Oxide and Friends

Latest Episodes:

Technological Revolutions with Jerry Neumann Sep 18, 2025

Show notes

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

Jerry's 2015 blog post: The Deployment Age
PRs needed!

Previous episodes mentioned:

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!

The Promises of Tech with Scott Hanselman Aug 15, 2025

Show notes

Scott Hanselman gave a terrific talk about the promises of tech: connection, convenience and creativity. Did it deliver? Scott joins Bryan and Adam to discuss... and also wander around as one expects from an Oxide and Friends episode.

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our special guest was Scott Hanselman.

Past episodes mentioned:

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

Scott's talk: Tech Promised Everything. Did it deliver?

Oxide's $100M Series B Aug 09, 2025

Show notes

Oxide raised its $100M Series B round of venture capital. Oxide's founders, Bryan and Steve, answer questions selected by Adam from social media about the round, the company, and the future.

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide CEO, the man, the myth, the legend, Steve Tuck.

Previous episodes mentioned:

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

Adventures in Data Corruption Jul 10, 2025

Show notes

Two years ago, the Oxide team encountered data corruption during a fairly simple network data transfer. The ensuing debugging sessions uncovered a truly bizarre bug involving CPU speculation! Bryan and Adam were joined by colleagues John and Rain to discuss the discovery and circuitous hunt to track down the bug.

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included John Gallagher, and Rain Paharia.

Previous episodes mentioned:

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

When Async Attacks! Jun 27, 2025

Show notes

What happens when the Oxide API is slow? A podcast episode! More specifically, one about how the team employed all manner of debugging techniques to track it down to one obscure and configurable async runtime feature! Bryan and Adam were joined by members of the team to talk about that journey and the tools we used (and made!) along the way.

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide colleagues, Dave Pacheco, Eliza Weisman, and Augustus Mayo.

Previous episodes mentioned:

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

The statemaps that we referred to:

Nexus by thread, discussed starting at 55:29. (This statemap has some states coalesced; the full version is also available.)
Nexus by Tokio task, tagged by thread, discussed starting at 1:15:33

The D scripts that we referred to:

nexus-statemap.d used to generate the initial statemap
nexus-profile.d to understand what was consuming CPU
tokio-statemap-tagged.d to generate the Tokio task statemap

Diving In with Robert Bogart Jun 19, 2025

Show notes

On the heels of Bryan's blog post about the similarities between aspiring college athletes finding a team and entrepreneurs raising a round of capital, Bryan and Adam were joined by Robert Bogart to discuss his own experiences with both--and the life lesson accrued along the way.

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by special guest, Robert Bogart.
College Baseball, Venture Capital, and the Long Maybe

Debugger-Driven Development Jun 16, 2025

Show notes

Building systems software can be quite opaque, leading to the need for great debugging tools. At Oxide, we've found that debuggers can be even more valuable leading rather than following system development. Bryan and Adam talk with Oxide colleagues about how domain specific debugging tools help us build systems not only more robustly, but faster as well.

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide colleagues, Dave Pacheco. John Gallagher, Alan Hanson, and Eliza Weisman.

Previous episodes mentioned:

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

omdb ground rules

AI Discourse with Steve Klabnik Jun 05, 2025

Show notes

Last week, our colleague (and frequent Oxide and Friends guest) Steve Klabnik made some new friends on the Internet with a blog entry on AI discourse. Bryan and Adam were joined by Steve to try to de-polarize the discussion a little.

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by special guest, Steve Klabnik, and valued listener, Julian Giamblanco (aka "Oatmealdealer").

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

Steve's blog post: I am disappointed in the AI discourse
OxF: A Baseball Startup with Paul Freedman and Bryan Carmel (The Ballers)
OxF: Adversarial Machine Learning with Nicholas Carlini
OxF: Hiring Processes with Gergely Orosz ("the RFD 3 podcast episode")
OxF: AI Disruption: DeepSeek and Cerebras
OxF: Reflecting on Founder Mode ("ego con")

AI, Materials, and Fraud with Ben Shindel May 24, 2025

Show notes

Late in 2024, an economics paper captured the attention of the world. AI, it claimed, had a tremendous impact on materials research, disproportionally benefitted the most productive, and--sadly--reduced job statisfaction. It now appears that the results are entirely fabricated! Ben Shindel joins Bryan and Adam to discuss.

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by special guest Ben Shindel.

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

Ben's blog: AI, Materials, and Fraud, Oh My!
OxF: Theranos, Silicon Valley, and the March Madness of Tech Fraud
Topic
[@M:SS](link into recording) Leventhal's Conundrum
PRs needed!

RIP USENIX ATC May 15, 2025

Show notes

Bryan and Adam discuss the recent announcement of the discontinuation of the USENIX Annual Technical Conference (ATC), reminiscing about their own visits to the ATC and the impact of the conference. Long-time Oxide Friend, Tom Lyon, joined to dial the reminiscence back a couple more decades!

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Tom Lyon.

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