Oxide and Friends

Latest Episodes:

The Tale of Reverso May 16, 2026

Show notes

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 Adam Leventhal, speakers included Oxide colleagues, Robert "RFK" Keith, Adam "The Hammer" Suczewski, and Matt Keeter.

Previously, on Oxide and Friends:

Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

AI in Computer Science Education May 10, 2026

Show notes

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 Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Shriram Krishnamurthi, Kathi Fisler, and Will.

Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

Mechanical Engineering at Oxide [chapter images] May 07, 2026

Show notes

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, Brooks Willis, Doug Wibben, and Ben Williams.

Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

Topic
[@M:SS](link into recording) Leventhal's Conundrum
PRs needed!

Are LLMs Insufficently Lazy? May 03, 2026

Show notes

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 (who we introduced a mere 4 minutes in) was gregorein.

Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

Gregorein's twitter thread
Bryan's blog: The Peril of Laziness Lost
PRs needed!

Building a Quorum of Trust in the Oxide Rack Apr 04, 2026

Show notes

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:

Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

Oxide RFD 238: Trust Quorum and Rack Unlock
PRs needed!

When Nine Nines Isn't Enough Mar 18, 2026

Show notes

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 Jordan Hendricks.

Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

Oxide RFD 630: BMR491 Glitch Mitigation Plan
RFK's report
PRs needed!

Oxide's $200M Series C Feb 27, 2026

Show notes

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:

Mentioned during the show:

Shell Game with Evan Ratliff Feb 12, 2026

Show notes

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:

Software Engineering Past, Present, and Future with Grady Booch Feb 07, 2026

Show notes

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 foundational real-time distributed system
Software crisis demand outpaced ability to build reliable systems
Margaret Hamilton (SAGE → Apollo) and the term “software engineering”
UML
Rational Software founded (1982); acquired by IBM (2003)
OO overshot via inheritance; core idea (objects as cognitive units) endured
LLMs are unreliable narrators - they cannot do abductive reasoning
Architecture = decisions with high cost of change
Core skills persist: abstraction, coupling, cohesion, judgment
Fear cycles repeat; fundamentals endure

Grady's Book Recommendations

Engineering Rigor in the LLM Age Jan 15, 2026

Show notes

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:

Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

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