Heavybit Podcasts

On episode 92 of o11ycast, Ray Myers joins Ken and Jess to explore how observability, reliability engineering, and formal software engineering practices are becoming even more important as AI coding agents take on larger roles in development. Rather than viewing AI as a replacement for established engineering disciplines, Ray argues that techniques like continuous delivery, testing, specifications...

On episode 2 of Lab Notes, Amir Zohrenejad sits down with Hanchen Li to explore the systems that make modern AI agents faster, more efficient, and better at learning from experience. They discuss KV Cache optimization, long-context inference, prompt learning, continual learning, and why better benchmarks may be just as important as larger models in advancing AI research.

On episode 40 of Open Source Ready, Brian Douglas and John McBride sit down with Orhun Parmaksiz to explore Ratty, his experimental GPU-rendered terminal emulator that combines traditional command-line workflows with interactive 3D graphics. They discuss the future of terminal user interfaces, how AI is accelerating developer tooling, and what recent supply chain attacks on Arch Linux reveal about...

On episode 7 of Third Loop, the Progressive Delivery team speaks with Nathen Harvey about the intersection of AI, DevOps, and user-centric software development. Together, they examine what DORA's research reveals about high-performing teams, why shipping faster doesn't automatically create more value, and how organizations can build stronger feedback loops with users. Along the way, they...

On this debut episode of Lab Notes, Amir Zohrenejad is joined by Ren Wang, a researcher and PhD student at UC Berkeley, to explore the state of physical AI and why robotics has progressed differently from large language models. They discuss data scarcity, world models, simulation, dexterity, and the challenges of building robots that can reliably operate in the real world.

On episode 39 of Open Source Ready, Brian Douglas and John McBride speak with Zach Smith, creator of Kplane, about rethinking Kubernetes for an AI-driven future. Zach explains how virtualized control planes could enable isolated cluster experiences at massive scale, while the conversation explores developer experience, AI tooling, and the possibility that future AI agents may each require their ow...

On episode 56 of Generationship, Rachel Chalmers sits down with Mark Brocato, founder of Mockaroo and creator of Fabricate, to explore the evolution of synthetic data in the age of AI. Mark shares how a simple internal QA tool grew into one of the most widely used synthetic data platforms and discusses how agentic AI is transforming software development, testing, and data generation.

On episode 13 of Data Renegades, CL Kao sits down with Josh Wills to explore how AI agents are reshaping software engineering, data science, and data infrastructure. They discuss verification, benchmarking, pre-training data pipelines, multimodal AI, and why understanding a problem may matter more than writing code. Josh also shares lessons learned from decades of building large-scale data systems...

On episode 6 of Third Loop, Kim Harrison, Adam Zimman, James Governor, and Heidi Waterhouse sit down with Betty Junod. Together, they explore how agentic coding tools are enabling non-developers to build software for themselves, creating a world where the ideal customer profile might be just one person. They discuss personalization, Progressive Delivery, open source, and what happens when users be...

On episode 53 of The Kubelist Podcast, Marc Campbell and Benjie De Groot sit down with Anurag Goel. Anurag shares his journey from early employee at Stripe to founder and CEO of Render, one of the fastest-growing application platforms in cloud infrastructure. They discuss Kubernetes, platform engineering, bare metal, AI agents, and what the future of application deployment looks like.

On episode 91 of o11ycast, Ken Rimple and Jess Kerr sit down with Janaki Vivrekar. Janaki shares how Amplitude is building AI-powered analytics agents, why evaluation frameworks are becoming essential to AI product development, and how teams can use observability techniques to improve agent performance over time. The conversation explores eval-driven development, production feedback loops, and the...

On episode 52 of The Kubelist Podcast, Marc Campbell and Benjie De Groot speak with Hugo Santos. They discuss the evolution of Namespace Labs, why traditional cloud infrastructure isn't always optimized for developer workflows, and what it takes to build a vertically integrated platform for builds, testing, and developer productivity. Hugo also shares lessons learned from nearly a decade at G...

