Some reflections on running the podcast and Ronak has some eggciting news to share :)   Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

Bryan Cantrill, co-founder of Oxide, and Steve Tuck, who specializes in manufacturing software for server racks, dive into their innovative approach to server solutions. They share intriguing insights about the challenges of unboxing and shipping hardware. Discover the importance of custom manufacturing software and the pitfalls of rushing to market. They discuss the #1 reason startups fail and emphasize the need for empathy in sales. Plus, hear a heartwarming full-circle story of their initial meeting, wrapping up a fascinating conversation!

Simon Willison, co-creator of Django and Datasette, shares insights on navigating the world of LLMs. He compares LLMs to a quirky intern and discusses their evolution, emphasizing the importance of blogging for accountability. Simon dives into productive use of GitHub issues for documentation, and the nuances of prompt engineering. He also reflects on how LLMs can foster ambition in developers while addressing their limitations. Finally, he shares the exciting journey of developing a startup with his partner, blending personal and professional life.

Steve Yegge, a Silicon Valley veteran known for his impactful writings, shares insights on his personal journey through an 'AI Midlife Crisis.' He humorously explores the power of rants and the patience required for recognition in tech writing. Yegge discusses his unique writing process, the evolution of programming, and the future of coding assistants, emphasizing the importance of context in AI. He also touches on mental health challenges faced by innovators, revealing how struggles can drive growth and adaptation in a changing landscape.

A veteran of early Twitter's fail whale wars, Dmitriy joins the show to chat about the time when 70% of the Hadoop cluster got accidentally deleted, the financial reality of writing a book, and how to navigate acquisitions. Segments: (00:00:00) The Infamous Hadoop Outage (00:02:36) War Stories from Twitter's Early Days (00:04:47) The Fail Whale Era (00:06:48) The Hadoop Cluster Shutdown (00:12:20) “First Restore the Service Then Fix the Problem. Not the Other Way Around.” (00:14:10) War Rooms and Organic Decision-Making (00:16:16) The Importance of Communication in Incident Management (00:19:07) That Time When the Data Center Caught Fire (00:21:45) The "Best Email Ever" at Twitter (00:25:34) The Importance of Failing (00:27:17) Distributed Systems and Error Handling (00:29:49) The Missing README (00:33:13) Agile and Scrum (00:38:44) The Financial Reality of Writing a Book (00:43:23) Collaborative Writing Is Like Open-Source Coding (00:44:41) Finding a Publisher and the Role of Editors (00:50:33) Defining the Tone and Voice of the Book (00:54:23) Acquisitions from an Engineer's Perspective (00:56:00) Integrating Acquired Teams (01:02:47) Technical Due Diligence (01:04:31) The Reality of System Implementation (01:06:11) Integration Challenges and Gotchas Show Notes: - Dmitriy Ryaboy on Twitter: https://x.com/squarecog - The Missing README: https://www.amazon.com/Missing-README-Guide-Software-Engineer/dp/1718501838 - Chris Riccomini on how to write a technical book: https://cnr.sh/essays/how-to-write-a-technical-book Stay in touch: - Make Ronak's day by signing up for our newsletter to get our favorites parts of the convo straight to your inbox every week :D https://softwaremisadventures.com/ Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

Adam Gordon Bell, host of the CoRecursive podcast, discusses the hidden power of storytelling in engineering. He reflects on realizing that great engineers are often exceptional communicators. The conversation touches on the art of crafting engaging narratives, the importance of casual interactions for collaboration, and strategies for selecting compelling podcast guests. Adam also shares insights into the challenges of podcasting, including effective follow-up emails and the balance between passion projects and full-time work.

As the original architect and API design lead of Kubernetes, Brian joins the show to chat about why "APIs are forever", the keys to evangelizing impactful projects, and being an Uber Tech at Google, and more. Segments: (00:03:01) Internship with Mark Ewing (00:07:10) “Mark and Brian's Excellent Environment” manual (00:11:58) Poker on VT100 terminals (00:14:46) Grad school and research (00:17:23) The value of studying computer science (00:21:07) Intuition and learning (00:24:06) Reflecting on career patterns (00:26:37) Hypergrowth and learning at Transmeta (00:28:37) Debugging at the atomic level (00:34:27) Evangelizing multithreading at Google (00:39:56) The humble beginnings of Borg and Kubernetes (00:47:10) The concept of inertia in system design (00:50:07) The genesis of Kubernetes (00:53:45) The open-source proposal (00:57:25) The Unified Compute Working Group (01:02:16) Designing the Kubernetes API (01:05:03) AIP.dev and API design conventions (01:08:02) The vision for a declarative model in Kubernetes (01:17:25) Kubernetes as a DIY platform (01:19:07) The evolution of Kubernetes (01:21:40) The complexity of building a platform (01:25:11) Style guides? (01:28:23) Gotchas in Kubernetes workload APIs (01:32:02) Understanding your thinking style (01:35:37) Reflections on Kubernetes design choices (01:44:08) The importance of getting it right the first time (01:48:13) Designing for flexibility (01:51:16) Collaboration and leadership (01:52:21) The role of an Uber tech lead at Google (01:56:33) “Giving away the Legos” (02:02:29) Picking the right person to hand off (02:06:41) Overcoming writer's block   Show Notes: API Design conventions: https://google.aip.dev/ Brian’s blog: https://medium.com/@bgrant0607   Stay in touch: 👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

