Podcasts about retrospectives

Do Devil's cry? Well that is the question this week as I play Devil May Cry for the Playstation 2. A new franchise for Capcom which is still doing extremely well today. I am joined this week by Storm Beagle from the Retrotopia podcast. Can we face despair head on or be swallowed by the night? You can follow me on the following socials: Twitter: @retrowarsuk Instagram: retro_wars_podcast Tiktok: @retrowarsuk Retro Wars is now on YouTube doing Retrospectives on a bunch of games. Subscribe here at - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjyOYGaq-DSB66GfIVqWmMA Please give the show a 5 star review to help it get shown to others. If you want to help the show financially, you can do at www.patreon.com/retrowars You get access to your own fortnightly show, DLC, our discord and can join in with all the show's features. 5% of the Patreon will go to the charity, Get Well Gamers. They are a UK charity who provides children's wards in 150 hospitals with consoles and games for the children to play. Their website can be found here - https://getwellgamers.org.uk/  If you would like to donate any games you can find out how to do this here - https://getwellgamers.org.uk/donate/donate-games/  Find Storm Beagle at Retrotopia at https://open.spotify.com/show/28A670UsEPZUszXmmMm7gA  Follow our artists - Slowspeed run's new channel - Doodle Lounge at https://www.youtube.com/c/SlowSpeedrun 

