Oxide and Friends

Recently, Oxide rolled out an eye-popping 3D rack explorer at explorer.oxide.computer. Oxide's designer extraordinaire, Ben Leonard, joined Bryan and Adam to describe the process of turning CAD drawings into an interactive site. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , our special guest was Oxide colleague, Ben Leonard . Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: The Ex...

We love Rust for how much the compiler helps enforce safety. But sometimes it's up to us to uphold the complex--and often unclear--expectations of what constitutes safety on our own. Oxide colleague, Rain, joins Bryan and Adam to talk about the technical details of what it takes to impose safety on the hardest type of unsafe Rust. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined b...

Bryan and Adam discuss the process of restoring a software project--BattleTris--untouched and unbuilt in over 20 years! How did LLMs help restore code Bryan started in the mid-1990s and what does that teach us about developing and maintaining software in the future? Your hosts were Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal . Previously on Oxide and Friends OxF s03e24 - Fork in the road for Terraform? OxF...

Two years ago we introduced listeners to the Oakland Ballers, the startup returning baseball to the city of Oakland. Bryan and Adam were joined again by Paul Freedman and Bryan Carmel to discuss the Ballers first two--highly successful--seasons, and to announce some exciting new collaborations between the Ballers and Oxide! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , speakers included Paul...

Oxide ships a rack scale system--how to test the manufacturing of the backplane and switches? Previously we've been using a collection of sacrificial servers, but this was unwieldy, expensive, and unscalable--all big problems as we ramp up manufacturing to 100s a month! Enter "Reverso", an extremely simple test fixture, that uncovered an extremely complex bug. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Ada...

AI is an existential topic for all aspects of education--for none more so than Computer Science. Bryan and Adam were joined by Kathi Fisler and Shriram Krishnamurthi, professors of Computer Science at Brown, to discuss their experimental introductory course that strongly incorporates agentic programming. What do students take away from their "smoke the whole pack" approach? In addition to Bryan Ca...

Bryan and Adam were joined by members of the Oxide mechanical engineering team to talk the mechanical challenges of building a rack-scale computer, and--in particular--of scaling manufacturing from just a few racks to hundreds. NOTE: Keep an eye on the chapter art for the pictures under discussion. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined by Oxide Colleagues Elliott Donlon...

Brogrammer Garry Tan has been boasting about "writing" tens of thousands of lines of code each day as the paragon of productivity. Is this really the right way to think about building systems? Bryan and Adam were joined by Polish software engineer, Gregorein, who took a closer look into what Tan was generating to discuss what was found. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , our guest...

The Oxide rack contains within it a distributed system that needs to trust itself. But how is this trust built? Bryan and Adam were joined by colleagues Andrew and Finch to explore how Trust Quorum was designed, built, and verified. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined by Oxide colleagues, Andrew Stone, and Finch Foner. Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s06e02 - En...

Bryan and Adam were joined by members of the Oxide team to describe the multi-year search for a mysterious source of hardware failures. All related to an ultra-reliable--and yet still not reliable enough--component. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined by members of the Oxide team: Nathanael Huffman , Alan Hanson, Cliff Biffle , Eric Aasen , Robert "RFK" Keith , and Jo...

Oxide raised a truckload of capital a few weeks ago to fund the business for the foreseeable future. Bryan and Steve describe the raise, and Adam poses the best the best (and worst) questions scraped from Hacker News. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined by Oxide CEO, Steve Tuck . Previously on Oxide and Friends: OxF s01e25 - Tales from the Bringup Lab OxF s04e30 - Int...

Evan Ratliff, journalist and podcaster, joined Bryan and Adam to talk about his extraordinary podcast, Shell Game, in which he started a company staffed exclusively by agentic AI. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , our special guest was Evan Ratliff . Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Shell Game Evan on This American Life MIT Review: Moltbook was peak AI...

Bryan and Adam were joined by Grady Booch, software engineering pioneer and living legend, to speak about the past present and future of software engineering. History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined by special guest, Grady Booch . Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them (some LLM assistance): SAGE as fo...