On episode 38 of Open Source Ready, Brian Douglas and John McBride speak with Graham Christensen, CEO of Determinate Systems, about the evolution of the Nix ecosystem and why more organizations are embracing reproducible infrastructure. They discuss secure package management, enterprise adoption challenges, open source business models, and how AI tooling is rapidly reshaping software engineering w...

On episode 12 of Data Renegades, CL Kao sits down with Maxime Beauchemin to explore what happens when software teams start working alongside armies of AI agents. Max shares the thinking behind Agor, his collaborative platform for orchestrating coding agents, and reflects on how AI is reshaping engineering, product, design, and data work. They also dive into the future of agentic workflows, technic...

On episode 5 of Third Loop, Heidi Waterhouse, James Governor, Adam Zimman, and Kim Harrison dig into the hype around AI-generated code and ask a deceptively simple question: if code is “free,” what does it actually cost? From token pricing and maintenance overhead to user value and developer judgment, they explore why software is never quite as cheap as it seems.

On episode 55 of Generationship, Rachel Chalmers sits down with Sunil Dhaliwal to explore how AI is reshaping developer infrastructure, venture investing, and computational biology. Sunil reflects on building Amplify Partners during the rise of cloud computing, why the best technical founders “live the problem,” and where he sees the next generation of AI tooling emerging. The conversation also di...

On episode 37 of Open Source Ready, Brian and John speak with Stormy Peters about the evolving relationship between AI and open source software. Together, they unpack the growing challenges maintainers face, why traditional “good first issues” may be disappearing, and how AI tools are changing the way developers contribute to projects. They also discuss open-weight models, inference costs, and why...

On episode 90 of o11ycast, Ken Rimple and Jessica “Jess” Kerr speak with Cory Ondrejka. Together, they unpack the rise of agentic AI, the shifting identity of software engineers, and the growing importance of measuring real-world impact. Cory shares his concept of Outcome Engineering and how teams can adapt to a world where building is fast but validation is everything. Come find the Honeycomb tea...

On episode 4 of Third Loop, Elisabeth Hendrickson and Joel Tosi join the hosts to discuss systems thinking, software delivery, and why organizations often solve the wrong problems. They explore their upcoming book Signals and Levers , unpacking the CREATE framework and the illusions of progress, predictability, and control. The conversation also dives into AI, user trust, feedback loops, and what...

On episode 9 of High Leverage, Joe Ruscio sits down with Simon Willison to unpack the rapid evolution of AI coding tools and what they mean for software development. They explore the shift from vibe coding to agentic engineering, how coding agents are reshaping workflows, and why experience still matters. The conversation dives into trust, security, and what breaks when code becomes cheap.

On episode 11 of Data Renegades, CL Kao sits down with Michael Stonebraker, legendary database pioneer and creator of Ingres and Postgres. They explore the origins of modern relational databases, why specialized systems outperform one-size-fits-all platforms, and what today’s AI hype gets wrong about enterprise data. Stonebraker also shares hard-earned lessons on startups, research, and staying re...

On episode 8 of High Leverage, Joe Ruscio sits down with Scott Hanselman for a conversation that goes far beyond prompts and productivity gains. They talk about craftsmanship, learning by doing, the long-term talent pipeline for engineering teams, and how AI could either free people to do more meaningful work or simply accelerate existing inefficiencies. From pair programming to Star Trek economic...

On episode 36 of Open Source Ready, Brian Douglas and John McBride sit down with Jesse Vincent. They explore how Jesse’s Superpowers project turns AI coding tools into structured, reliable development systems. The conversation dives into agent orchestration, prompt engineering, and what it takes to make AI behave like a capable software engineer.

In this episode, the hosts unpack the thinking behind the name Third Loop and what it represents. Building on ideas from their book Progressive Delivery, they explore the gap between shipping software and having it truly adopted by users. The conversation dives into feedback loops, user agency, and why modern software requires a closer relationship between builders and consumers.

On episode 54 of Generationship, Rachel Chalmers sits down with Vishakha Gupta to explore the hidden infrastructure challenges behind modern AI. They unpack why multimodal data systems are still fragmented, how graph and vector approaches can be unified, and what it takes to build production-ready AI pipelines. This conversation offers a systems-level perspective on scaling AI beyond prototypes.