I'm excited to work with Microsoft once again as the presenting sponsors of the AI Engineer World's Fair! We'll streaming live from MS Build today for a special crossover pod with our friends at No Priors and the one and only Satya Nadella. However we did not hold back with this interview - we asked all the burning questions about uptime and Copilot that we know you have in your minds. Lets go!For almost two decades, GitHub has been the home of software, where both open source and closed flow, through commits, pull requests, reviews, actions, etc.This ecosystem flourished as open-source maintainers and contributors would continue shipping code for the benefit of the community. However as coding agents began to ship mass quantities of code - growing 1400% in 2026, it marked a new era that was both extremely exciting and challenging for GitHub.While these agents help more people ship more projects, they also significantly increase the floor of how much code is shipped, how often it is shipped, how many people commit code, and basically orders of magnitude multiples in every dimension of GitHub infrastructure:Now GitHub inevitably experiences more pressure on their infrastructure which was originally designed around human developers moving at human speed. This has resulted in a very publicly notable uptime story:So it begs the question of whether current systems around code can absorb what AI produces. Can CI/CD keep up when every idea becomes a build? Can open source maintainers survive floods of AI-generated slop contributions? Can GitHub preserve the human social contract of software while becoming the operating layer for agents?Which brings us to the perfect person to answer these questions: GitHub COO Kyle Daigle. In this episode, he joins swyx to unpack what happens when AI doesn't just autocomplete code, but starts changing how companies operate, how open source works, how pull requests get reviewed, and how GitHub itself has to scale. We go deep on GitHub's internal AI workflows: micro-skills, WorkIQ, MCP, Slack, Teams, email, Copilot workflows, the new Copilot desktop app, CLI, cloud agents, and how Kyle uses agents to look backwards across company context before deciding what to do next. Kyle also reflects on GitHub's history building webhooks, APIs, Actions, npm, Dependabot, and Semmle, why the AI era is breaking GitHub in new ways, how Actions became a general-purpose compute layer, and what Copilot becomes after code completion.Full Video PodWe discuss:* Kyle's expanded role across GitHub* How AI got Kyle coding again after years in leadership* Why GitHub rolls out AI through existing workflows instead of forcing new tools* WorkIQ, MCP, Slack, Teams, email, and GitHub as company context* Why massive “mega-skills” are giving way to small, atomic micro-skills* How AI changes summarization, communications, marketing, and analyst work* Why former developers in leadership may have a unique advantage in the AI era* Kyle's “15 agents on Saturday” workflow* How Kyle built an AI-generated executive presentation for CRO/CFO teams* Why AI changes the chief of staff role without removing the human work* GitHub Actions, webhooks, arbitrary code execution, and secure agent compute* The npm acquisition, supply-chain security, 2FA, and token invalidation* Slop forks, vendoring, and whether AI agents change dependency management* What pull requests become when most PRs come from agents* Prompt requests, vouching, AI review, and trust in open source* What counts as a “developer” when AI lowers the barrier to building* GitHub Spark, low-code, and why GitHub refuses to hide the code* 14x commit growth, Actions load, databases, monorepos, and availability* Copilot's evolution from completion to CLI, desktop app, cloud agents, and SDK* Context, memory, rules, and making GitHub “act like Kyle wants it to act”* Ambient AI, OpenClaw, enterprise security, and the new operating system for agents* What swyx should ask Satya Nadella about Microsoft's AI futureKyle Daigle* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyledaigle* X: https://x.com/kdaigleTimestamps00:00:00 Introduction00:03:36 Why AI Got Kyle Coding Again00:07:04 Running GitHub with AI: WorkIQ, MCP, Slack, Teams, and Skills00:15:39 The Golden Age for Former Developers in Leadership00:17:31 15 Agents on Saturday and AI-Generated Executive Work00:20:20 How AI Changes the Chief of Staff Role00:21:45 GitHub's History: Actions, npm, Webhooks, and Open Source00:28:45 Slop Forks, Vendoring, and AI Dependency Management00:33:57 Pull Requests, Prompt Requests, and Trust in Agent-Generated Code00:41:21 GitHub Stars, 200M+ Developers, and the New AI Builder Wave00:45:15 GitHub Spark, Low-Code, and Why GitHub Still Shows the Code00:47:38 GitHub's Hardest Era: 14x Growth, Reliability, and Scale00:59:21 Actions as the Compute Layer for CI/CD and Automation01:02:04 The State and Future of GitHub Copilot01:08:24 Ambient AI, Background Agents, and the Future of the SDLC01:13:09 OpenClaw, Enterprise Security, and the New OS for Agents01:18:03 Build Announcements, WorkIQ, FoundryIQ, and Microsoft Context01:21:41 What Should swyx Ask Satya?TranscriptIntroduction: Kyle Daigle's Expanded Role at GitHub and MicrosoftSwyx [00:00:00]: We're here with Kyle Daigle, COO of GitHub. Welcome.Kyle [00:00:07]: Hey, thanks for having me.Swyx [00:00:08]: You're not just CEO of GitHub. People know you as that. You have a new role.Kyle [00:00:11]: So I have an expanded role now. I've been working at GitHub for thirteen years and doing all things developer. Joined as a developer myself. And now, I'm also responsible as the CMO of Developer for Microsoft. And so all the kind of learnings and passion for developers and how we work with them and how we communicate and how we bring our products to market, we're also bringing that expertise to the broader Microsoft ecosystem and helping every developer that uses a Microsoft product or would like to have a sort of similar experience that they've had with GitHub over the years. So it's a different role in some ways, but it's also just building on the experience that I've had at GitHub of just sort of tell the truth, be authentic, show people how to use it and then let the products speak for themselves. Now just doing that with, all of Microsoft.Swyx [00:01:09]: We'll be releasing this in conjunction with Build. You got lots of stuff planned, and we can sort of touch on that whenever it's appropriate. I think one of the interesting things is I rarely meet a COO who's also a CMO. I think you're a very outward facing and you're very confident publicly. That's rare. Do you actually view yourself as COO? What's What is your thing?From GitHub Developer to COO/CMO: Building the Platform and Operating GitHubKyle [00:01:33]: I think for me, it's been funny. The titles have always been, a— have always felt a little strange to me. I joined GitHub as a developer? I wrote so much of theSwyx [00:01:46]: Let's bring that up. You wrote the back ends?Kyle [00:01:48]: I was going through, I was going through, some old photos, when folks were talking about how things were being built or how there was a build GitHub. I built, webhooks and worked with teams building the API, built the platform layer. Anything that integrated with GitHub, up until really twenty eighteen, I built or ran the engineering teams. And that's kind of where my the beginning of my passion always was helping people build things, deliver them to, their customers. And so being a developer, building for developers was always super unique. In a— I think as my role expanded, it became my ability to talk to not just developers, but also enterprise customers or business leaders and have this translation layer. And then through all those years, GitHub has always operated pretty uniquely. Post-pandemic, working remotely was not as novel as it was when GitHub started in two thousand and eight. But all that expertise of running remote teams, doing it well, became this sort of bigger role, ultimately turning into the COO role of how do we operate GitHub in the way that GitHub's always operated after the Microsoft acquisition. And kind of so on from there. So like for me, I think the— I've, I still code. I love coding but the problem has always been, people. It's a much harder problem to both support our own employees, a harder problem to communicate to developers and enterprise buyers what we're building why it matters, ‘cause those are two very different messages. And so getting to work in the mix of COO, CMO, also just being a dev, I think is what's kept me at GitHub for so long.AI Workflows for Leadership: Commits, Retrospectives, and ContextSwyx [00:03:40]: Apparently, you have— your commits have gone up. What's this? What's going on?Kyle [00:03:45]: Rui's called me out pretty aggressively. So I think— as you can imagine, right, you can see my normal era of being a dev In the twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen era, and then moving into management, and then ultimately the COO role. I think what you see there is me, really getting back to coding thanks to AI. I— similar to, attaching problems between how to market and how to operate a business and how to code, I find, building agents and workflows that are connecting very disparate problems to be what's driving this. So that's, some of it's writing software. A lot of it is, connecting a ton of a different data sources to, help me out. But that is completely me really diving in on the AI side in trying out our tools, trying out everyone's tools, But building for me, building for the non-technical leader, though I'm technical and how we're, able to use these tools more than just the simple, call and response that I think a lot of the non-technical, your employers, you have to get— you have to use AI, and so everyone uses, ChatGPT or Copilot or Claude or whatever. To really get into, how is this going to help me out, it— I find that it's not the I need to write a blog post, I need to those simple examples. Helping people find the workflows of, “Okay, I need you to go through all the PRs today. I need you to go through everything that we've posted online. I need you to go through what we did the last three months. Go through all of my Obsidian notes for any mentions of this then go through my transcripts at work.” We use, Teams, so, using WorkIQ, go call that MCP server, grab all the transcripts, go through all the Slack, and then build me out the plan of, what this week's messaging actually was. That's something that was, impossible because for me, I find AI in a what most of this launch here is actually, less building forward. It's actually, a recursive loop backwards. I'm always looking at what had happened first. Go back through the week and tell me what we did, what worked, what didn't work? And then tell me in the next three or four days-What would you tweak based on this sort of like looking backwards and then looking ahead a little bit? I find that to be so much more valuable, especially for like non-technical, because that retrospection is actually LLMs are very good at that. Like finding all the patterns, pulling them out, and then applying that retrospection to just a couple of days or just like a short period of time. Is all a bunch of apps that I've built and launched a bunch of, internal tools. I use the new, GitHub Copilot app, the desktop app with workflows. Every time I crack open my laptop, it's running workflows for me. It's just a ton of different stuff and of course, it all ends up on, it all ends up on GitHub.Swyx [00:06:47]: Of course. That's where, that's where, stuff is hosted. Man, there's so much to ask you. I was going to leave the how do you run a company with AI thing at the end. I have to ask one— double click one thing. You said, you are looking back at the week. You're, you're understanding what happens. When you say we That's three thousand people. How?Rolling Out AI Internally: Skills, CLIs, and Company ContextKyle [00:07:09]: I think when we started rolling out AI internally beyond engineering, right? One of the things that I was really, passionate about is like we have to do this in a way where no one has to change how they work. I don't want to have to teach you a tool. I don't want to have to teach you something new. And so for us, we tried out a few tools. Most of them don't work because I got to get you on board? I got to teach you how to use it. What we've actually ended up doing is we've built like a set of skills internally. We have we each have our set of skills, and we've just been distributing even to the non-technical folks, the CLI. And then effectively, we're just giving it access to like read about everything that we're writing. So that's for us, that's usually GitHub, Teams, Email, and Slack. So Teams for, video chat, generally speaking.Swyx [00:08:03]: Teams and Slack?Kyle [00:08:04]: so we use Teams for video communication, but we don't use it for chat. W-we— GitHub for a long history, right? We're alwaysSwyx [00:08:13]: Also SlackKyle [00:08:14]: Talking about ChatOps and like everything is built into Slack. Like every command, every flow.Swyx [00:08:18]: So even though you have been acquired for I don't know, eight years nowKyle [00:08:22]: we stillSwyx [00:08:23]: You still use Slack?Kyle [00:08:23]: it's a purpose-built tool for us, and I think the reality is that moving off of it would be so bluntly expensive? Simply because all the tooling is, baked in with that paradigm. And they both have their pros and cons but they don't work the same way at all. We still use a bunch of different tools Because it's the purpose-built tools that We need. And thenSwyx [00:08:47]: Well, the same doesn't go for the rest of Microsoft, presumably.Kyle [00:08:50]: like the like various teams like operateSwyx [00:08:53]: They make their own decisionsKyle [00:08:54]: Various ways. I think it just matters what you're trying to what you're trying to do. But we do we do work across kind of every tool that we use, and then by giving everyone access to all of that context and the new WorkIQ MCP server, which is quite cool if you do live in the M365 like world. I can ask it all these backwards-facing questions, and it's incredibly important for our teams that are working remotely. There's a lot of stuff you miss when you're not in an office, and we are spread out all over the world. So most of that is looking back. And then we post, we post either auto-automatically into GitHub issues or discussions, these sorts of like findings or like our industry reports. Like what's happening this morning, today, yesterday. A little automation gets run. We'll use the app. We might use GitHub Actions like with, our agentic workflows just to go do that run, and then we push it into GitHub, and w-we keep having a conversation. So usually for us, it's about that sort of like looking back, looking forward on the non-technical side. And then of course for a lot of those folks, it's also building an app, pushing it to GitHub pages or pushing it somewhere to host it et cetera. But it's just like enabling everyone with that power of it's going to take me a week to figure this out. Instead, we're going “Okay I built a skill. Let's put it into a repo. We'll all share that skill together, and then we'll use the CLI or now the app-” “just to run it.”Micro Skills vs. Mega Skills: How GitHub Uses AI at WorkSwyx [00:10:26]: All right. I think, I think we're going straight into like the team management and productivity thing. I think a lot of people are getting various levels of LLM psychosis. How do you manage the bloat of skills? Like everyone Has their thing, and they're Like trying to promote it to the rest of their peers in their org, right? And obviously, whoever becomes a skill influencer internally becomes like an AI leader, right? Of sorts. I assume you have those.Kyle [00:10:50]: like I think we haveSwyx [00:10:52]: And I assume it's a mess a Yeah.Kyle [00:10:54]: there's like I— like I think the reality is there's two pieces. Like first is I think that we're ending the era of these like massive, beautiful, perfect skills that are just like not any of those things. ‘cause for a while, right every tweet every day is like go download the skills, the perfectly managed thing to do this entire workflow. And I think that like what we've found and what— I was just with my team, this week, and we were talking about the skill side, and we're really talking about these like incredibly micro skills that are just doing one thing for us very well Versus a skill that's going to do I said, that full report. That doesn't really exist on our side anymore. It's usually how do— like a single skill that's going to identify the most important marketing information given any MCP server. Like this is the most important thing. Less about stitch a bunch of tools together and have it produce this mega output because then weeks go by, months go by, things change, and you want to tweakSwyx [00:11:58]: It's brittleKyle [00:11:58]: Your mega skill and you're screwed? You can't do that. And so now we're really just talking about the Legos we're using and just letting the instruction book be something we're all putting together. Whereas I think a lot of AI skills for a while have been that mega instruction book style.Swyx [00:12:15]: I've, thought a lot about Postel's law. I don't know if that's a term that is, means things to folks. It's the idea that you should be liberal in what you accept and strict in what you output, right? And I think that's like a good framing principle for skills. This is my skills, obviously on GitHub. I feel like everyone should have like how like some repos In GitHub are special repos? I feel like we should sort of reify the slash skills and everyone like give it some kind of special presentation. Anyway, so, yeah, this is one of those like download Download anything, transcribe anything, and then you can string together the atomic skills that do one thing well Into like some kind of orchestration skill that calls other skills. I assume, does that match?Kyle [00:12:56]: I like I think so. I think that theSwyx [00:13:00]: Summarize anything.Kyle [00:13:01]: Like I think the- For me, summarizing something for I do communications and PR and analyst relations and marketing and customer activities, and so my summarize everything is very different for each one of those like Contexts. What ‘Cause if I'm summarizing something for an analyst, that's a very different thing than, probably how I'm going to summarize something for like a customer meeting or an engagement. So that's I think like the difference when we're talking about the like the tools I might use on Saturday or the skills I might use on a Saturday when it's just for Kyle. Yeah, those are kind of like they have an atomic actual tool underneath or maybe skill, and then Kyle cares about X. But I think when we're talking about work and enabling the the marketers, communicators there, it's the atomic, this is what good summarization is, and then this is what I care about as for marketing for communications For whatever. And that I think is like the interesting matrix problem when we go from like a developer set of concerns to all kinds of different professions, is that what that word means to me is different than it means to you is different than it means to the analyst or the salesperson, and that's where I think the matrix mess is that we're starting to like still starting to find. It's about these mega skills but they're all just slight permutations, but those permutations are really important. It's the difference between someone reading this and going “Did AI make this?” what Or “This makes total sense, and I would expect this when I'm giving a briefing to Gartner,” or like whatever else.Swyx [00:14:37]: I think the beauty of it maybe is that you don't have to be that careful about what goes in there. It doesn't have to exactly fit as long as it like roughly is contained in there. I used to complain about plugin hell, basically. Like when you have a framework and then you have a hundred things that you need to integrate, everyone does like the GitHub used to be bloated full of these things. And now we don't need them anymore ‘cause now you just use skills.Former Developers in Leadership: AI as a Creation MultiplierKyle [00:15:00]: And like I think the most magical thing is the just that like I can just also crack it open. Like Like yes, I could go like change the how the plugin is coded, or like I could go do that now with AI, but I think there's just something more magical about getting a response back and being “That's not right,” and then you just crack the skill open, you just type English words and it's different. That building block is just, I think very unique. Once I get everyone to kind of understand how to best how to best make those changes to get the most power out of them.Swyx [00:15:36]: Is there a— you have a your peer group that Of people like you. Is there a common framing for Something I'm feeling is, which is true, is that is this a golden age for former developers who are now in leadership? Because you can wield the tools, you would know the right words, you're maybe not too close to the details. Doesn't matter. But like you're more effective than someone who doesn't come from that background.Kyle [00:15:59]: I think that like the secret has always been your ability to identify patterns and solve problems, and I think that for folks that like myself that don't code day to day anymore, that has made me successful as a developer, made me successful as a COO and now CMO. And so now that I have access to get and write code, I'm now applying that sort of like pattern finding and problem solving, and I know enough still about how to then go and say, “Oh, I want to make an app, but I don't want to break into jail or create something that's not going to be able to work or to be deployed scale or whatever.” that ability to apply all that additional business knowledge and still code I think is what makes that so interesting to me. Slightly different than I think some of the other like technical leaders that became business leaders and now are going back to their apps and updating them. Good for them? But I think the more, much more interesting thing is, well, now I have this whole new set of expertise over ten plus years. Why not take that and use that as a developer with these AI tools? So I definitely think that makes me more powerful, but I think that's true for like every dev as well. Most of the dev friends I still have also have some other underlying skill and passion. There's really talented, very kind of linear computer science software devs, absolutely. I just find that the folks that came from a different career, went to school for something else, went off and did this random thing, and then became a software dev, or were a dev, did a random thing, came back. Learning that extra set of information, learning those extra skills, and now having the power of an AI where I can crank up fifteen agents on Saturday while my kids are doing lacrosse, That's like really powerful. And I think it gets me back to that feeling of like creation, and it's very hard to replicate that in most other senses? That first time you build an app and you click it and you show someone that's magical. And so being able to do that not just in code, but across all kinds of different assets that's, that's huge. We were doing we're doing our every year we do our revenue planning. We talk about okay, what is it going to look like for next year? And of course as you imagine, there's, slideshows everywhere talking about what are we going to talk about, what's the narrative, et cetera. And so as you said I'm “Okay, well, I could probably just like build something to build this and then that way I don't have to go build the whole spreadsheet or I have to pass it to my team.” So we went through this process, and I got all the information and used the skills I mentioned. I built like a little app just to make it so I could look at some of the information in a SQLite database, more easily. And I ultimately built this entire presentation without touching any of it and I was “Okay, I'm just going to present this to our CRO, the CFO, their teams,” without mentioning I'd built it with AI. I like built a skill to make it look very much not AI driven. Just not pretty.AI-Generated Presentations, Human Taste, and the Changing Chief of Staff RoleSwyx [00:19:03]: Like a design. Yeah.Kyle [00:19:03]: Not pretty. But just like very clearly not AI. Kind of like don't do anything interesting.Swyx [00:19:08]: That's, yeah, that is valuable.Kyle [00:19:08]: Just go Exactly. We did the whole thing through. It used my notes from Obsidian, it used all the context I mentioned before, the plans, and Never came up once that it was AI generated.Swyx [00:19:20]: It didn't matter.Kyle [00:19:20]: Never once. D It didn't matter. And so now I takeSwyx [00:19:23]: This is a toolKyle [00:19:23]: I can take that tool and go, “Look, I don't want you to go build slideshows.” They're just helping us share information with each other. If this thing can do it With a little bit of crafting from you and then we can look at it together, awesome. There's no value in all that extra work. I think that the ability to, make it look humanly bad and and build a little app to, manipulate the data I think is part of, that upside for devs that are now in leadership roles. Because, the thing that I feel like I said before, this that's all a people, that's all a people problem. I know if you've used a coworker or not to build a slide deck, unless you spent a bunch of time to not do it.Swyx [00:20:07]: I know, but like it was so, I think there's a certain charm to just being blatantly AI. ‘Cause I think that you're well, you're just honest about There may be mistakes here that I cannot vouch for. So how much value is there? But anyway I think, actually the real question I want to ask is, there's a— You were a chief of staff To Thomas. And in the pre-AI world, the that job would've been a chief of staff job of like Can you prep me these slides and all that? And now you do it yourself.Kyle [00:20:35]: I still, I still have a chief of staff. Because, the difference is it's sort of the discussion every time we have some sort of technology evolution is it's not that the jobs the roles don't all go away, they just change? And so yeah, I don't have someone spending all their time building out slides for me and presentations ‘cause I don't need that anymore. But now I need that person that is able to go and find all the different connections between humans in those discussions to help me find out, okay, I should be meeting with this group and this team, and they have an opportunity, and I'm going to be in San Francisco today, I'm going to be in Seattle tomorrow. Those sorts of human connection aspects are still incredibly valuable and has always been a big part of that chief of staff role. But now just like chiefs of staff are not opening up, letters to process, they're doing emails. What It's the same thing. And now they're, they're not building out as many of these presentations because they have the the ability to have a AI take it on for, and share that with me and great. Let's keep moving ‘cause it's allowing us to go faster and make better decisions more quickly.Swyx [00:21:45]: Awesome. Well, so we can dive into more sort of, Productivity insights as you go. I did want to do a little bit of a brief history of colleague and hub. Because, we started here. And then you also involved the NPM acquisition. I did, I do want to touch upon that. And then more recently, I just want to bring up to present day where we're having uptime issues Which transparently we've already Addressed publicly, but we'll, we'll discuss in the pod. Did I miss anything? Like what, any other major highlights? Obviously, it's, it's a lot of years to cover.A Brief History of GitHub: Webhooks, Actions, Acquisitions, and Platform EvolutionKyle [00:22:15]: No the I think one of one highlight was right before the acquisition closed in twenty eighteen, I got to launch the first version of ActionsSwyx [00:22:27]: OhKyle [00:22:27]: At GitHub Universe. So it was OSwyx [00:22:29]: They're that young?Kyle [00:22:30]: It was October of twenty eighteen, I think. Yeah. Yeah.Swyx [00:22:33]: Gee, Jesus.Kyle [00:22:34]: I got to I was the engineering leader on that project and got to launch that. And then, yeah, we did acquisitions of NPM you said, Semmle, Dependabot Pul Panda a whole bunch of things. That was a bigSwyx [00:22:47]: Pul Panda.Kyle [00:22:48]: Abi is doing well.Swyx [00:22:51]: DX. Holy crap.Kyle [00:22:52]: Did well on DX. I and like that was a that was the big shift, after the acquisition. I had to join the sort of business side.Swyx [00:23:00]: So I need to hit you on some of these things ‘cause you were there. Right? And how often do I get to talk to someone who was there? But yeah, Actions. Is that the number one source of security issues on GitHub?Kyle [00:23:11]: Oh, sh I think that the number one source of, security issues is probably like all, the literal code in everyone's like underlying repositories. I would say back further than that is, if you remember I had to show in this graph was this is, I'm, didn't say this before, this is ultimately webhooks.Swyx [00:23:30]: You yeah.Kyle [00:23:31]: Like circa whatever it was.Swyx [00:23:32]: It says Hookshot in there.Kyle [00:23:32]: I forget. Yeah. Yeah, Hookshot's in there. And so like back then, it says GitHub Services. Do you see, it says Hookshot FE for front end, and then it says GitHub Services. GitHub Services back in the old days, right? You we had a repository that was Ruby code, and you could write any Ruby code in there, and then we would execute that On your behalf As a service, and then that way if an if you were trying to integrate with something, it didn't we would run it for you.Swyx [00:23:57]: And of course no containers ‘causeKyle [00:23:58]: No, ‘cause it wasSwyx [00:23:59]: Well, no containersKyle [00:24:00]: Twenty fourteen. And so there was some isolation obviously, but it was mostly the separations on the server level. That's like an example as long as the very old version of Pages, which ran on its own containerization infrastructure, not on Actions.Swyx [00:24:15]: Which like all-time great product.Kyle [00:24:16]: Pages powers the internet at this point to some degree. Those were places where like clearly there were no like issues like to my knowledge. But it was those things where I'm looking at and going “Okay, well we can't be running arbitrary Ruby code,” like on everyone's behalf. Then containerizing all of that up intoUh into actions now where yeah the containerization, is r-really good. The pinning most folks aren't pinning it the like to a particularSwyx [00:24:48]: ImagesKyle [00:24:48]: Sha, et cetera like their workflows, and so that's a big that's a big place Of pain for folks if they're just doing similar to any dependency management, just V1 or newest or latest, I think. But, that journey from that day to “Okay, we're just going to run all this arbitrary code, and, it'll basically be okay,” to now, no, we have, really good containerization. We have a new, underlying, ag-agent, containerization, service. It's like we're using it under the hood. It's through Azure. They recently announced it. The Azure, Dev Compute, but it's, very fast, very fast compute to be able to, spin up your own cloud agents, or whatnot. We're using it under the hood for some parts of the new,Swyx [00:25:36]: Microsoft Dev Box?Kyle [00:25:37]: No. Dev Compute, yeah.Swyx [00:25:41]: Hmm. Not finding it just yet.Kyle [00:25:44]: Oh, it's, it's in there somewhere.Swyx [00:25:46]: All right. Well, we'll cut that out.Kyle [00:25:47]: Sorry. But with, Dev Compute, you can, run, really fast, spin up really, small VMs really quickly, so you're doing a tool callSwyx [00:25:58]: Same conceptKyle [00:25:58]: Just do it containerize exact-exactly. So we're using that so definitely moving that direction to protect us from every every piece of code that we're ultimately running.Swyx [00:26:07]: look, that grows into the full SDLC? Code hosting was just the start and and then it's grown beyond that. Let's talk about NPM may-maybe ‘cause I think that's also, a very major point in the industry. I do think, it was looking for a home. It was, kind of