it was through a friend back then, a friend of a friend he was going to give me. He was going to do something for Manny, for Sinper. He was going to do a work for him and he was going to hire me. But then Manny decided to do it himself with the company, he said, do you want me to send them your resume? And I said, yeah, sure.

And, yeah, and I won an interview with. When I got there, these two guys were already there, and he actually went to see me at home. Remember that? And I guess that was a little bit of interview there. Asked me a few questions. He just showed up your front door kind of thing. Showed up on front door knock and said, hey, you already had, like, a programming background or something like that?

Well, yeah, computer science. Graduated from computer science in Cuba. All right. So I was just right out of college this came here. I was looking to do something. And, yeah, I really didn’t know. Didn’t know anything about multidimensional databases. All you study college is relational database, and it’s all on disc. So, yeah, to me, it was all new. It was like all this memory. Yeah, I don’t know if they teach anything in college right now, those things, but back then, it was just relational wise databases.

So, to me, having all this stuff in memory was like, what stuff in memory, really? So, yeah, it takes a learning process, learning curve, to learn everything in TM1. So, yeah, so I went there, interview with Manny Yu Zhu and a couple of other people there, and, yeah, one day Manny called me and said, hey, I’m gonna give you. And I was like, I was thrilled. How was your English back then?

I. It was okay, I guess. Jose, English is always pretty good. Yeah, it was okay. But I remember I knew in college we had books in English. Most of the programming books were in English. The math books were Spanish, because there were teachers there that had their own publications. But all the books and programming books were in English. So I knew how to read English. It was pretty good.

And it was hard to, you know, listen to and speak. Those are. Those are hard. But it didn’t take me long, I think. I think it was pretty good. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, back then, Manny, like I said, Manny. Call me one day and say, want to work for me? Say, yeah, sure. And, yeah. It was that easy, huh? Yeah. And, yeah, one of the things I liked was that after a while, I realised this is a big piece of software, and I like the people.

I like Manny a lot, and Yu Zhu, Roger, everybody there was like, great. So I was, you know, what’s not to like? I ended up working there for the next twelve years, I think. Yeah, nice one. Okay, well, nice one, I guess. We like you. Were you predated both of these guys? So maybe tell your. Your origin story. Yeah, please, Roger. So I knew Manny since my childhood because we’re basically related.

We’re first cousins. Moved because my father is what, actually his first cousin. Yeah. What’s your earliest memory of Manny? Just hearing stories. Stories about Manny, the guy, the little kid that was kind of a genius. He skipped I don’t know how many grades in Cuba, primary and secondary school. And he came to the US and some gossip, family gossip, guess. You know, people exaggerate and say, hey, now he works for NASA and he has bodyguards.

You know, he’s kind of this big personality, really. And so, you know, you had this kind of a. He was already kind of famous, in a way, in the family. Yeah. You kind of look forward to meet the guy. Right? And my aunt came to visit, I think around 92, 93, and, you know, they reconnected after like 20 years of not seeing each other. They, you know, they played when they were kids and then revolution happened and family got separated and all that, so they reconnected and they were, you know, just talking about, you know, family back in Cuba and, you know, kids and all that.

And when she came back, you know, she told me all about Manny, you know, he’s. No, he doesn’t work for NASA. You know, he’s a normal guy and he’s. He has a software company and, you know, you like that. So maybe, you know, someday, you know, you can, you know, get to know each other and you can. And, you know, in 94, I left Cuba. I went to Sweden, and Manny called me and say, hey, I know you’re there.

If you ever get to make it to the US, we can work together, whatever we just discussed. Was that always your plan? Yeah, I was kind of. My goal was to come to the US and, you know, I was trained as electrical engineer, electronics, automatic control. And I had some basic, you know, programming skills, but not formal programming. Right. Like, you know, learning about. About algorithms and databases and things like that.

So. So, yeah, I mean, when I came to the US, we met and we discussed the idea of joining this company. And it kind of happened when I started looking at these things. I remember these boxes and manuals and all I had was a bunch of questions because I didn’t know anything about not only databases, but imagine multidimensional databases and sparsity and all that. It was all brand new to me, but it was.

I mean, it sounded very interesting. It sounded like rocket science. I don’t know. Was Manny trying to sell it to you back then? No, it was kind of a, you know, let’s do this. You know, I guess he was trying to help, help me, you know, offer me a job. And I needed a job, so I guess it was, it was more like a, you know, family thing than a professional thing.

Right, right. But I moved to Jersey and I actually lived with Manny for a few weeks until I found my own place. And then it was like going from zero to 16 in like, I don’t know, two, three months. I had to learn everything. And well, I knew programming, I knew C, I knew the compilers and actually debugging and all that, which was kind of a, kind of, I guess my early contribution to TM1 was introducing like a visual debugger because everything was, you know, Manny was used to do all the debugging with traces and console logs and all that.

And then I said, hey, there is this Watcom compiler with a visual debugger. Let’s use this, because I used that before. So I mean, that was like, I was like, oh, you know, one, I score one. It was mostly learning. I mean, he was, I mean, we were all young, like, you know, fresh out of college, learning a lot of things, not only, you know, professional, but, but in life.

And I mean, in general, how to, how to live in, in a country that was new to us, new language, all that. So it was pretty new. You, were you kind of new to the US as well or. Well, I’ve been in US for quite some time because I did, I did my study, physics study in US. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it was more like, you know, Jose. Jose.

