Reaching industrial economies of scale

19 snips

Mar 12, 2025

Beyang Liu discusses how AI is revolutionizing software development, with Sourcegraph's tools like Cody enhancing team efficiency. The conversation dives into challenges of managing large codebases and the psychological impact of AI on productivity. From automating code reviews to streamlining repetitive tasks, AI is making coding more enjoyable. They also explore the complexities of scaling teams, stressing the importance of balancing size with efficiency. Join the discussion about the future of coding in a rapidly evolving tech landscape!

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Software Diseconomies of Scale

Software engineering, unlike other industries, experiences diseconomies of scale.
Larger codebases often lead to decreased productivity, hindering innovation and creating a cycle of disruption.

ANECDOTE

Sourcegraph's Origin

Beyang Liu's motivation for Sourcegraph stemmed from his experience at Palantir, where he worked with complex codebases.
He aimed to bridge the gap between the joy of side projects and the toil of large-scale software development.

INSIGHT

Vision and Persistence

Beyang Liu's vision for Sourcegraph involved consistently addressing codebase complexity.
This persistence led to the development of AI agents that enhance software development.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Beyang Liu, the CTO & Co-founder of Sourcegraph is back on the pod. Adam and Beyang go deep on the idea of “industrializing software development” using AI agents, using AI in general, using code generation. So much is happening in and around AI and Sourcegraph continues to innovate again and again. From their editor assistant called Cody, to Code Search, to AI agents, to Batch Changes, they’re really helping software teams to industrialize the process, the inner and the outer loop, of being a software developer on high performance teams with large codebases.

Join the discussion

Changelog++ members get a bonus 9 minutes at the end of this episode and zero ads. Join today!

Sponsors:

Retool – The low-code platform for developers to build internal tools — Some of the best teams out there trust Retool…Brex, Coinbase, Plaid, Doordash, LegalGenius, Amazon, Allbirds, Peloton, and so many more – the developers at these teams trust Retool as the platform to build their internal tools. Try it free at retool.com/changelog
Augment Code – Developer AI that uses deep understanding of your large codebase and how you build software to deliver personalized code suggestions and insights. Augment provides relevant, contextualized code right in your IDE or Slack. It transforms scattered knowledge into code or answers, eliminating time spent searching docs or interrupting teammates.
Temporal – Build invincible applications. Manage failures, network outages, flaky endpoints, long-running processes and more, ensuring your workflows never fail. Register for Replay in London, March 3-5 to break free from the status quo.
Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps close to your users — global Anycast load-balancing, zero-configuration private networking, hardware isolation, and instant WireGuard VPN connections. Push-button deployments that scale to thousands of instances. Check out the speedrun to get started in minutes.

Featuring:

Beyang Liu – GitHub, X
Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

Show Notes:

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!