struggling as a business, right? I don't know, I don't know how you would characterize that whole acquisition and how itNPM, Package Security, and Keeping the Internet RunningKyle [00:26:33]: like when we were talking to the team, I think the big thing for the both of us was to find a way to keep NPM, which was basically powering the internet then and way more so now to some degree running. Keep it going keep continuing to scale. It was having scaling problems, if I recall, back at that time. They were doing some rewrites. ItSwyx [00:27:00]: that's cute compared to now.Kyle [00:27:01]: Well, that's the thing is like when I'm talking to folks now, there's there's so many more underlying uses of NPM than there were back when we had them join in with GitHub. But that was ultimately the goal. It was really okay, we used to have pages. We have, the world's code. Let's make sure that we can keep NPM running well for the world. And we put a bunch of time and investment into fixing some of the underlying backend, changes, some of which we talked about some of the manifest work, et cetera. And then now, really trying to bring the the security posture of NPM up to speed. But, it is a unique challenge in that every move that we make to make it more secure will break a lot of people. And security is paramount. And also, we take it very seriously. We're, the any time that we have a problem with GitHub or we make a change that makes us more secure but hurts, there's, a snow day for developers or a really bad fire that they have to go put out. And so we've, have changed the 2FA policies. We've changed the way the tokens work. When we find tokens that have been exposed or potentially, exposed, we invalidate them, andSwyx [00:28:22]: I love that feature in GitHub. Yeah, it's greatKyle [00:28:23]: That creates issues, but, the but that's the thing is we're trying to push the community, forward without necessarily, doing something that is going to break the contract that's been for 15 years or close to it or some amount of years on NPM.Slop Forks, Vendoring, and the Future of Open Source Supply ChainsSwyx [00:28:43]: I think the— So now we're talking about, open source and publishing. And I think there's something here with what people are calling slop forks, which, I think Malta from Vercel is doing. And, part of me thinks, well, the way to get past any vulnerabilities, we just, let's just get rid of the concept of NPM. And we only publish source code. And anytime you want to import it you have your coding agent look at it and then adapt whatever subset you're going to use into your vendor it. But, the AI vendor it. Is that realistic? I don't know. Is it— Will that solve all our security issues? I don't know.Kyle [00:29:24]: I don't think it'll solve I so Mitchell was just talking Mitchell Hashimoto Was just talking about this today, and I think that I-in some ways, it's all all things, old or new again? Yeah, absolutely vendoring everything. Like I do I do remember twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen.Swyx [00:29:42]: This is Yeah. Let's, we must return toKyle [00:29:43]: That's what is We were vendoring everything. We were having actual discussions around, or at least I remember we were “Should we take this full thing?” “Why is this so big? We only need this one file.” And so I do think there's something true there where having either taking only what you need or the dependencies just getting incredibly small over time, I think will help to some degree, but it's not going to solve the fundamental problem, I don't think, because the vulnerabilities in an agent looking at them, there's time and time again, there's a million different ways in which we can convince an agent that this thing is, secure or not and pull it in. Or we can do static code analysis or runtime testing to say whether the code works or not. That is, I think, the step that needs to continue to be, invested in. The question is just on, how much scope. Should it be this enormous project that I'm pulling down, or should it be this piece? Either most companies are running some amount of security checking on the on the packages that they're bringing in or vendoring. That I think won't change. That's like what advanced security does to some degree, Socket does some degree. Like everyone is doing a piece of that. How we each do that like especially when we're talking to enterprise customers, is just like very different. No there's no one wants one single way to do it. And I think that's always been GitHub's, unique position in the world. I talk a lot to maintainers, I talk a lot to folks about this. It's we're— we rarely start like a process and a practice and like push it onto the community. We usually wait for the sort of like RFC process socially or literally, everyone agreeing, and then we'll cement something in. Because otherwise we'reMaintainers, RFCs, Vouching, and the Social Layer of TrustSwyx [00:31:35]: That fits your role in the ecosystem, yeahKyle [00:31:36]: We're GitHub. Yeah, we don't want to shape the whole thing. We want it to be figured out. But like how do you balance that like sort of Role in the industry to keep everything as secure as is possible and make sure that you're you're not going to be compromised as a human, ‘cause that's usually how it all happens. And Not not create a process or lock us into a flow that you're not going to or like Mitchell's not going to or other open source projects aren't going to like. That's always been a tricky balance for us, and I think that's something that we haven't talked about enough is we're not going to be able to fix everything for everyone in a way that everyone is going to like. So tell, help us, tell us what is working. When Mitchell was talking about, the Upvote, the upSwyx [00:32:22]: I was going to bring up his thing. Yeah.Kyle [00:32:23]: I forget what it Yeah. When he's talking to us, I was chatting with him and talking to him about this and I put it on Twitter and we talked to, also over DM, was “We're going to keep working.” but I think the important thing is I do actually want to hear what isn't working for you. And as, be as specific and clear for your project as is possible. And to every piece of credit over the many years that we've known each other through the industry, he's always done that and I appreciate that ‘cause there are places that we need to fix up, and we hear from him, and we'll fix up just like we do all other kinds of maintainers. But that that process between making those types of improvements and being more secure and like creating, I forget what he calls it's not the proof process, not the claims process. Do what I'm talking about? He has that he his projects have a way for you to kind of like,Swyx [00:33:13]: VouchKyle [00:33:13]: Vouch. Thank you. Yeah. He has like the vouch system for saying, “Hey, you should accept my PRs.” That's beenSwyx [00:33:20]: I just built this into GitHub. I don't know.Kyle [00:33:22]: Well, see, but that's the thing is that you say that and like he and his community really likes this and then I'll go talk to other maintainers and other maintainers, globally, and they're “No, this doesn't work for me.” And that is the tension, but also the kind of beauty of GitHub, depending on which way you look at it is we want to help maintainers, so we create all these tools to let you have more control over how much you take in from AI and PRs. But you can also use this. What You can go use this project, and if it takes off and becomes the kind of mostly standard, then yeah, we probably wouldn't enforce it but we would add it in because that's the flow that we tend to do?Swyx [00:34:02]: I hear a lot of people don't know the history of the pull request. And like like that's how, that's something that GitHub standardized basically.Kyle [00:34:08]: Yeah. It was a very messy process Like beforehand, and now the we have the benefit of it being the process? And now we have to go and Figure out the next best process or what adaptations change, or what does a pull request look like when eighty percent of your PRs are just coming from your agents and not From other devs?Swyx [00:34:31]: Do you like the prompt request idea from Peter?Kyle [00:34:34]: like I think that for each like each idea I think has its merits. I'm not, I'm not avoiding saying anything good or bad, but I feel like I've seen a version of we have that we have entire Thomas' store. Take all the assets of what you've built and put that in. I think that's got great ideas. There's all these various permutations of the PR flow, but I think the reason why there's not a single answer is ultimately we're trying to codify trust. We're trying to say “Okay, if Sean reviews this I'm going to trust it because you're Sean or you're the senior dev or you're the whatever.” And right now, when we are working in a flow where an agent writes code and another agent reviews code and then Kyle goes and looks at it the trust is kind of diffuse. And most of the tools that we're talking about are talking more about verification flows. We have more assets to look at, so I can probably say whether this is a good PR or not. But that still doesn't solve, I think, the human problem of I'm looking at a PR and I want to know if I can trust it. And we're still, we still tend to use human signals for that? Mitchell approving it or Kyle approving it or whatever. And so I think that's, I think that's why most of these options haven't really solved it is because, it's a social problem ultimately. It's a it's a human problem to review it and agree. Or you fully trust the tool and you're imbuing that tool with full trust Which I think in some cases that absolutely exists.AI-Generated PRs, Trust, and the Waymo AnalogySwyx [00:36:08]: And so like in the same way that there will be a tipping point in society when we don't allow humans to drive anymore Because machines are measurably better than Than humans. I'm looking for that tipping point, right? Like Mythos is ridiculously expensive. Someday we'll have Mythos on a desktop. I don't know. Will, does that change the equation?Kyle [00:36:30]: I think it's more I took a Waymo here, and I was on my phone and not looking around at all. There are other, self-driving, vehicles that I would not trust while, staring at the road. And I think that trust is something that isSwyx [00:36:48]: Is this a Zoox thing? What is itKyle [00:36:50]: I think that is both. I think that is both. LikeSwyx [00:36:53]: There's Zoox in this robo taxi. That's it. It'sKyle [00:36:56]: Well, depending on what level Of self-driving. But, my point is sort of that I think part of that is I strongly believe that's, a mixture of verifiable proof. Like how many accidents, how much data, and so on, and the human aspect of how I feel when I'm in this car, what it tells me, et cetera. And so that's why I think some of the like Some of these some of our AI tools tend to, imbue me with more of that feeling of trust, even if the data says this is 100% accurate. I feel like it takes more time for us to go, “Should I trust this or not?” And that's in the soft sense of, startups with high agency, weekend projects, and open source. And then there's enterprises and regulated industries and everything else, and that is an even harder problem to go solve because even when it is fully verified, not only do you have to have trust from the humans on the team, you probably have to have trust from multinational,Swyx [00:37:55]: Oh my GodKyle [00:37:55]: Multi governments around the world and regulating agencies. And so that's where I feel like until we tip over to your point on the sort of like human EQ side of it. I feel okay this feels okay I've been proven enough. Then the ball will start to roll a lot faster, where we'll end up getting to the “Okay, we can trust this,” and feel good about it in the Most difficult of cases.Reputation, Sponsors, Stars, and Bot Activity on GitHubSwyx [00:38:18]: If human trust is the thing that matters, I feel like GitHub as the developer social network could maybe do more there. Like vouchers are one system But, we have star counts, and then we have Contributor rights, and that's it. And I feel like there should be more in that space. I don't know if there's any other design decisions there.Kyle [00:38:37]: I think that one of the places that we don't really expose right now in this sort of way is, some degree of like hard trust and support, which would like for me is like sponsors is a good example of that.Swyx [00:38:49]: Ah.Kyle [00:38:49]: It like costs you something. To prove that I believe in your project and I trust you To some degree or I want to support you at the very least.Swyx [00:38:56]: Solve payments for open source. Why not?Kyle [00:38:58]: I think that I think that like as we keep moving forward, right, there's more and more projects where I'm, adding more and more dollars into sponsors personally because I want to like support them, but I also like know of I've probably never met them in person, but, I know of enough of their work that I want to support them. I think the thing that I don't love about stars or commit counts or anything else is ultimately, even with all of the various, abuse and de-spamming and deduplication work that we do or anti-abuse work that we do, these are all, not active social signals. They're passive ones that are ultimately gamifiable. And you may trust me, but another open source maintainer may not. And on what heuristic should you be, trusting me? That I think, is kind of where some of our thinking is right now. What signal from me is most important to you? You— If you can define that potentially, honestly in an agentic workflow that's what we see some of these open source projects do, where you have GitHub actions, and then you have like an agentic workflow that's calling AI, and you're setting these rules. Like if Kyle has submitted and gotten accepted PRs across any given project and has a social handle tied to his account in GitHub, and that social account's older than a certain amount. Really complex measures that matter to you ‘cause most open source projects have that heuristic built into their heads, if not written down in the contributing guidelines. You could take that and then go apply that and then just say, “Oh, we're not going to accept this PR.” Building something that is, I think, malleable to everyone's needs, is a little bit better, rather than going “Hmm, this account's too young.” Because what happens? The attackers just go and go and create a multitude of accounts, and they wait Until it ages up. Needs to have a certain amount of stars. That's how star inflation happens. Need to have a certain amount of reposSwyx [00:40:46]: Oh my God. YeahKyle [00:40:47]: With PRs. They all just create repos and submit PRs to each other, and then they come in and do something nefarious. And so, it's hard. It's hard to find the measure. So I think we're, we're looking more at how can we provide you tools so you can kind of choose what's best for you. And of course, we'll give you some standards. But the trust vector, gets down to I don't know, some version of like human digital ID like everyone's been talking about. Like how do I prove that it's meSwyx [00:41:13]: Give me your eyeballsKyle [00:41:14]: On the internet. Give me your eyeballs. Exactly.Swyx [00:41:18]: The I got to keep moving on Topics, but obviously I can go all day on this stuff because, I've been involved in GitHub and open source My entire professional career. Stars. Very superficial. Everyone knows it. But I think time to one hundred thousand stars is the fastest I've ever seen. Like people just reached that in I don't know, months. And then like at the same time I don't trust it right? Like how many of these are real or bot or like whatever. I don't know how to ask this but like what can we do about it? LikeKyle [00:41:49]: JustSwyx [00:41:49]: Is stars broken? Is stars fine?Kyle [00:41:51]: I think that there's kind of two, there's like two pieces. Obviously we're constantly like trying to find ways in which like your users are producing spam, which would, I would include like be like only doing star gamification. When we find them, we pluck ‘em out and we,Swyx [00:42:08]: But it's like a Whac-A-MoleKyle [00:42:10]: It's a hundred percent like a Whac-A-MoleSwyx [00:42:11]: There's no wayKyle [00:42:11]: Now, powered by AI to be helpful. But I think more so what I'm seeing is, a lot of the like fastest time to X tends to be because we're now inviting so many more people into like software development on GitHub That like the zeitgeist is just swarming? And it'sSwyx [00:42:32]: It's not just developers anymoreKyle [00:42:33]: And it's not you and I. Like like however you want to say like what a developer is it's not just folks who have been coding for a very long time. It's folks that have maybe started coding or only joined in since the AI era. And nowSwyx [00:42:44]: what's the latest Octoverse number? I know eighty million was my lastRem- member that a number of developers on GitHubKyle [00:42:50]: Oh, we're over 200 million now.Swyx [00:42:53]: Okay. Well, so you see?Kyle [00:42:55]: Like over 200 million developers now.Swyx [00:42:56]: But it's not developers, right? It's, it's people with a GitHub account.What Counts as a Developer in the AI Era?Kyle [00:43:00]: So, so this is, this is the biggest debate that I would say, everyone loves to have at GitHub at this point. From my perspective, right, I think that there's, there's clearly a difference between, professional enterprise developer and then developers. But I think that I think that the idea that we should be I don't know, splitting hairs or segmenting developers in the early era of software development is, not worth our not worth the time. SoSwyx [00:43:29]: When you get into gatekeepingKyle [00:43:31]: 100%Swyx [00:43:31]: What is a developer?Kyle [00:43:31]: 100%. ‘Cause I wasn't a developer when I started writing code? I was going toSwyx [00:43:36]: Oh, no. I made— I cloned a thing, seven years before I learned to code. And then I and then I wrote about my learning to code journey, and people Just called me a fraud ‘cause I had a GitHub account. And I'm “Well, no, I just use GitHub, but I don't know-” “I didn't know what I was doing.”Kyle [00:43:49]: I I remember that. I remember those sets of posts, and like that's, that's b******t. So I fight very clearly on the line of, if you create code, if you have an idea and you create it into some way of, I'm, I'm going to run it and use the app right now, you may still use AI in that moment, but that's okay. At some point you're going to do the next thing. You're going to create a big— You're going to have to learn about this database. You're going to fix a bug, whatever. We're all on some same journey, and those people are also hearing about the great new agent skill package or a new CLI tool or a new whatever. And those projects are going up because you want to be a part of this moment, just like I wanted to be a part of the Ruby community when Ruby was popping off when I started becoming a developer, and now I can just click the star button. And so I think that yes, there's clearly some amount of like spamming and game gamification that we're working against, but I really think we're just seeing this whole new cohort of folks that are moving from technology to technology because they're not working on a 20-year-old software application. They're working on a side app that they built on the weekend for their friends or for their new idea or whatever. And that's how you see these enormous charts going up and to the right with With stars.Swyx [00:44:59]: I think something that's remarkable is the persistence or, that GitHub extends to those folks. Usually when I see platforms go into a new audience, they usually have to, have like a second platform with a different name that wraps the main platform. But somehow GitHub has been able to sort of persist and extend, and it's friendly and whatever? So it's, it's nice.Spark, Low-Code, and Always Showing the CodeKyle [00:45:19]: I that's partially why I think as we've tried to move into I don't know, more like low-code-y things. We so we started working on Spark as like a way to, build an app and run it. I think that the reality is that we anytime we try to, kind of put even a veneer on top of it without when we put a veneer on top of something, we still always show you the code. That's kind of like a tenant. We're never going to, hide the code from you ever, because whatSwyx [00:45:52]: Why would you?Kyle [00:45:52]: That's, yeah, that's the whole point? However, I think that what we learned with things like Spark is that really the value of Spark for most devs is, easy runtime. And you may have a runtime or a host that you're going to use for that or you just build something and run it but, the package of making that even more simple isn't really needed for folks that are trying to build software and not just trying to build, an app, which is, slightly different, a slightly different goal. So I want to get you in, I want to get you comfortable. I think the best thing for me as, someone that did not traditionally come into software dev way back, I want anyone to be able to breach that chasm and not be in the I don't know, I feel like we're, we're still in an era of, STEM. I've got a 12-year-old and an eight-year-old, and it's “We got to get ‘em into STEM,”? Over and over. And I like I do, I do the things that good parents do. I was “Oh, you want to do coding?” “Yes, I want to do coding.” Do coding classes. But now they're just not afraid of doing software. And that's, I think, the thing that's honestly kept me at GitHub for so long. Anyone should be able to go and build a thing, just like I can go change a light switch in my house. I'm not going to go into the breaker box ‘cause I'll probably kill myself? But, I can go change that light switch. Everyone should be able to go and say, “This fricking app doesn't do what I want. I want it to work like this.” And that I think, is what's kind of kept us all connected with GitHub through the years and some and during the easiest of times or in the hard times because of that opportunity of, we're the home for all developers, and we want everyone to be able to have that feeling that we've had of, had an idea, I created it and holy s**t here it is.Swyx [00:47:37]: Here it is. All right, I'm going to try to do more spicy questions.GitHub's Hardest Scaling Moment: Growth, Agents, and UptimeKyle [00:47:42]: Great.Swyx [00:47:42]: Is it an easy time now or a hard time?Kyle [00:47:45]: Oh at GitHub? It's a hard time. Like, it's a hard time and also, I was just with my team and I said, “This is also, the best and most exciting time that I think I can remember at GitHub.” BecauseSwyx [00:47:57]: Best of times, worst of times. It's never oneKyle [00:47:59]: ‘cause we've we were talking about Octoverse reports and, usually we do an Octoverse report once a year, and we look at the numbers, and we say, “Oh my goodness.” I was at Universe in October saying, “This was the fastest year of growth that we've ever had,” right? And now we're doing more in a month than we did in a year last year.Swyx [00:48:20]: You're talking about PRs.Kyle [00:48:21]: Commits.Swyx [00:48:21]: Commits, yeah.Kyle [00:48:22]: PRs. Kind of like you name it by roughly every measure that we're looking at, there's some amount of sort of growth that is much bigger, and that is breaking our system in new ways, not old ways. Like webhooks were always notoriously, unreliable over the years?Swyx [00:48:38]: Whose fault is that?Kyle [00:48:39]: not anymore mine, but for a period of time, I'm sure you could pull up a tweet that was “It was me. I'm sorry.” but, now, that got rewritten at a scale level that is still working and is not having problems today. Now what we're finding isn't just the isn't the-The simple stuff that folks are on the sometimes on Twitter or on the internet are “Hey, why is this like this?” Sure. There's absolutely silly problems that we shouldn't exist. But now we're talking about, unique, novel permission problems that happen only at a scale across all different objects or whatever, that now we have to go rewrite this underlying system. And so it's, there are problems that yeah, caught us off guard, which I think I said. Like the growth is astronomical, but also we're making such material progress in that I'm excited once we're once we've kind of like reimagined the underlying foundation layer, or pieces of it at least, what's going to be possible when it's not just all of us and all the new people that are being developers and all of their agents and all the tools like working together. Because that'll still happen in that in that GitHub tool, that GitHub community. But it's a it's a hard day anytime we can't give you what you're looking for. We have the same problem internally. We operate through github. Com. Of course, we have backups when things go down and whatnot for our own operations but we feel it too. If it's not working it's not working for us, and that's kind of like the promise of dogfooding for GitHub. It's always been true. We're using the same tool you're using. We're not using a super secret version. We and so we also need it to be great for us for our customers of course for open source. And now an exponential growth of agents, Doing it too.Swyx [00:50:32]: I wanted to load for audio listeners who maybe haven't seen your tweets, whatever. So one billion commits in twenty-five. Now it's two hundred and seventy-five million per week on pace for fourteen billion this year, if growth remains linear. Is that still the pace? I don't know. It's been aKyle [00:50:48]: it's, it's speedingSwyx [00:50:50]: Roughly.Kyle [00:50:50]: It's still speeding up.Swyx [00:50:51]: It's, it's April, so yeah.Kyle [00:50:51]: Exactly. This was in April.Swyx [00:50:53]: All right. So basically you have fourteen x growth, right? Year on year on year. And I think that's a scaling issue. I think, I'm going to like try to really steel man this thing. People have experienced fourteen x growth. They haven't had your downtime. And that's like— C-can we go dig into that? Why? Like what's the— what broke? What are we doing to fix it? Like just anything for the community to reassure them.Why GitHub Reliability Is Breaking in New WaysKyle [00:51:18]: so there's a Like I was saying, there's a couple different places that we've seen the growth issues. Some of the growth issues, which is why we're t— I was talking about pushing hard on more CPUs is in actions in particular. More tools, more agents, more PRs mean more builds, more builds mean more CPUs. And so we are expanding through not just our data center, but obviously we were talking about moving to Azure and moving to, adding an additional cloud compute because we simply need more CPUs. Not as much GPUs. We definitely need GPUs too, but now CPUs are becoming a factor.Swyx [00:51:53]: It's very CPU heavy.Kyle [00:51:54]: Underneath the hood when it comes to some of the underlying services, we've been breaking up over the years our database infrastructure, so that way we have, more cognitive separation between our the various services. The place that we continue to have pain is in, permissioning. And so right now m-many of our permissioning layers sit into a database that we like internally call MySQL One, and old Hubbers will know what I'm talking about. And so we've been pulling things out of MySQL One for many years, because like and we use we use Vitess and we use other technologies to shard and we do it as one bigSwyx [00:52:31]: Famous thing, PlanetScale was born from this andKyle [00:52:32]: A hundred percent. Sam Old Hubber and friend. And so finding these opportunities to like break this out and then do that globally. The other thing that I think is interesting and both a unique opportunity and tricky is we also run everything I just talked about in a black box container with GitHub Enterprise Server for people that work on-prem. So we take everything I just said, and we also do it on-prem, and we also do all of that and we do it in a data residence setup for customers that need to have their data in a single location. Each of these has the unique characteristic around how we're sort of storing that data in MySQL or in a permissioning setup. That's where some of these outages have oc-occurred, where you're seeing it more like across the board rather than just like the one pieceSwyx [00:53:17]: Filling the databaseKyle [00:53:17]: Isn't quite working. Exactly. And so part of it is that. I think there's been some other places where agents are much more or more projects appear to be moving towards monorepo versus we were going the other direction for many years in the industry. Repos were smaller, but there were more of them, and now we're seeing the opposite. Repos are bigger, and there's, not fewer of them per se ‘cause there's new growth, but, we're just seeing many more big repos. Big repos, big monorepos have always had, a unique performance problem. Because each one, is slightly different if, particularly if the underlying blobs are incredibly big Inside the repos. And so we've done a ton of work that you pro— like most people haven't probably experienced, unless you're in this case of the monorepo. But that Git, infrastructure layer improvement does help the overall, system because, many of the improvements that make monorepos work better make all repo infrastructure work better. And so, I could kind of keep going down the line where it's another thing where we're moving out of, We're changing how we do j I'll just say job queuing for lack of a better, explanation changing the underlying technologies there.Swyx [00:54:32]: I spent two years being a job queuing guy, so.Kyle [00:54:34]: And so it's kind of a little bit of a little bit of piece by piece, and it's mostly because as we were— as it was built, we built everything in a way that assumed, I guess in some ways that the size of the pipe of work was going to remain the same. There's just going to be more people coming through each of those pipes. But instead now in places whereA git push was, generally a certain size for example, is now, no longer true.Swyx [00:55:03]: Oh, yeah.Kyle [00:55:03]: OrSwyx [00:55:05]: I push a thousandKyle [00:55:06]: On the average. 100%Swyx [00:55:06]: A thousand line commits like dailyKyle [00:55:07]: Same thing with PRs. Like PRs same thing. And like we've talked about optimizing that and making changes where, and there were technology choices that did not work there? And it got slow, and it didn't It was not fast. It did not do what the users wanted. And so we've been reeling that all out and going “Okay, that's just not right. Let's stop putting good money after bad and do it the do it the right way or the right way now.” So there's It's a it's a lot of things, not quite when I've experienced scale at GitHub historically, it's almost always two options that we've used. We go vertical scaling, particularly with databases, right? And we go horizontal scaling. Oh, we just have more people using this service. Great. We're going to add more servers, and we rack them in our data center, or we use it in a cloud. And now we're sort of in a like diagonal, where like vertical doesn't really work anymore. Horizontal isn't work either because we're all We all have some CPU or GPU constraints in the world now, and now we have to go in and like crack open services that have been running for 10 or 15 years and go, “Okay, the rules of this service have legitimately changed, and now we have to rewrite them.” None of this is an excuse. This is like we're We have to do the work. We have to make it better.Swyx [00:56:22]: actually as an infra guy, I'm “This is like one of the most fascinating scaling challenges I've ever seen.”Kyle [00:56:26]: That's that's, that's the thing that's the thing that it's hard for Like when we weren't talking about it publicly, and I was like I came out, and I was “Hey, I just want to explain what's going on.” Part of it comes from a very old GitHub ethos, which is it's our it's our uptime. It's down. W What I know you're a developer, so you're, you're inclined to want to understand more what's going on. But at the same time us going “Hey, this service didn't, perform the way we expected, and now we have to go change it,” we weren't We're not trying to hide anything from you i