I mean, that’s. But in terms of professional work as a developer, I did not, I did a lot of data analysis. So you do use computers and stuff. The language is different. It was fortunate mostly, but it’s very, you know, when you’re in academia, the finance is more. You build stuff ad hoc. It’s complicated, but ad hoc for what you need to. And this is like a commercial software, so you ship it out for customer to use.

So that was different. Yeah. So did like you guys have to learn from Manny, like how to do all this stuff? Like how did he, how did he work with you guys back then? When you’re just college, Manny never press the cases, never trying to say, I’m teaching you something. Yeah. Or is like, you know, lecture you or anything. Basically say, you know, get to work. Yeah, he was work.

You get started, you have question, you ask. Yeah, really? Pretty much. He does not request to review it, but you want him to review it. And we review each other’s code as well, but it’s just that, you know, it gives you big responsibility. Start right from the beginning. Yeah. Manny is very trusting. Oh yeah. And he let you go do your thing. But I think that he was a natural mentor.

Like you know, he was someone who could, you know, kind of sense the, your, you know, your capabilities and say hey you could do this, take this, do it. And he was observing all the time and then he will have very, you know, long, long talks about what you were doing and why and understanding the principles behind everything. And then just the technical aspect of it, the syntax and all that.

That’s something that you learn that’s mechanical. It’s more like understanding the foundation of everything you do. I think we all started giving a pretty big responsibility to do something and the challenge is a little different for each of us. But he has a eye for talent to begin with and then he see like you say, he knows what you can do but then you automatically go ask because the task is daunting.

So I speak from my own experience. They have this large code base, they wanted to move to Linux and there is a lot of challenges. The compiler is different. Like we’re talking about big Indians, small Indian. The architecture is different. So he just let me go in to make changes everywhere and I was scared. Wow. Yeah. Okay, so I make all those changes, go back, this looks okay, right?

Because you can’t, you don’t see the result in this for like a month or two and you’re making all kinds of changes and you take a look, discuss what you’re trying to do and say just keep going. So that’s pretty amazing, right? Yeah. And I mean remember this is 1995 so Internet is brand new. We’re still using those slow modems. Nobody knows about anything about HTML or TCP/IP or I mean we were building protocol stacks from scratch.

Just coding, just looking at the manuals, looking at the protocol specs. Like TCP/IP is this buffer with four bytes mean this and then the next two bytes is that and you have to build it. There’s no libraries, no libraries, nothing, nothing. It’s just a spec and you have to build the library. So we build that for TCP/IP, for APX, NetBIOS and all that because we had to support all of them.

And then we had to support different flavours of Unix and Windows and we have to create our own protocols. I mean today people speak about Protobuf and gRPC and all that which has, you know very nice standards everywhere, use them and rest APIs and all that. There was no such a thing in 1995. So we have to invent all that. We didn’t coin it with a fancy name like, you know, RESTt or JRPG, but it was that.

Yeah, we were reading right on the port, hooking up to the port, reading the bytes. There was a Windows socket library from Microsoft, very archaic one, and we had to kind of patch it with things to make it work. That’s true. So was it just the four of you then, at that time? Was it, like the three of you plus Manny kind of thing doing like. I guess Manny was still hands on, also, like, programming at that time, Manny was focused on rules and feeders.

Of rules and feeders. And we’re doing the. I think I know Roger started to work on the network mostly. You know, Roger did a lot of work there. And I think I quickly take over the, you know, all the release related stuff and all the build and release, you know, code base. And I think in terms of, you know, client. Well, the other biggest thing is that everybody fix bugs.

You start from the beginning. You’re given, whether you or not, you’re given a, you know, maybe challenging defects to work on. And, you know, you have to figure out step by step before you even know the code, how to work it and all that. So he’s a big believer, really. So it’s like any bug. It could be any bug anywhere in the code. He would just hand it to any one of you to go pick from the list.

Oh, really? You’re picking from the list? There’s a new picking. He gave me the. My first job in there, remember, was like, oh, there was something wrong here. You fix it. And it was like, well, go fix it. This is what happened. What’s happening? Go fix it. It’s not the same as the server per se, because I remember the first defect I had to fix was one, two, three.

Notice. One, two, three. The first one I fixed was in perspectives in excel. Yeah, excel. So I did it a bunch of. I remember my first book. I was still in Miami. I got a brand new computer, and I install everything. And then I call me and say, hey, I have everything installed. It’s working here. Okay, go to the menu. You see that? That’s a bug. Fix it.

Yeah. So something like that night I went and you put the board on. Yeah. It was like a little menu that you click and nothing happened. Just make it happen. It’s a little partially because there is not a lot of people, a lot of hands. So everybody, you know, going anywhere. And I think he probably, in his mind already thought that we are all going to be, you know, the whole thing about the engine, about the product.

Right. And he’s a big believer that a database engine like TM1 cannot be done with a lot of people, a lot of hands. He always say it needs a few good hands. Very few very good hands. So that’s his belief. Yeah. I think, you know, I’ve asked most of the people who had joined to participate, probably with the exception of Redmass, most other people they joined has not really go into the core.

Right. I mean, Redmass definitely did, and I guess Xiang Dao did too. Right. But, like, you know, so that core that Manny had, like, created originally is still pretty close to what it was back then. Well, I mean, work ideas are there still. Yeah, the idea is still there, but the rules has not. I mean, like Roger saying he was dealing with rules at that time. Yeah, right.

The rule hasn’t changed much.