thoughtbot

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

A podcast about the design, development, and business of great software. Each week thoughtbot is joined by the people who build and nurture the products we love.

Author

thoughtbot

Category

Technology

Podcast website

podcast.thoughtbot.com

Latest episode

Jun 18, 2026

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Episodes

76: The Boutique Agency 25.11.2013

Ben Orenstein speaks with Alex Kesler, founder and CEO of inSegment about digital marketing, GTD and productivity. inSegment inSegment's Twitter

75: Embedding Democracy (Catherine Bracy) 18.11.2013

This week Ben Orenstein interviews Catherine Bracy, Director of Community Organizing at Code for America. Catherine Bracy's Twitter Code for America

74: Fancy Scala (Sean Griffin) 11.11.2013

Ben Orenstein speaks with thoughtbot developer Sean Griffin about scala and ruby. Sean Griffin's Twitter Understanding Computation Tom Stuart Scala Website Martin Odersky's Free Class Programming Scala

73: Spooky Robots Haunting other Spooky Robots (Drew Neil) 04.11.2013

Ben Orenstein speaks with Drew Neil, creator of vimcasts.org about teaching writing and workshopping vim. Vimcasts Practical Vim: Edit at the Speed of Thought Drew Neil's Twitter

72: Up in the Mountains (Nathan Barry) 28.10.2013

This week on The Giant Robots Podcast, Ben Orenstein chats with Nathan Barry about book writing, teaching and self employment. Nathan's Twitter Nathan's Website The App Design Handbook

71: The Power of the Truth 21.10.2013

Josh Clayton and Ben Orenstein interview each other about their managing director positions. Ben Orenstein's Twitter Josh Clayton's Twitter

70: Let Your Freak Flag Fly 14.10.2013

Ben Orenstein speaks with Jeff Atwood about Discourse, forum software, and soylent. Coding Horror StackExchange Discourse.org discourse.soylent.me Jeff Atwood's Twitter

69: Geocoding in the Now 07.10.2013

Ben Orenstein interviews Josh Clayton and Laila Winner on their book, Geocoding on Rails. Geocoding on Rails Josh Clayton's Twitter Laila Winner's Github

68: Simplicity and Elegance 30.09.2013

Ben Orenstein and Paul Farnell, CEO of Litmus, talk about starting up, business practices, and Litmus. Paul Farnell's Twitter Litmus

67: The Data Optimist 23.09.2013

Ben Orenstein and Hilary Mason, Data Scientist in Residence at Accel Partners, talk about Data Science, Bitly and Cheeseburgers. rt.ly search engine OkCupid Blog hackNY DataGotham NYC Resister Hilary Mason's Personal Website Hilary Mason on Twitter

66: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility 16.09.2013

Ben talks with Anthony Eden about DNSimple, programming languages and code retreats. dnsimple Anthony Eden's Twitter

65: No! Videos Private! 09.09.2013

On this episode Ben talks with Chris Savage and Brendan Schwartz about Wistia Wistia Chris Savage's Twitter Brendan Schwartz's Twitter

64: Wistfully Into the Air 02.09.2013

In this episode of Giant Robots Ben talks with Des Traynor about intercom, concise communication. blogging and customer outreach. Intercom Inside Intercom Blog Des Traynor's Twitter

63: Knowledge Bomb! 26.08.2013

Ben and Chad discuss mentoring, job hunting tips and FAQ thoughtbot Code Review Guide Pair With Me Sandi Metz Rules

62: Family Business 19.08.2013

In this of episode of Giant Robots, Ben speaks with Natalie Nagele and Ilya Sabanin about Wildbit, Beanstalk, and work flow. Wildbit Beanstalk Ilya Sabanin's Twitter Natalie Nagele's Twitter

61: Having the Craic with Paul 12.08.2013

In this episode Paul and Ben talk about tito, funconf, and organizing conferences. Paul Campbell's Twitter Pabcas Hypertiny Tito

60: Deep Dive 05.08.2013

In this week's episode Ben discusses effective business practices and advice for optimal page design with special guest Patrick McKenzie. Learn Prime Bingo Card Creator Paul Gram (Do Things That Don't Scale) Double your Freelancing Rate Follow @thoughtbot , @r00k , and @patio11 on twitter.

59: Nowhere to Hide 29.07.2013

In this episode, Ben Orenstein speaks with thoughtbot CTO Joe Ferris about the technical interview process at thoughtbot, and more. Flog tool complexity Flay duplication tool Follow @thoughtbot , @r00k , and @joeferris on twitter.

58: A Thousand Neckbeards 22.07.2013

This week Ben Orenstein, Pat Brisbin, and Mike Burns talk about Haskell, Linux, functional and dynamic programming, Conway's Game of Life, and much more. Real World Haskell Hackage Conways Game of LIfe Learn You A Haskell Follow @thoughtbot , @r00k , @patbrisbin and @mikeburns on twitter.

57: Delayed Gratification 15.07.2013

In this episode, Ben Orenstein is joined by Michael Klett, Co-founder and tech lead of Chargify. Ben and Michael discuss the evolution of Chargify and bumps along the way, underwear subscriptions, Michael’s transition from hardware to software, negativity in the Rails community, slow tests, and much more. Chargify Manpacks Bryan Helmcamp’s blog on 7 ways to refactor Structure and Interpretation of...

56: Code in a Bubble Bath 08.07.2013

] In this episode Ben Orenstein is joined by Alex MacCaw, creator of Spine, formerly of Twitter, and now a developer at Stripe. Ben and Alex talk about travel, writing, code, and couch surfing. Alex's Personal Website Alex's Blog Alex's World Travel Blog Post Alex's Github Spine Follow @thoughtbot , @r00k , and @maccaw on twitter.

55: The Value of Flow 01.07.2013

In this episode Ben Orenstein speaks with designer and founder of Authentic Jobs, Cameron Moll, about Authentic Jobs, design, the value of flow and family, and much, much more. Authentic Jobs Cameron's personal website Podcast: Hired Cameron's Future Insights Live Keynote Hire with your head – Lou Adler Ebay CEO Interview Charlie Rose Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign Rails Conf 201...

54: Build your stuff on the side and have a good time 24.06.2013

In this episode, Ben Orenstein is joined by 17 year old Jack Kaufman, author of The Found a Business Book. Ben and Jack discuss Jack's inspiration for the book and how he got all his interviews, the other opportunities it's led too, the common themes he uncovered in his interviews, the differences between those who got funding and bootstrappers, working on the book while in highschool, marketing h...

53: Not everything needs to be extracted 17.06.2013

In this episode Ben Orenstein is joined by Yehuda Katz and Tom Dale from Tilde. They discuss bootstrapping a business and the model behind Tilde, their breakdown of product development and consulting, and how they all met. They also talk about designing APIs and frameworks that people actually want to use, how teaching helps them be better framework developers, how they can beat the competition, h...

52: You look really fancy in your tuxedo 10.06.2013

In this special episode, number 52, and our 1 year anniversary episode, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Ruby and Rails core team member Aaron Patterson, thoughtbot CTO Joe Ferris, and a live studio audience. The trio discuss Rails 4, observers, callbacks, dubstep, namespaces, Scheme, functional programming, thread safety in Rails, what it would take to remove callbacks from...

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