On Episode 151 of The Film ‘89 Podcast, Steve and Skye are joined by a trio of guest-hosts that may be the greatest ever assembled for a single episode of the podcast as they celebrate the 40th anniversary of James Cameron's Aliens. The sequel to Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi-horror masterpiece, Alien, Cameron's film wouldn't be a retread, but an evolution of the story of Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), as well as expanding what we know about the life-cycle of the deadly species she encountered in the first film. Featuring a superlative ensemble cast, an electrifying pace and endlessly quotable dialogue, as well as incredible special effects and a landmark score from composer James Horner, Aliens is rightly considered not just one of the greatest sequels ever made, but one of the greatest movies, period. So join our battle-hardened crew as they dive into the making of this incredible film and give their in-depth analysis of Aliens for its 40th anniversary. 

Retrospectives are supposed to help teams improve, but for many teams they slowly become rushed, repetitive, or skipped altogether. In this episode, Brian Milner and Cort Sharp unpack why retrospectives lose their value and what Scrum Masters and leaders can do to make them useful again.   Overview When a team stops engaging in retrospectives, it is usually a symptom of something deeper. Sometimes the format has become stale. Sometimes the team no longer feels safe being honest. And sometimes the biggest issue is that retrospectives create plenty of discussion but very little meaningful change. In this conversation, Brian and Cort explore the most common reasons retrospectives begin to fail and how teams can rebuild trust in the process. They discuss the importance of psychological safety, why teams should focus on fewer actions instead of trying to fix everything at once, and how Scrum Masters can better tailor retrospectives to the personalities and working styles of their teams. They also share practical ideas for making retrospectives more engaging, more actionable, and more valuable over time.   References and resources mentioned in the show: Cort Sharp Amy Edmonson, Psychological Safety #139: The Retrospective Reset with Cort Sharp #141: Cooking Up a Killer Retrospective with Brian Milner The Empirical Retrospective Approach by Mike Cohn Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast   Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we'd love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you'd like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode's presenters are: Brian Milner is a Certified Scrum Trainer®, Certified Scrum Professional®, Certified ScrumMaster®, and Certified Scrum Product Owner®, and host of the Agile Mentors Podcast training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Cort Sharp is the Scrum Master of the producing team and the Agile Mentors Community Manager. In addition to his love for Agile, Cort is also a serious swimmer and has been coaching swimmers for five years.

