Guest Host: Kelsey Hightower — Why IaC Alone Isn’t Enough

5 snips

Oct 8, 2025

In this engaging discussion, Cory O'Daniel, CEO of Massdriver and co-founder of OpenTofu, shares his expertise from two decades as a software architect. He tackles the challenges of Infrastructure as Code, emphasizing why having great Terraform modules isn't enough without clear upstream decisions. Cory explains how to prevent choice overload in cloud configurations and introduces innovative ways to combine IaC with user experience and SLAs. Their conversation also highlights how to safely automate infrastructure choices while reducing complexity.

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ANECDOTE

Early Data Center Migration Sparked Automation

Cory O'Daniel migrated a full data center to AWS early and built a custom configuration tool before GitHub existed.
That experience drove him to automate cloud infrastructure and later inspired MassDriver.

INSIGHT

Knowledge Overload Blocks IaC Adoption

Too much expectation gets placed on individuals to know every cloud detail like IAM, VPCs, and cost tuning.
This knowledge burden is the root cause of slow IaC adoption and scaling problems.

ANECDOTE

Running Video At Massive Edge Scale

Cory described running content and video streaming across thousands of remote Dell servers and using BitTorrent-like distribution.
That startup taught him to solve large-scale deployment and distribution problems early in cloud history.

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Ever wonder why strong Terraform modules still lead to long review queues and fragile pipelines? From hand-built scripts and early data center migrations to cloud sprawl and Kubernetes, configuration management has changed a lot - but the core struggle remains: too many decisions, not enough guardrails. Guest host Kelsey Hightower sits down with Cory O’Daniel to unpack where Infrastructure as Code succeeds and where teams get stuck.

What you’ll learn:

How to avoid “choice overload” in cloud configs by moving decisions upstream
Practical ways to pair IaC with UX, policies, and SLAs to reduce toil
When click-ops is a symptom, not the problem - and how to replace it safely
Patterns for scaling platform practices beyond a handful of experts
A simple mental model for mapping workflows across serverless, containers, and VMs

Guest Host: Kelsey Hightower

Kelsey has worn every hat possible throughout his career in tech and enjoys leadership roles focused on making things happen and shipping software. Prior to his retirement, he was a Distinguished Engineer at Google, where he worked on Google Cloud Platform. He is a strong open source advocate with a focus on building great software as well as great communities around them. He is also an accomplished author and keynote speaker with a knack for demystifying complex topics, doing live demos and enabling others to succeed. When he is not writing code, you can catch him giving technical workshops covering everything from programming to system administration.

Guest: Cory O'Daniel, CEO and Co-Founder of Massdriver and Co-Founder of OpenTofu

Cory has been a software architect and engineer for 20 years, leading up to the founding of MassDriver. He's also a husband and the father of two kids.

Cory O'Daniel, X

Cory O'Daniel, Medium

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