Ep. #28, 2025: Year In Review

On episode 5 of Data Renegades, CL Kao and Dori Wilson sit down with Benn Stancil to explore how data tools evolve, and sometimes lose their identity. Benn shares lessons from building Mode, the risks of drifting from an opinionated product vision, and why most companies struggle to turn data into meaningful decisions. The conversation also dives into the future of BI in a world increasingly shaped by AI and unstructured data.

On episode 48 of The Kubelist Podcast, Marc Campbell and Benjie De Groot sit down with Justin Cappos, professor at NYU and a pioneer in software supply chain security. They explore the origins of modern package manager security, the real-world limits of SBOMs, and why systems should be designed assuming compromise. The conversation spans CNCF governance, in-toto, TUF, Git security, and the emerging role of AI in securing software.

On episode 87 of o11ycast, Ken Rimple and Jessica Kerr sit down with Lada Kesseler to explore how experienced engineers can work effectively with AI coding assistants. They discuss why AI feels like a fast, noisy black box, and how patterns like semantic zooming, feedback loops, testing, and observability can help developers stay in control. This episode is a deep dive into using AI without sacrificing clarity, quality, or trust.

On episode 28 of Open Source Ready, Brian Douglas and John McBride reflect on the biggest themes that shaped open source and AI in 2025. From sustainability and security to MCPs, agents, and infrastructure, they revisit key conversations with guests and unpack how the industry evolved over the year. The episode closes with bold predictions for what 2026 may bring for developers, maintainers, and open source communities.

In episode 50 of Generationship, Rachel Chalmers sits down with Joshua McKenty to unpack how AI-driven scams, deepfakes, and identity fraud are already reshaping our digital lives. From scam factories and nation-state actors to broken trust infrastructure, Josh explains why authenticity is the core problem, and what it will take to fix it. The conversation spans cybersecurity, public policy, and the future of human trust in an AI-saturated world.

On episode 27 of Open Source Ready, Brian Douglas and John McBride speak with Adam Hevenor, creator of Vibecheck. Together they explore the fundamentals of evals, how teams can run structured experiments across model variations, and why cost-efficient design matters more than ever. Adam also offers grounded perspectives on MCP adoption, Claude Skills, and the economics shaping today’s AI tooling ecosystem.

On episode 49 of Generationship, Rachel Chalmers sits down with Denise Koessler Gosnell and Kathryn Erickson to unpack their new book Tech Confidential. Together they explore burnout, leadership, motivation, and the surprising ways our emotional wiring shapes tech culture. It’s a candid, deeply human conversation about transforming toxic systems into something resilient, sustainable, and even joyful.

In episode 4 of Data Renegades, CL Kao and Dori Wilson sit down with Micah Wylde. They trace his journey from building fraud detection at Sift Science to architecting massive real-time systems at Lyft and ultimately founding Arroyo. In this conversation, Micah breaks down the real complexity of streaming systems, why schema evolution is still the hardest challenge in data, and where the industry might move over the next five years.

In episode 48 of Generationship, Rachel Chalmers speaks with Sarah Novotny. They dig into why AI models fall short of true creativity, how the tech industry drifted into extractive incentives, and what real security and accountability might look like at scale. Sarah highlights lessons from Kubernetes, open source ecosystems, and political science to propose a more trustworthy technological future.

On episode 3 of Data Renegades, CL Kao and Dori Wilson sit down with Maxime Beauchemin. They explore the origins of Airflow and Superset, the evolution of open source in the data ecosystem, and how today’s tooling reshapes the role of the data practitioner. Max also shares a forward-looking perspective on agentic workflows and how AI is accelerating everything from BI to pipeline development.