Talking about AI doesn’t have to feel like the end of the world.
Join Rich Ziade, Paul Ford, and their guests as they discuss how AI is changing software development, business strategy—and everything else. New episodes every Tuesday.
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Talking about AI doesn’t have to feel like the end of the world.
Join Rich Ziade, Paul Ford, and their guests as they discuss how AI is changing software development, business strategy—and everything else. New episodes every Tuesday.
AI is blurring—and even destroying—the distinctions between disciplines. Do we need a new way to talk about work? On this week’s episode, Paul tests out a few of his AI-era neologisms on a skeptical Rich: Perhaps you are a “custolient,” looking to purchase the services of a “praygency” for your next project? (Yes, Paul insists the “y” in “praygency” is vital.) Are these new blended terms helpful, or just a way of talking around a very uncertain landscape?
Is the future of work sitting back and watching your company of bots plan their offsite? On this week’s episode, Paul is joined in the studio by journalist Evan Ratliff, the host and creator of the wildly popular Shell Game podcast, which is about, per the show’s description, “how Evan tried to build a real startup, run by fake people.” Evan’s AI agents were an exercise in immersive journalism (and yes, they did in fact go wild planning their offsite), but would he ever consider running a company of bots for real?
With AI drastically cutting delivery times in tech and beyond, how should practitioners price their time? On this week’s podcast, Paul tells Rich about a recent experience with a potential client, where he skipped steps and rapidly vibe-coded through the prototyping process and they….didn’t really know what to make of the result. If things that used to take months can now be done in hours, what are clients actually paying for?
Can AI help heal our broken healthcare system? On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich are joined in the studio by Erynn Petersen, a longtime technologist and the current CEO of Emme, a healthtech startup that works to lower medical costs for both providers and patients. First, she lays out some of the systemic problems that saddle Americans with huge bills (or lead them to avoid seeking care entirely). Then, she discusses how AI tools might revolutionize the industry—as well as the ways the technology could make an unequal system even worse.
People are constantly talking about how AI is transforming engineers’ work, but where does that leave the product manager? On this week’s podcast, Paul (who has hired many PMs) and Rich (who is also a PM himself) tilt the AI-and-code lens away from the engineers and onto the role they describe as the diplomat of software creation, liaising between business, design, and engineering needs. Should PMs feel threatened by LLMs, or empowered by them? How can they use these tools to add value to the org and their role within it?
Public opinion on LLMs like Claude varies widely—but how do the people who actually work at Anthropic think about it? On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich are joined in the studio by New Yorker staff writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus to discuss his recent feature, which he reported from within Anthropic HQ. They discuss the piece, and then they hash out the real questions: What’s the correct literary metaphor for an LLM? Does an AI company really need psychologists for its chatbots? And, perhaps most importantly, should you be polite to Claude?
Anthropic founder Dario Amodei wants AI to be regulated. Will anyone listen? On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich dive into Amodei’s recent (lengthy) essay, “The Adolescence of Technology,” which argues for social responsibility both from within and around the AI industry. Amodei might have the best intentions, but with less mindful competitors in the space, are his ideas nothing more than wishful thinking?
Is Moltbook—aka “Reddit for Robots”—merely a novelty, or does it contain bigger ideas about the future of tech? On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich start by discussing the autonomous agents of OpenClaw before they move on to Moltbook, the social network where said agents can hang out. (No humans allowed!) How do these LLM developments fit into the broader history of the web, and what do they suggest about where AI might be headed?
AI is poised to transform the healthcare sector—but what does that mean in practice? Fresh off hosting a healthtech event in Aboard’s Manhattan offices, Paul and Rich talk through the ways AI is reshaping this massive segment of the American economy. AI might lead to breakthroughs for researchers and diagnosticians alike, but is its real superpower…cutting down on paperwork? Plus: What happens when every patient arrives at their appointment armed with a diagnosis from Dr. ChatGPT?
“I built it in six hours. Let’s deploy it to production!” On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich engage in one of their favorite pastimes: Corporate roleplay. Taking on the personas of Doug, a vibe-coding engineer, and (Mr.) Jeremy, his skeptical boss, they act out a scenario that’s surely unfolding at organizations large and small right now. Doug might be too hasty when he declares his vibe-coded software ready for client use, but is Jeremy actually being too cautious?