The stories and people behind the code. Hear stories of software development from interesting people.
117 episodes transcribedI texted Don about a side gig: €5,000 for every 1% you shave off a zip file. It's a real contest. For 20 years, Marcus Hutter has offered €500,000 to...
I've been trying to understand how machine learning actually works. Not use it, understand it, down to the ifs and loops. How does a program built out...
I've been confusing Don with frontier-lab links late at night for a bit. Ilya Sutskever told a NeurIPS audience that pre-training as we know it would...
Kate Gregory has been writing C++ for over forty years. Books, keynotes, a consulting firm she built from the ground up. At sixty-three, she's one of...
Corey told me about his AI cat reel problem. He found these AI-genearted cat videos hilarious. Who makes these? He kept sending them to his wife. Then...
Multiple VS Code windows. "Agent stopping" in a robot voice. A laptop stand on the treadmill so Claude can keep working while I run. The Big Rich si...
Ron Garret left JPL for a 100-person startup he'd just discovered on Usenet. Four a.m. alarms. Burbank to San Jose on Southwest. A rented room in Susa...
Imagine facing a problem you can't name, something that feels bigger than any bug you've ever had to fix. How do you debug your own mind when you don'...
What do you do when your code breaks and the only fix is to dig into the runtime below? Matt Godbolt lives for that. Tile-based renderers, color-coded...
What if a software bug drained your savings, ruined your reputation, and nobody believed it wasn’t your fault? Scott Darlington took over a village p...
A quick update from Adam about the podcast's current state, consistency challenges, and what's coming next. Episode Page Support The Show Subscribe...
What do we risk when we let AI do the heavy lifting in our coding? Are we giving up the thinking that makes us good at what we do? And as expectations...
I’ve always found meaning—and a lot of strength—in building things. Now, with AI coding agents changing the way we work, it’s easy to feel threatened,...
What if your search for connection took you somewhere you never meant to go—almost costing you everything? John Walker grew up building computers and...
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where learning felt like an uphill battle? Like no matter how hard you tried, the pieces just wouldn't fal...
Can a single line of code change the way we see science, policy, and trust? In this episode we explore the "Climategate" scandal that erupted from...
What if a simple game became a gateway to computational breakthroughs? David Freiberg and Felipe set out on a journey to conquer Hateris, a notorious...
What if internet trolls could become your greatest collaborators? Nolen Royalty discovered this unexpected truth when his simple checkbox game went vi...
What if leaving your dream job was the way to discover your true self? Jon de la Motte failed his first Stripe interview, but he didn't give up. It...
What if you had to break life-changing news to your team—could you handle the weight of their futures? Allison's journey from software engineer to com...