#355 | Dave sits down with Maria Scheifler to talk about why your marketing team might be getting less done as it grows — and what to do about it. Maria makes the case for running marketing like a product team: two-week sprints, a prioritized backlog, and a lightweight intake process that kills approval bottlenecks without losing control. She walks through the context-switching exercise that proves multitasking is destroying your output, how to push back on random requests from across the company without saying no, and why getting team buy-in before rolling out any operational changes is the step most marketing leaders skip.Timestamps(00:00) - - Intro: the problem isn't your strategy, it's your operating system (04:38) - - Maria's background (07:38) - - Why teams get bigger and somehow get less done (10:07) - - The multitasking exercise that proves context switching kills output (17:36) - - Running marketing like a product team: the mindset shift (20:24) - - Building a working agreement with your team (22:56) - - The experimentation guardrail template: killing approval bottlenecks without losing control (28:26) - - Building a prioritized backlog (32:47) - - How the backlog helps you push back without saying no (39:36) - - Two-week sprints: how to plan, commit, and ship (41:48) - - Daily standups: how to keep them short and useful (42:39) - - Sprint reviews: showing the rest of the company what marketing does (44:20) - - Retrospectives (46:19) - - Where to start on Monday Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive, or check out the MCP server by clicking this link. Vector - A contact-level ads platform that lets you build audiences from actual people on your site, clicking your ads, and checking out your competitors. Learn more at vector.co, and get on the waitlist for their new MCP server by clicking here. Compound Growth Marketing - A full-funnel demand generation agency that helps high-growth cybersecurity, DevOps, and enterprise software companies drive more pipeline through AI SEO, paid media, and go-to-market engineering. Visit compoundgrowthmarketing.com and tell them Dave sent you.***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more

The story of Episode 150 of The Film '89 Podcast is one of ‘the episode that nearly wasn't'. It was to be a gift to our listeners as Steve, Neil and Skye finally covered a film that has become the one most requested by our listeners to get the Film '89 treatment, Raiders of the Lost Ark. The initial recording went well until, at the end, it quickly became apparent that Neil's audio hadn't recorded. In the days that followed, no fix could be found, and it was looking likely that the episode was lost. Then tragedy struck on Wednesday, May 6th, when news broke of the passing of our dear friend, regular guest-host and prolific film poster artist, Tony Stella. The impact of Tony's sudden and tragic passing has been one that we have struggled to come to terms with, but when he was last on Film '89, Tony made plans to join us when we finally got around to covering Raiders, one of his favourite films. Alas, in the weeks leading up to recording Raiders, Tony's workload meant he had to pass on the episode. Following the tragedy that ensued, the Film '89 team felt that every effort should be made to salvage the episode as a small but fitting tribute to the man who would have loved discussing one of his favourite films. In true hero fashion, Neil stepped up to the mic and, from memory and some notes cribbed from the remaining audio of Steve and Skye, re-recorded his audio 4 days after the initial recording. This was then painstakingly edited into the original audio of the other two hosts, and we hope the final product meets our usual standards. The film itself needs no introduction; we'll let the episode cover that. Tony Stella was, in our opinion, the greatest living film poster artist, who, in his passing, leaves a hole that cannot be filled. More than that, he was a loving father and our very dear friend. Our heartfelt sympathy goes out to his family, friends, and our thanks go out to the thousands of people who have given tribute to both the great man and his incredible legacy of phenomenal artwork. Tony, this one's for you, you'll always be classy. 

Just as they did on Episode 147, so they are doing so again on Episode 149 as the Film ‘89 team travel back in time to 1966, this time to celebrate the 60th anniversary of both a film and television show that, for a brief two-year period, was a worldwide phenomenon. Starring Adam West and Burt Ward, the television show is of course, Batman, and it would then transition to the big screen with 1966's Batman: The Movie. Skye and returning co-hosts John Arminio and Martin Kessler, explore what made the show such a hit and take a deep dive into a film that pits the Dynamic Duo against not one, but four of their most heinous super-criminal nemeses, The Penguin, The Joker, Catwoman and The Riddler. For those weaned on darker takes on the character from the likes of Frank Miller, Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan, this take on Batman will seem like a garish, high camp, and therefore barely recognisable iteration, but sixty years on, the show and movie still have a huge and loyal following. So slide down the Bat-poles, set atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed and join us in a celebration of ‘60s Batman.

The 10-year anniversary of Standing Rock continues this week on Retrospectives, as Dennis Ward joins host Brittany Guyot to discuss AFTER STANDING ROCK—the second of his two episodes reporting from the front lines of a historic moment in Indigenous resistance. Watch the first part of the interview here: Dennis Ward on Standing Rock, ten years la...   Clash at Standing Rock - Originally April 7, 2018: After Standing Rock | APTN Investigates • • • APTN National News, our stories told our way. Visit our website for more: https://aptnnews.ca Hear more APTN News podcasts: https://www.aptnnews.ca/podcasts/

It's been 10 years since Standing Rock, a historic gathering of land and water protectors resisting the Dakota Access pipeline that captured international attention. On Retrospectives, Dennis Ward joins host Brittany Guyot to discuss CLASH AT STANDING ROCK—the first of his two APTN Investigates episodes reporting from the front lines in North Dakota. • • • APTN National News, our stories told our way. Visit our website for more: https://aptnnews.ca Hear more APTN News podcasts: https://www.aptnnews.ca/podcasts/

Won't someone think of the children, well today we did as look at our first look in the Final Fantasy chronicles series with Ring of Fates. You focus on a brother and sister duo as they try to save the world...as always. I have my own partner this week with Storm Beagle from the Retrotopia podcast as we battle through this mess.   You can follow me on the following socials: Twitter: @retrowarsuk Instagram: retro_wars_podcast Tiktok: @retrowarsuk Retro Wars is now on YouTube doing Retrospectives on a bunch of games. Subscribe here at - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjyOYGaq-DSB66GfIVqWmMA Please give the show a 5 star review to help it get shown to others. If you want to help the show financially, you can do at www.patreon.com/retrowars You get access to your own fortnightly show, DLC, our discord and can join in with all the show's features. 5% of the Patreon will go to the charity, Get Well Gamers. They are a UK charity who provides children's wards in 150 hospitals with consoles and games for the children to play. Their website can be found here - https://getwellgamers.org.uk/  If you would like to donate any games you can find out how to do this here - https://getwellgamers.org.uk/donate/donate-games/  Find Storm Beagle at Retrotopia at https://open.spotify.com/show/28A670UsEPZUszXmmMm7gA  Follow our artists - Slowspeed run's new channel - Doodle Lounge at https://www.youtube.com/c/SlowSpeedrun 

Most Agile coaches build their careers inside large organizations — but what happens when a new opportunity calls from an unexpected direction? Scrum.org CEO, Dave West, sits down with Marina Alex, an AI & modern management expert and Founder of The SWAY Academy, who answered that call. After the enterprise market shifted in 2022, Marina pivoted her practice toward small and medium-sized businesses in Knoxville, Tennessee — and discovered what she describes as a blue ocean: many companies that have never heard of a Sprint, but are ready for one.Along the way, Marina found that AI has become a natural entry point into these conversations. With most small businesses neither tech-heavy nor equipped with an IT department, the excitement and anxiety around AI opens the door to deeper work around team culture, structure, and customer focus. Rather than leading with frameworks, she leads with outcomes — helping business owners understand that strong teams and clear processes are what make any new technology actually stick.Marina walks Dave through the mindset shifts, networking strategies, and practical adaptations — from one-week Sprints to sticky-note Retrospectives — that have allowed her to build a thriving practice doing work she loves, serving the local business communities that need her most.Free Guide from Sway Systems with tips to find new clientsConnect with Marina

What You'll Learn in This Episode:In this episode, Catherine McDonald and Shayne Daughenbaugh explore the power of small, everyday improvements. What they call the “10-minute improvement.”Instead of focusing only on large-scale Lean projects, they break down how organizations can unlock hidden opportunities by addressing small frustrations, workarounds, and communication gaps that often go unnoticed.You'll learn how to identify these opportunities, uncover root causes, and create a culture where employees feel empowered to take action. The conversation also highlights the critical role of leadership in fostering psychological safety and encouraging reflection, communication, and continuous improvement at every level.If your organization struggles to move beyond big initiatives or overlooks the small issues that slow teams down, this episode offers a simple, practical framework to start making meaningful progress today.Key Takeaways:Small improvements often create the biggest impact over timeWorkarounds hide problems—don't ignore them, fix themWhat you tolerate becomes your process standardCommunication and psychological safety are essential for continuous improvementLinks:Lean Solutions 2026 SummitLean Solutions Website

On Episode 148 of The Film ‘89 Podcast, we're back talking Star Trek as we continue our coverage of the original crew's big screen adventures. Having already covered the first three films for each of their 40th anniversaries, it's now the turn of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which brought an end to the “Genesis Trilogy” consisting of the second, third and fourth Trek films, where the story in each film follows directly into the next. Following the death and destruction of The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock, returning director and star, Leonard Nimoy, wanted a lighter tone as well as a strong ecological message, that of whale preservation, and both of these aspects, coupled with our crew playing fish out of water in a San Francisco 300 years in their past, helped the film become the most financially successful Star Trek film of them all and a firm favourite among fans. So join Skye and returning co-hosts John Arminio, Bill Scurry and Adam Rackoff in a celebration of the 40th anniversary of one of the very best Star Trek adventures. 