From building a new kind of server to building a new kind of company, co-founders Bryan and Steve join the show to chat about their "meet cute" and the origin story of Oxide, their unconventional recruiting process, transparent and uniform salaries, and their solution to the "N+1 shithead problem". Segments: (00:03:03) Bryan and Steve's "meet cute" (00:05:56) "the sun does not shine on me" (00:12:19) the dagger that went into sun (00:21:23) culture of exonerating yourself vs solving customer problems (00:23:25) the shared "error in judgment" of joining joyent (00:27:54) the origin story of joyent (00:29:44) reporting to the (physical) chair (00:31:26) the comically bad ceo candidate (00:36:23) the enterprise software shift (00:40:21) the importance of curiosity in sales (00:48:30) filtering for curiosity in hiring (00:52:26) oxide's unconventional hiring process (01:04:01) bryan's worst hire (01:05:21) the limitations of traditional hiring (01:08:32) the value of written reflections (01:10:28) "what were the happiest moments in your career?" (01:21:16) misconceptions about sales and go-to-market (01:22:03) trust and alignment in sales (01:30:24) building connections across organizations (01:34:23) how to do performance reviews when everyone's paid the same? (01:40:00) the power of transparency in compensation (01:50:14) validation through impact (01:53:14) origins of on the metal (01:55:45) transparency and open communication (02:01:32) the importance of storytelling (02:04:56) building a company differently Show Notes: - Bryan’s blog post on the transparent and uniform compensation model at Oxide: https://oxide.computer/blog/compensat... - On the Metal’s interview with Jeff Rothschild: https://share.transistor.fm/s/6fa1eaa4 Stay in touch: - Make Ronak's day by signing up for our newsletter to get our favorites parts of the convo straight to your inbox every week :D https://softwaremisadventures.com/ Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...

Former Twitter data platform builder now at Ginkgo Bioworks delves into big data, AI in biology, lab automation, protein engineering, and the evolving tech industry landscape. Topics: early data engineering, transition to biotech, LLMs for proteins, differences in software development between consumer tech and biotech, and the significance of model explainability in biology.

Having quit Google in 2018 to bootstrap indie software businesses, Michael is known for writing very transparently about the ups and downs of his journey. After recently selling his hardware business TinyPilot for $600K, Michael returns to the show to chat about the misconceptions about running an indie business, the hardest part of selling a company, and why “hardware is definitely out” for his next move 😂 Segments: (00:04:22) The complexity of selling a hardware business (00:08:49) Why "hardware is definitely out" for Michael's next venture (00:11:57) The evolution of TinyPilot (00:16:29) Inherent risks of a hardware business (00:20:53) The most terrifying 10 minutes of 2023 (00:24:52) The pricing strategy (00:31:48) Building the team (00:35:32) Recognizing the limits of solo founders (00:37:22) What and how to outsource? (00:42:45) Tracking hours and managing expectations (00:46:50) High-level math and profit projections (00:52:17) Working with contract manufacturers (00:54:12) How to know when to delegate? (00:58:16) Misconceptions about running an indie business (01:03:56) The importance of value capture (01:09:26) Identity and purpose after selling a business (01:13:40) How Michael arrived at the decision to sell the business (01:17:53) The process of figuring out the price (01:20:36) Negotiation and the final sale (01:25:09) Why due diligence was so stressful (01:30:09) The importance of buyer fit (01:34:16) Michael's new course "Hit the Front Page of Hacker News" (01:35:17) The power of "Show, don't tell" (01:38:14) Sneak peek of the course Show Notes: - Michael’s blog post on the process of selling TinyPilot: https://mtlynch.io/i-sold-tinypilot/ - Michael’s excellent monthly retrospectives on building TinyPilot and beyond: https://mtlynch.io/retrospectives/ - Hit the front page of hacker news: https://mtlynch.io/notes/htfp-live/ Stay in Touch: 👋 Make Ronak’s day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com   Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en