What do LLMs mean for the future of software engineering? Will vibe-coded AI slop be the norm? Will software engineers simply be less in-demand? Rain and David join Bryan and Adam to discuss how rigorous use of LLMs can make for much more robust systems. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined by Rain Paharia , and David Crespo . Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s03e...

Time for the annual predictions episode! Bryan and Adam were joined by frequent future-ologists Simon Willison, Steve Klabnik, and Ian Grunert to review past predictions and peer into the future. If any of these predictions come to fruition, it's going to be an interest 1, 3, or 6 years! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , speakers included Simon Willison , Steve Klabnik , and Ian G...

Bryan and Adam reflect on Oxide and Friends in 2025--favorite moments, episodes, and images. Happy new year and see you in 2026! Your hosts are Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal . Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: RFD 576: Using LLMs at Oxide ( hacker news comments ) OxF: Oxide and Friends 6/2/2025 -- AI Discourse with Steve Klabnik (around 1:08:00) Shell Game podcast Ox...

We hit a new (and disturbing!) failure mode recently when a production rack that had been up for several months saw every (!) compute sled's service processor become simultaneously unresponsive. Bryan and Adam were joined by the members of the Oxide team who debugged the vexing issue -- and reached its surprising root cause. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined by Oxid...

Hey hey! We recently tripped over a ZFS data corruption bug–introduced over 18 years ago! Bryan and Adam discuss with members of the Oxide team as well as Matt Ahrens, the co-inventor of ZFS. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , speakers included Alan Hanson, Matt Keeter , Andy Fiddaman, James MacMahon, and special guest, Matt Ahrens. Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s4e6 - Cruc...

Oxide founders, Bryan and Steve, as well as Oxide investor, Seth Winterroth, were joined by Liz Zalman and Jerry Neumann, authors of the book Founder vs. Investor, discussing the collaboration and conflict in company formation. Adam was also present. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , our guests included Liz Zalman, Jerry Neumann , Seth Winterroth (Oxide investor), and Steve Tuck (...

We're big users of async Rust at Oxide, and recently we found (another) very odd and hard to debug pathology related to async Rust that we dubbed "Futurelock". Oxide engineers who diagnosed the problem join Bryan and Adam to describe Futurelock and discuss methods to identify and avoid it. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , speakers included our Oxide colleagues Dave Pacheco , John...

Revisiting an annual tradition--Books in the Box! Bryan, Adam, and the Oxide Friends share book recommendations (and--sometimes--anti-recommendations). Take a listen if you're looking for your next read. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined by some guests noted below: Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s05e06 - A Half‑Century of Silicon Valley with Randy Shoup OxF s...

LLMs have had a dramatic impact on education. There are obvious reasons for concern, but what about the less obvious opportunities afforded by LLMs? Bryan and Adam were joined by Michael Littman, professor at Brown University and Associate Provost for AI, to talk about his role advising the university on productive, innovative, creative uses for AI in higher education. In addition to Bryan Cantril...

Dave Pacheco is leading Oxide's multi-year effort around full-system update. He recently gave a talk about his experience leading that project, the complexities of designing the system and organizing the team. Dave, Bryan, and Adam discuss the project, the many sources of leadership, and the often underestimated peril of "organizational procrastination". In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leve...

Bryan and Adam were joined by members of the Oxide manufacturing team to talk about all that goes into ramping up production, from people and processes to expanding the team and refining inefficiencies. It's a great problem to have! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined by Oxide colleagues, CJ Mendes, Kirstin Neira, Erik Anderson, Aaron Hartwig, and Doug Wibben. Previou...

Jerry Neumann joined Bryan and Adam to discuss his blog post from 2015, examining the work of Carlota Perez on technological revolutions. These waves have similarities, in particular: frenzy, bust, and deployment. Is AI a new wave or the culmination of the IT wave of the last 50 years? In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined by special guest, Jerry Neumann . Some of the t...