With the Indian hospitals settlement now accepting claims for compensation, Dr. Maureen Lux joins host Brittany Guyot this week on APTN Investigates Retrospectives to discuss THE CURE WAS WORSE (2017) and the painful history of these former institutions. To find out more about the Indian hospitals settlement, go to ihsettlement.ca. The deadline to apply for compensation is July 27, 2028. The Cure was Worse | Originally Aired October 31, 2017: https://youtu.be/o_Z11n9by-8?si=aKN9SO1GQBA3pvb6

On Episode 147 of The Film ‘89 Podcast, Skye and returning guest-host Stephen Simpson are celebrating the 60th anniversary of and also taking an in-depth look at the making of director John Frankenheimer's epic, nearly 3-hour-long motor racing drama, Grand Prix. Starring James Garner, Yves Montand, Eva Marie Saint, Toshiro Mifune and a huge international supporting cast, Frankenheimer's movie is a marvel of technical filmmaking that captures the thrills and danger of Formula 1 as few other films have. Filmed alongside the 1966/67 F1 season with unprecedented cooperation from the drivers and teams of the era, Grand Prix is arguably the finest big-screen representation of motor racing ever made, and a time capsule of a period when the sport was on the cusp of changes that would alter it forever.

Reporter Christopher Read joins host Brittany Guyot to discuss POWER—his 2020 two-part series on Manitoba Hydro, and the long-term impacts of the Churchill River Diversion. POWER | Originally aired October 26, 2020: https://youtu.be/Wg5KGKQmuEI?si=MbVl_t9vcNKhNPRP • • • APTN National News, our stories told our way. Visit our website for more: https://aptnnews.ca Hear more APTN News podcasts: https://www.aptnnews.ca/podcasts/

On Episode 146 of The Film ‘89 Podcast, Neil and Skye are traveling back in time 35 years to discuss a film that represented something of a transition from the typical ‘80s action film to the genre's ‘90s iteration. Based on a script by Shane Black that Warner Bros. were willing to pay a then record setting fee of $175 million for, and directed by acclaimed filmmaker Tony Scott, The Last Boy Scout starred Bruce Willis, Damon Wayans and a great supporting cast. Willis, following two recent box office failures in The Bonfire of the Vanities and Hudson Hawk, was in need of a hit and a Shane Black scripted action vehicle must have seemed like a sure thing at the time. Unfortunately, the production was no smooth ride and Black's script changed significantly during the shoot. This, coupled with tensions on set between the principles as well as between Scott and producer Joel Silver, resulted in a film fraught with problems which may have in some way contributed to it's studio failing to market the film as well as it should have. The Last Boy Scout failed to ignite the box office but would go on to become a much loved relic of early ‘90s action cinema and in retrospect is a film that really should have fared better given it's gritty, noir inspired tone and razor sharp script and is a film that the hosts of tonight's episode love, and have much to say about. 

From February 13 to 19, Film at Lincoln Center will present “Looking for Ms. Keaton,“ a retrospective film series honoring the late Diane Keaton. FLC programmer Maddie Whittle joins us to preview the series and take calls from listeners on their favorite Diane Keaton performances.

On Episode 145 of The Film ‘89 Podcast, Steve, Skye and returning guest host, filmmaker Kyle Reardon, celebrate the 70th anniversary of legendary director John Ford's epic 1956 western, The Searchers. Directed by one of the most revered and influential filmmakers ever to step behind a camera, and starring one of cinema's true icons, John Wayne, in one of his most complex roles, The Searchers tells the tale of civil war veteran, Ethan Edwards, a man wrestling with his own dark side, and his adopted nephew Martin (Jeffrey Hunter) and their years long search for Ethan's niece, Debbie, taken from her family by a Comanche Chief after a raid on Ethan's brother's homestead. Shot in stunning Vista Vision and featuring some of the most astonishing cinematography ever seen in a motion picture, Ford's film was is arguably the peak of a staggering career that spanned seven decades and a film that's become widely regarded as one of the greatest American films of not just the 20th century, but all time. 

On Episode 144 of The Film ‘89 Podcast, both Neil and Skye are mistaken for Paul Allen as they discuss director Mary Harron's 2000 adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' 1991 novel, American Psycho. Set in Manhattan during the Wall Street boom of 1989, American Psycho follows the life of a wealthy young investment banker named Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale). Bateman narrates his everyday activities, from his charmed yuppie recreational life of pampering and fine dining among the Wall Street elite of New York to his forays into murder by night. The guys discuss the film's complex plot, one that can have any number of varying interpretations as to both the reliability of the film's narrator and the questions raised as to whether Patrick Bateman is a crazed serial killer or if this is all just an elaborate fantasy concocted as a means of dealing with the banality of the world he lives in. Featuring a superb supporting cast, brilliant direction and a killer soundtrack, American Psycho is arguably more of a bleakly dark satire than it is a serial killer thriller, and is certainly a film more than worthy of the Film '89 treatment.

Scrum Is NOT Dead... It's Obsolete?(Did someone actually Go here?) AAAAAAAhhhhhhhh!Stand-ups are still happening. Sprint planning still blocks calendars every few weeks. Retrospectives still end with “we should communicate better.” Jira boards are still very busy.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Episode 96 On December 31, 1986, just hours before Puerto Rico would ring in the New Year, flames tore through the luxurious Dupont Plaza Hotel and Casino in San Juan. What began as a labor dispute escalated into one of the deadliest hotel fires in U.S. history, killing 97 people and injuring more than 140. In the aftermath, investigators would uncover arson, negligence, ignored safety recommendations, a chaotic evacuation, and a legal battle that reshaped fire codes across the hospitality industry. In this episode, we examine: The labor tensions and strike that set the stage for disaster The timeline of the fire and how it spread so rapidly How smoke and toxic gases became the primary killers Failures in life safety systems, egress, and emergency planning The investigation that quickly identified arson Criminal charges against arsonists Massive civil litigation and code reforms that followed Lessons learned in the context of other hotel/casino fires of the era The Crime to Burn Patreon - The Cult of Steve - is LIVE NOW! Go join and get all the unhinged you can handle. Click here to be sanctified.  Inner Sanctum Acknowledgments: Eternal gratitude to our Inner Sanctum patrons, Melanie Curtis, Jenny Mercer and Laura Pisciotta, for helping us bring light to the stories others would rather leave in the ashes. Listener discretion is advised. Background music by Not Notoriously Coordinated  Get your Crime to Burn Merch! https://crimetoburn.myspreadshop.com Please follow us on Instagram, X, Facebook, TikTok and Youtube for the latest news on this case. You can email us at crimetoburn@gmail.com We welcome any constructive feedback and would greatly appreciate a 5 star rating and review.  If you need a way to keep your canine contained, you can also support the show by purchasing a Pawious wireless dog fence using our affiliate link and use the code "crimetoburn" at checkout to receive 10% off. Pawious, because our dog Winston needed a radius, not a rap sheet.  Sources:  Video & Documentary Sources Dupont Plaza Hotel Arson Investigation. Señor Onion's Archives. YouTube, April 13, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JyUjUoX_so Dupont Plaza Hotel Arson of 1986. Señor Onion's Archives. YouTube, October 21, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJsFLgxuDJ8 Government / Technical / Legal Reports Nelson, Harold E. “An Engineering Analysis of the Early Stages of Fire Development — The Fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel and Casino — December 31, 1986.” NBSIR 87-3560, National Bureau of Standards, Center for Fire Research, U.S. Department of Commerce, April 1987. Levy, Harold M. “The Dupont Plaza Hotel Fire Litigation: A Case Study in Cooperative Defense.” Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation, Vol. 7, No. 12, December 1989, pp. 215–233. José Francisco Rivera-Lopez, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. United States of America, Defendant, Appellee. U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, 4 F.3d 982, September 15, 1993. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/4/982/525384/ (Note: First Circuit Local Rule 36.2(b)6 — Unpublished opinions may be cited only in related cases.) News & Contemporary Coverage (1987) “Teamsters Dispute with Dupont Plaza Dates Back Four Months.” UPI Archives, January 13, 1987. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/01/13/Teamsters-dispute-with-Dupont-Plaza-dates-back-four-months/7070215305413/ Brossy, Julie. “A Dupont Plaza Bar Boy Was Charged Today With…” UPI Archives, January 14, 1987. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/01/14/A-Dupont-Plaza-bar-boy-was-charged-today-with/8362537598800/ Hernandez, Moises. “Suspect in Hotel Fire Was Honored for Saving ‘Many Lives.'” UPI Archives, January 14, 1987. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/01/14/Suspect-in-hotel-fire-was-honored-for-saving-many-lives/2708537598800/ Gaulin, Edward J. “Defendants Plead Guilty in Dupont Plaza Hotel Fire.” UPI Archives, April 24, 1987. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/04/24/Defendants-plead-guilty-in-Dupont-Plaza-Hotel-fire/8801546235200/ Wilentz, Amy. “A New Year We'll Never Forget.” TIME, January 12, 1987. https://time.com/archive/6708028/a-new-year-well-never-forget/ Features, Retrospectives & Later Reporting Tepfer, Daniel. “A Vacation in Paradise Turns into Fiery Hell.” CTPost, Updated December 30, 2011. https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/a-vacation-in-paradise-turns-into-fiery-hell-2432149.php Reference / Encyclopedia & Summary Sources Dewey, Joseph. “Dupont Plaza Hotel Fire.” EBSCO Knowledge Advantage Research Starters, 2022. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/law/dupont-plaza-hotel-fire “Dupont Plaza Hotel Arson.” Grokipedia. https://grokipedia.com/page/Dupont_Plaza_Hotel_arson

Episode No. 739 is a holiday clips episode featuring artist Dara Birnbaum. Birnbaum, a pioneering titan of video art, passed away this year at 78. "Her work is now displayed in museum collections around the world as the example of feminist video art," wrote curator and critic Karen Archey in an Artforum obituary. Birnbaum's work often included pointedly feminist critiques of mass media, including of entertainment and journalism. Retrospectives of her work include "The Dark Matter of Media Light" at SMAK, the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst in Ghent, Belgium, and at the Serralves Foundation in Porto, Portugal, and "Dara Birnbaum Retrospective exhibition" at the Kunsthalle Wien in Austria and at the Norrtalje Konsthall in Sweden. Several of the Birnbaums discussed on this program are available online, including: Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-79); Kiss The Girls: Make Them Cry (1979) (clip); Canon: Taking to the Street (1990) (clip); and Walkthrough of Psalm 29(30) (2016) at Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris. This program was recorded in 2017 when Dara Birnbaum's Local TV News Analysis (1980), which Birnbaum made with Dan Graham, was included in "Breaking News: Turning the Lens on Mass Media," at the J. Paul Getty Museum. The exhibition examined how artists have used newspapers, magazines and televised news programs to consider media, news and the messages included therein. The exhibition was curated by Arpad Kovacs. Air date: January 1, 2026.

On This Episode of The Super Review Show's Career Retrospectives we discuss and breakdown our top 5 worst albums of 2025!Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SuperReviewShowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesuperreviewshow/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSuperReviewShow

On This FINAL Episode of The Super Review Show's Career Retrospectives we discuss and breakdown our top 5 BEST albums of 2025!Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SuperReviewShowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesuperreviewshow/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSuperReviewShow

On Episode 143 of The Film ‘89 Podcast it's that time of year again. Towards the end of every year since 2022, Film ‘89 has celebrated the 60th anniversary of a James Bond film. In 2022 we started with Dr. No, in 2023 we covered From Russia With Love and last year we covered Goldfinger. Now Skye and one of the greatest film poster artists working in the business today, Tony Stella, return to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the fourth James Bond film, Thunderball, which had its world premiere in Tokyo, Japan on December 9th 1965. Thunderball came out at the very peak of Bondmania. Sean Connery was approaching mega star status and the books and films were as popular as they would ever be. Made on a budget that was more than the combined budgets of the previous three films, Thunderball was a hugely ambitious film with complex underwater action sequences the likes of which audiences had never seen before and it would go on to become the most successful Bond film ever, and based on ticket sales alone, it still is. So get on your wetsuit, pick up your spear-gun and join Skye and Tony as they take the deep dive on what they feel is one of the most underrated of all James Bond films.

