Commit & Push

Eric Ries joins Damian Filiatrault to discuss the evolution of startup thinking from The Lean Startup to his new book, Incorruptible. The conversation explores how founders can test ideas ethically, why growth is not the same as validated learning, and how companies often lose trust when short-term financial pressure takes over. Eric also explains why governance, mission, and ownership structure m...

Damien Filiatrault talks with Micah Johnson, co-founder of Biggest Goal, about what AI agents actually are, how they differ from basic chatbots, and where they can create real value for businesses today. The episode covers practical use cases like data analysis, internal knowledge retrieval through RAG, and event-driven automations, along with why tools like N8N and Raggy have made agentic workflo...

In this episode, host Damien Filiatrault talks with Kevin Williams, founder of Ascend AI, about what “agentic commerce” actually means as shopping and discovery start shifting into ChatGPT- and Gemini-style interfaces. They break down the path from today’s LLM-assisted recommendations to “zero-click” transactions that happen entirely inside an AI chat, without users ever visiting a traditional che...

In this episode, host Damien Filiatrault talks with Brit Myers, VP of Engineering at System Initiative, about rethinking infrastructure automation for a world of legacy systems, real-time fixes, and AI collaboration. They explore why traditional Terraform and GitOps assumptions break down in practice, how System Initiative’s “digital twin” model keeps intent, state, and change tightly coupled, and...

In this episode, host Damien Filiatrault sits down with Coder CEO Rob Whiteley to explore how AI agents are changing the way software gets built, from cloud-based dev environments to long-running “software intern” workflows. They unpack how Coder provisions secure, centralized workspaces for both humans and agents, why Anthropic’s Claude Code became so effective once it could read its own Terrafor...

In this episode, host Damien Filiatrault talks with Josh Clark and Veronika Kindred of Big Medium about “Sentient Design”—interfaces that adapt to context and intent without ceding user control. You’ll hear a cross-generational take on rethinking UX best practices, from bespoke UIs that assemble trusted design-system components on the fly to the NPC pattern where AI participates alongside humans....

Founder Iddo Gino tells host Damien Filiatrault how a GitHub repo called “Awesome APIs” became RapidAPI, a global marketplace later acquired by Nokia, and what sky-high valuations actually change credibility and hiring more than outcomes. He argues that instead of chasing new standards like MCP, teams should fix the REST/GraphQL APIs they already have with accurate specs and living docs. Gino then...

Developer and founder Killian Valkhof tells host Damien Filiatrault how a homemade tool that made his work 60 percent faster became Polypane, a dedicated browser for web professionals. He outlines Polypane’s core features—side-by-side responsive views, built-in accessibility and performance audits, and instant social-media previews—and shares the tactics that keep his one-person, bootstrapped SaaS...

Economist and ex-AI researcher Robin Hanson joins host Damien Filiatrault to explain why large codebases inevitably “rot,” how AI could make developers richer by expanding demand for software, and why looming population decline might stall innovation and hollow out today’s tech stack. Along the way they compare rot to technical debt, debate refactoring vs. rewriting, and ask whether non-software s...

Most software sucks. Most performance reviews are broken. And most new CTOs are flying blind. In this episode of Commit & Push, Damien sits down with Zach Goldberg—CTO of Gruntwork and author of The Startup CTO’s Handbook—to unpack the real challenges of building and scaling a dev team. From metrics that actually matter to avoiding productivity traps, Zach shares pragmatic strategies every tech le...

"Most AI projects fail - and not for the reasons you think.” In this episode of Commit & Push, Damien sits down with Dan Saffer, Associate Director at CMU’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, to unpack why so many AI initiatives crash and burn before they ever ship. From busted data pipelines to overengineered use cases, Dan breaks down the five common traps behind failed AI efforts—and what it...

Welcome to Commit & Push, where we talk about how great software really gets built. I'm Damian Filiatro, your host and founder of Scalable Path. Each episode, we'll explore the decisions, tradeoffs, and strategies that shape successful digital products. You'll hear from developers, founders, and tech leaders about the challenges they've faced, the solutions they've found, and the insights they've...