Lost a $2M deal and nobody discussed why? You're not alone!Your company is running on hope, not learning.Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Consultant Om Patel are discussing the potentially career-limiting topic of asking "why does the organization systematically avoid learning from failures?" Thanks! We'll be sure to shut the door on our way out... but before we do, we'll explore why sales and product teams never debrief lost deals together, why customer churn meetings feel like career suicide, and why executives are never held accountable for their predictions.....as well as:• Why cross-functional lost deal retrospectives rarely happen (and how to run your first one)• The cost of ignoring customer churn and how to conduct no-blame churn reviews• Building prediction accountability systems to track strategic bets against reality• How organizational silos kill learning and prevent teams from improving• Why "move fast and break things" culture prevents meaningful learning• Creating learning backlogs and embedding continuous improvement in fast-moving organizationsToday is all about actionable tips, specific questions to ask in retrospectives, and strategies for navigating the political landmines of organizational learning. Today, we're giving you tools to transform how your organization learns from mistakes!Referenced Episodes:• AA235 - Changing the Message• AA199 - W. Edwards Deming: Profound Knowledge for Transforming Organizations• AA67 - Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow#ProductManagement #AgileCoaching #CustomerChurnTeam Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais, W. Edwards Deming's work on systems thinking and organizational learning, Amazon's six-pager concept, Arguing Agile Episode 235 (Changing the Message), Arguing Agile Episode 199 (W. Edwards Deming), Arguing Agile Episode 67 (Team Topologies), Silicon Valley move fast and break things culture, 996 work cultureLINKSYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@arguingagileSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596Website: https://arguingagile.com/

Sara Di Gregorio: Facilitating Deeper Retrospectives—When to Step In and When to Step Back Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "When they start connecting and having an interesting discussion, I go to the corner, and I'm only trying to listen." - Sara Di Gregorio   Sara faces a challenge that many Scrum Masters encounter: teams that want to discuss too many topics during retrospectives without going deep on any of them. The team had plenty to talk about, but conversations stayed surface-level, never reaching the insights that drive real improvement. Sara recognized that the aim of the retrospective isn't to talk about everything—it's to go deeper on topics the team genuinely cares about.  So she started coaching teams to select just three main topics they wanted to discuss, helping them understand why prioritization matters and making explicit which topics are most important. But her real skill emerged in how she facilitated the discussions. When she saw communication starting to flow and team members becoming deeply connected to the topic, she moved to the corner and listened. She didn't abandon the team—she remained present, ready to help shy or quiet members speak up, watching the clock to respect timeboxes.  But she understood that when teams connect authentically, the Scrum Master's job is to create space, not fill it. Sara learned to ask better questions too. Instead of repeatedly asking "Why? Why? Why?"—which can feel accusatory—she reformulated: "How did you approach it? What happens?" When teams started blaming other teams, she redirected: "What can we influence? What can we do from our side?" She used visual tools like white paper, sharpies, and sticky notes to help teams visualize their discussion steps and create structured moments for questions.  Sometimes, when teams discussed complex technical topics beyond her understanding, she empowered them: "You are the main expert of this topic. Please, when someone sees that we're going out of topic or getting too detailed, raise your hand and help me bring the communication back to what we've chosen to talk about."  This balance—knowing when to step in with structure and when to step back and listen—is what transforms retrospectives from checkbox events into genuine opportunities for team growth.   Self-reflection Question: In your facilitation, are you creating space for deep team connection, or are you inadvertently filling the space that teams need to discover insights for themselves?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

On Episode 142 of The Film ‘89 Podcast, Neil, Skye and regular co-host, Jacob Rivera are celebrating the 30th anniversary of an all time classic from 1995, David Fincher's serial killer thriller, Seven, starring Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey. Based on an original screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker, Seven would go on to become one of the most successful films of 1995, a year replete with incredible films and this one in particular, is now considered a genre defining classic, notorious for it's bleak tone and THAT gut-punch ending. Featuring phenomenal performances from its leads, stunning cinematography, a wonderfully atmospheric score, and the very epitome of assured, precise direction from Fincher, Seven is surely one of the greatest films of all time and one worthy of the deluxe Film '89 treatment.

On Episode 141 of The Film ‘89 Podcast, Steve and Skye are joined by returning guest-host, John Arminio to give you their in-depth and spoiler-filled review and analysis of director Guillermo del Toro's latest film, his adaptation of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, Frankenstein, a book and character that's arguably seen more big screen adaptations than any other. Starring Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi and Mia Goth, the Netflix produced film, which saw a very limited theatrical run before its release on the streaming platform a few days ago, has a budget of $120 million and aims to be the definitive adaptation of Shelley's novel. Guillermo del Toro is one of Steve and John's favourite filmmakers and they've been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to celebrate his filmography. The guys also discuss previous adaptations of Shelley's book, from the James Whale/Boris Karloff films of the 1930's to the Hammer Films version starring Christopher Lee. 

WELCOME TO THE 200TH EPISODE OF SUNSET FLIP RADIO. WE CAN'T THANK YOU ENOUGH FOR STICKING WITH US FOR OVER 200 EPISODES SPANNING 5+ YEARS. IN OUR 200TH EPISODE, WE DIVE INTO SNME, AND WHY WWE WILL BE PUTTING OUT ALL THE BIG GUNS FOR IT. WE HAVE 3 TITLE CHANGES FOR THE SHOW...YES THREE. WE ALSO LOOK BACK ON SOME OF THE BIGGEST MOMENTS IN OUR PODS HISTORY. SIT BACK AND ENJOY. ONCE AGAIN, THANK YOU. TOP GUYS OUT.

Late Night Thoughts

Alex Sloley: Why Sticky Notes Are Your Visualization Superpower in Retrospectives Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. "Like the smell, the vibe is something you feel. If you're having a successful impact on the organization or on teams as a Scrum Master, you can feel it, you can smell it. It's intangible." - Alex Sloley Alex introduces a compelling concept from Sumantra Ghoshal about "the smell of the workplace"—you can walk into an environment and immediately sense whether it smells like fresh strawberries and cream or a dumpster fire. In Australia, there's a cultural reference from the movie "The Castle" about "the vibe of the thing," and Alex emphasizes that as a successful Scrum Master, you can feel and smell when you're having an impact. While telling executives you're measuring "vibe" might be challenging, Alex shares three concrete ways he's measured success. The key insight is that success isn't always measurable in traditional ways, but successful Scrum Masters develop an intuition for sensing when their work is making a meaningful difference. Self-reflection Question: Can you articulate the "vibe" or "smell" of your current team or organization? What specific indicators tell you whether your Scrum Master work is truly making an impact beyond the metrics? Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Sticky Notes for Everything Alex champions any retrospective format that includes sticky notes, calling them a "visualization superpower." With sticky notes, teams can visualize anything—the good, the bad, improvements, options, possibilities, and even metrics. They make information transparent, which is critical for the inspect-and-adapt cycle that forms the heart of Scrum. Alex emphasizes being strategic about visualization: identify a challenge, figure out how to make it visual, and then create experiments around that visualization. Once something becomes visible, magic happens because the team can see patterns they've never noticed before. You can use different sizes, colors, and positions to visualize constraints in the system, including interruptions, unplanned work, blocker clustering, impediments, and flow. This approach works not just in retrospectives but in planning, reviews, and daily scrums. The key principle is that you must have transparency in order to inspect, and you must inspect to adapt. Alex's practical advice: be strategic about what you choose to visualize, involve the team in determining how to make challenges visible, and watch as the transparency naturally leads to insights and improvement ideas. [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

It's that time of year again on The Film ‘89 Podcast as we bring you our 2025 Halloween Horror Special. Joining Skye are two returning co-hosts, Stephen Simpson and John Arminio, and the horror film they've picked as the focus of this episode is Tom Holland's 1985 cult classic, Fright Night, starring Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse and Roddy McDowell. Based on an original script by Holland, Fright Night blends elements of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window with Hammer horror and vampire lore as it tells the tale of teenager, Charley Brewster, who suspects that his new next door neighbour, Jerry Dandridge, may be a vampire. With outstanding practical makeup effects and assured direction from first time director Holland, Fright Night would go on to become a beloved cult classic and one of the very best horror films of the 1980s. 

On Episode 139 of The Film ‘89 Podcast, Skye is joined by frequent co-host Leighton Winstone as well someone making her long awaited return to Film '89 after she first appeared 5 years ago on Episode 55, our very good friend, Leanne Kubicz. This battle-hardened trio will be smearing axle grease across their brows and packing as much water as they can carry as they head into a post-apocalyptic wasteland to celebrate the 10th anniversary of director George Miller's fourth entry in his long-running Mad Max saga that began in 1979, had sequels in 1981 and 1985 and then a 30 year gap before the 72 year old director went on a years long odyssey in the Namibian desert with $150 million of Warner Bros' money. Through strife and hardship he returned with a film widely regarded as one of the greatest action films ever made and one of the greatest films of the 21st century, Mad Max: Fury Road. Starring Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult, Fury Road is a film unlike any other in terms of the level of on-screen mayhem and carnage it displays. As fascinating as the film is the story of it's long and arduous production and our team delve into how the incredible assembled talent both in front of the camera and behind the scenes helped craft one of the most visually astonishing films ever made and an example of big screen action-spectacle like no other.

Retrospectives are one of the most powerful opportunities a team has to improve. Yet far too often, they're skipped because “we don't have time,” rushed through as an afterthought, or treated as a dull box-checking exercise.  Even worse, sometimes they turn into blame sessions that leave people feeling drained rather than energized.It doesn't have to be that way.  A well-facilitated retrospective can be the most valuable hour of your team's sprint: the time where psychological safety is built, lessons are learned, and real change begins.  With the right approach, retrospectives become not just meetings, but moments of growth, trust, and innovation.

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what's exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.Honoring Marley Kaul's legacy in book and galleryVisual artist Paula Swenson remembers painter and former Bemidji State University professor Marley Kaul (1939–2021) as a mentor and a creative force in northern Minnesota. Swenson is excited for a new retrospective coffee table book, “Marley Kaul: Paintings,” covering six decades of his work.Book launch events include:Sept. 18, 5–8 p.m. at Open Book in MinneapolisSept. 23, 5–7 p.m. at the Watermark Arts Center in BemidjiSept. 25, 5–7 p.m. at the North Dakota Museum of Art in Grand ForksA corresponding retrospective exhibition of Kaul's work is also on view at the Talley Gallery at Bemidji State University through Oct. 30.Paula recalls one memorable moment turned painting: My husband and I were over to his house, talking to him, and just at that time, a bird of prey flew under the deck — under Marley. It was just that fast. And later on in that month, we went to visit, and Marley had done a painting of that experience, of the bird flying underneath him, under the deck and out again. — Paula SwensonA call and response: Peter Williams at MCADIndependent curator and art consultant Esther Callahan recommends “Peter Williams: Homegoing — A Call and Response,” on view at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design through Nov. 1.Esther says: The longer you look, the more you will see the depth of connections that are built into the space. For example, there are sight lines in this exhibition that have artists like Russell Hamilton directly communicating with seangarrison that beautifully builds on the narrative that is foregrounded in this exhibition by Peter Williams in memory and remembrance of his passing in 2021. This exhibit itself is rooted in honoring the complex experiences of Black Americans through historical and contemporary narratives with both a really good sense of humor and candid honesty. It's really important to note that this exhibit is supported by a chorus of 15 Minnesota-based Black artists responding to Williams profoundly human, critical and beautiful work.— Esther CallahanSongs with names take center stageAllison Amy Wedell of St. Paul is Alto 2 Section Leader of the Twin Cities Women's Choir. She's looking forward to the comedic cabaret “What's In a Name?” happening for one night only on Sept. 22 at the Hive Collaborative in St. Paul.Allison says: “What's in a Name?” is the brainchild of local actress and singer Jen Maren and local pianist and teacher, Andrew Fleser, who noticed the impressive and varied array of songs with names for titles and decided we needed to hear as many of them as they could fit into one show! I'm already familiar with Jen Maren's work, especially in her role as the murderess Marjorie Congdon in “Glensheen” at the History Theatre, but I understand that for the first time, she weaved some original stand-up comedy in among the music.Fleser's gorgeous accompaniment and quiet zingers provide the perfect foil for Maren's raucous charm.— Allison Amy WedellCorrection (Sept. 20, 2025): An earlier version of this story misstated the singer's name in the comedic cabaret section and the Art Hound's name. The story has been updated with the correct names.

It's become something of a recurring theme on The Film ‘89 Podcast of late where the film being discussed has been described as “one of the big ones”, a film of such significance to the hosts that it fills them with an almost dread anticipation that they might not do it justice. No film fits that bill more than the one being discussed on Episode 138, an episode that Neil and Skye have been teasing and putting off for the longest time. That film is Michael Mann's epic tale of crime and obsession from 1995, starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro and an astonishing supporting cast, it is of course, Heat. An original idea of Mann's and based on the real life exploits of former Chicago Detective, Chuck Adamson, and bank robber, Neil McCauley, Heat is a sprawling crime saga where character development is as important as any other aspect of of the story being told, whilst also featuring some of the most technically astounding action ever committed to film. Not only was it the film that brought together arguably the two greatest actors alive at the time, but it also showcased a director at the very top of his creative game. It's been the guys' intention to cover some of 1995's best films this year for their 30th anniversary, and this is the second of three such episodes but there's every chance that they'll declare Heat not just the best film of that year, but one of the very best ever made. 

Bernie Maloney: The Power of Psychological Safety in Agile Teams Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Bernie shares a powerful story about learning what psychological safety truly means through both success and failure. Working in a high-pressure division with tight timelines and margins, Bernie discovered the transformative power of the mantra "always make a new mistake." When he made a significant error and was met with understanding rather than punishment, he experienced firsthand how psychological safety enables teams to thrive.  Later, facing a different challenge where mistrust existed between management and teams, Bernie had to navigate the delicate balance of maintaining psychological safety while addressing management's desire for transparency. His solution was innovative: conduct retrospectives with the team first, then invite managers in at the end with anonymized contributions. Bernie's approach of framing changes as experiments helped people embrace newness, knowing it would be time-bound and reversible. In this episode we refer to Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP).  Self-reflection Question: How might your current approach to mistakes and experimentation be either fostering or undermining psychological safety within your team? [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Salum Abdul-Rahman: The SECI Model of Knowledge Management Applied to Team Retrospectives Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Salum explains how the key role for Scrum Masters is to help teams develop themselves to the point where they can learn and grow without constant guidance. Success means building team resilience and operational capability while knowing when to step back. He emphasizes the importance of recalibration workshops to maintain shared understanding and the balance between supporting teams and challenging them to become self-sufficient. When teams reach this level of maturity, Scrum Masters can focus their efforts elsewhere, knowing the team has developed the capability to continue evolving independently. Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The 5-Stage Retro Format From the book "Agile Retrospectives," this format captures the complete learning process and aligns beautifully with knowledge management principles. Salum connects the three central phases of this format to the SECI model of knowledge management, particularly referencing Nonaka and Takeuchi's work in "The Knowledge Creating Company." This retrospective structure helps teams create new knowledge and behavioral change by following a systematic approach that transforms individual insights into collective team learning and action. In this segment, we also refer to the seminal article by Takeuchi and Nonaka: “The New New Product Development Game”, which originated the work on Scrum as a framework.  Self-reflection Question: How do you recognize when your team has developed enough self-sufficiency that your role as facilitator can evolve or step back? [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Salum Abdul-Rahman: From Isolation to Integration—Rebuilding Agile Team Connection For Remote Teams Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Salum describes working with a grocery ecommerce team during COVID that fell into the trap of prioritizing individual convenience over team collaboration. Remote work led team members to design their work around personal preferences, with the lead developer becoming increasingly isolated and unresponsive to team communication. This anti-pattern of "what works for me" over "what works for the whole team" created significant dysfunction. Despite management intervention, the situation required creative solutions like organizing face-to-face sessions and shared working sessions with digital whiteboards to rebuild team cohesion. Featured Book of the Week: Agile Retrospectives One of the most important roles of Scrum Masters is to help teams develop themselves. Salum emphasizes that you can't tell the team what to do - you have to help them discover it themselves. "Agile Retrospectives" provides the foundation for running meaningful retrospectives that become the key tool for team self-development. The book's emphasis on variation and building retrospectives to match your team's needs and maturity level makes it essential for empowering teams to grow and evolve continuously. Self-reflection Question: How might your team's current work arrangements prioritize individual convenience over collective effectiveness, and what steps could you take to shift this balance? [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

BONUS: Captain David Marquet's Guide to Becoming Your Own Best Coach In this BONUS episode, we dive deep into Captain David Marquet's latest book "Distancing: How Great Leaders Reframe to Make Better Decisions." Captain Marquet, renowned for transforming the USS Santa Fe from the worst-performing submarine to the best in the fleet, shares powerful insights on psychological distancing and how stepping outside ourselves can dramatically improve our decision-making abilities. Make sure you also check the previous episode with Captain Marquet, where we discuss the key lessons from his book: Turn The Ship Around! A very often referred book on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast.  The Genesis of Distancing "What I really needed was people to think, not just comply, not just do what they were told." Captain Marquet traces the origins of his distancing concept back to his submarine experience. After realizing that giving orders gave people "a pass on thinking," he developed a system where crew members would say "I intend to..." instead of waiting for commands. However, he noticed that officers would sometimes make decisions that were good for their department but not optimal for the submarine as a whole. This led him to ask different questions - like having the engineer sit in the captain's chair and think from that perspective. The breakthrough came when he started asking himself, "What would my six-month-from-now self want me to do today?" The Three B's of Better Decision Making "The problem with your decision making isn't gathering more market data. The problem is your internal, your egoic biases that just come from the fact that you view the decision from inside your own head." Marquet introduces the "3 B's of better decision making": Be someone else, be somewhere else, be sometime else. These psychological distancing techniques help overcome the limitations of our "immersed self" - the version of us trapped in immediate pressures, deadlines, and ego-driven concerns. When we distance ourselves temporally (thinking as our future self), socially (thinking as someone else), or spatially (imagining being somewhere else), we access what psychologists call our "distanced self," which aligns more closely with our ideal self and core values. The Jeff Bezos Example "When I'm 80, when am I going to regret more? Am I going to regret trying this idea and failing or not trying the idea?" Marquet shares how Jeff Bezos used temporal distancing when deciding whether to leave his Wall Street job to start Amazon. By imagining himself at 80 looking back, Bezos was able to see past immediate concerns like his upcoming bonus and rent payments to focus on what would truly matter in the long term. This shift in perspective transforms how our brain processes decisions - from viewing them as "scary change" to considering them through the lens of potential regret. Practical Applications for Teams "I want you to imagine that a team in Singapore is going to work on the same kind of project next month. What would we want them to know?" The distancing technique has powerful applications for team retrospectives and decision-making. Instead of asking "What could we have done better?" (which triggers defensiveness), Marquet suggests reframing as helping a future team in another location. This approach employs all three B's simultaneously:  Be someone else: Helping another team rather than critiquing yourself  Be sometime else: Focusing on future improvement rather than past mistakes Be somewhere else: Imagining the team in a different location removes personal attachment Becoming Your Own Coach "You become your own friend, you become your own coach." Marquet emphasizes that leaders cannot effectively coach others until they learn to coach themselves. He challenges leaders who want their teams to change by asking, "What have you changed recently?" The coach perspective provides the elevated view needed to see the whole field rather than being immersed in the immediate action. Like a sports coach who doesn't feel the hits but sees the strategy, our "coach self" can provide objective guidance to our "player self." The Language of Leadership "The people who said 'you can do it' exerted more energy and felt better than the people who said 'I can do it.'" Building on his previous work in "Leadership is Language," Marquet demonstrates how changing from first-person to second or third-person language creates psychological distance. Studies show that athletes performing endurance tests while saying "you can do it" outperformed those saying "I can do it." This simple language shift helps separate us from the immersed self and provides a slight but meaningful perspective advantage. The Intel Transformation Story "What if we got fired? And the board brought in new people to run the company. What would the new people do?" Marquet shares the pivotal moment when Intel founders Gordon Moore and Andy Grove used distancing to make the crucial decision to abandon memory chips for microprocessors. For a year, they couldn't make this decision because their identity was tied to being "memory chip makers." Only when Grove asked Moore to imagine what new leadership would do were they able to immediately see the obvious answer: focus on microprocessors. This decision saved Intel and created the company we know today. Stopping Time: Planning the Pause "The best thing is you have to plan the pauses. The best case is when you plan the pause ahead of time." Marquet explains that once we're in our reactive, immersed state, it's nearly impossible to climb out without System 2 override. The solution is to schedule pauses proactively. When teams know there will be scheduled reflection points, they're more willing to commit to execution while also noting areas for improvement. This is why agile methodologies are so effective - they build in regular pause points for reflection and course correction. Overcoming Defensive Reactions "Your brain will curate the input - it will always choose to pay attention to things that prove you're right and ignore things that prove you wrong." The immersed self creates defensive reactions during evaluations, retrospectives, or any situation involving performance assessment. Our brains naturally filter information to support our existing self-image, remembering successes while forgetting failures. Distancing techniques help bypass these defensive mechanisms by removing the ego from the equation, allowing for more objective analysis and better decision-making. Acting Your Way to New Thinking "We act our way to new thinking. You want to do different things. We act your way to a new mindset. You don't mindset your way to new actions." Marquet concludes with a crucial insight about change: behavior change leads to mindset change, not the other way around. Rather than trying to convince people to think differently, leaders should focus on creating small, actionable changes that gradually shift thinking patterns. His "Leadership Nudges" concept embodies this approach, offering brief, practical tools that teams can implement immediately. About Captain David Marquet Captain David Marquet, a former U.S. Navy submarine commander, revolutionized leadership by empowering his crew to become leaders themselves. Through his Intent-Based Leadership® model, he transformed the USS Santa Fe from the worst-performing submarine to the best in the fleet. Today, he inspires organizations worldwide to cultivate leaders at every level. You can connect with Captain David Marquet on LinkedIn and follow him on his website at davidmarquet.com. You can also explore his YouTube channel "Leadership Nudges" for a library of over 500 short leadership videos.

Somya Mehra: How Upper Management Can Destroy a High-Performing Team in Minutes Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. While working as a business analyst at a startup building an exam evaluation product for universities, Somya witnessed a well-functioning team with good collaboration and timely delivery. However, upper management began challenging the team lead and Scrum Master, accusing the team of padding story points. When leadership confronted the team, the tech lead threw the entire team under the bus, breaking all trust. The CEO's declaration that he could detect padding in estimates shattered the relationship between developers and leadership, leading team members to want to leave. Featured Book of the Week: Agile Retrospectives by Larsen and Derby Somya recommends "Agile Retrospectives" by Larsen and Derby because doing Scrum right means doing retrospectives right. As someone who wanted to excel as a retro facilitator, she found this book invaluable due to its excellent reviews and practical examples. The book provides several examples of how to facilitate retrospectives effectively, making it her go-to recommendation for Scrum Masters wanting to improve their retrospective facilitation skills. Self-reflection Question: How do you maintain trust between your team and leadership when management questions the team's estimates or performance? [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Episode 137 of The Film ‘89 Podcast marks the first time that the guys revisit a film that's already been covered on a previous episode. 5 years ago on Episode 52, Neil and Skye recorded an audio commentary for the 45th anniversary of Steven Spielberg's 1975 masterpiece, Jaws. That episode remains one of Film ‘89's most downloaded episodes and one that regularly gets mentioned by listeners as one of their favourites. The commentary focussed mainly on the making of Jaws along with Skye and Neil's analysis of the film, but this episode is going to be a companion piece to the that first episode focussing more on a celebration of Jaws' legacy as it turns 50 and its impact upon the guys (now joined by Steve), and what they feel makes it a genuine contender for the title of greatest film ever made. But it won't just be Steve, Skye and Neil talking as this episode features many of the regular Film ‘89 co-hosts, guests, friends from Film Twitter and more, so input from more people than any other episode of Film ‘89 so far, all experts on film, chiming in with their testimonies as to why they feel Jaws is one of the greatest motion pictures ever made. 

Anamaria Ungureanu: The Tech Lead Who Nearly Destroyed the Team Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Anamaria describes a seven-member software team that initially seemed engaged but began self-destructing when a senior tech lead refused to embrace transparency and knowledge sharing principles.  The situation escalated when this key team member's four-day absence completely blocked the team's ability to deliver, creating a dangerous single point of failure. Through careful retrospective facilitation and strategic motivation techniques, including offering the specialist new learning opportunities while gradually transferring their legacy knowledge to teammates, Anamaria helped the team overcome knowledge silos and establish sustainable collaboration patterns. Featured Book of the Week: Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss Anamaria recommends “Never Split the Difference” by Chris Voss, a negotiation masterpiece because it taught her essential communication strategies for establishing trust and navigating tense situations. She emphasizes that negotiation is a critical Scrum Master skill, and Voss's techniques help build rapport with stakeholders while managing difficult conversations that arise during team transformations and organizational change initiatives. Self-reflection Question: What knowledge silos exist in your teams, and how might you motivate specialists to share their expertise while providing them with new growth opportunities? [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Limitations of the Sprint Retrospective...Back in my Scrum days — yes, with 20+ years of experience, I am allowed to say that — I genuinely enjoyed facilitating Retrospectives. It was a perfect moment to pause and identify areas for improvement.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] https://www.agiledad.com/- [instagram] https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/- [facebook] https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/- [Linkedin] https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

This week, we're bringing organizational methodologies into the lodge room by exploring "retrospectives"—a powerful tool used to improve team operations and facilitate effective succession planning. How can your lodge leverage retrospectives to identify strengths, address weaknesses, and ensure continuity? Tune in to discover practical strategies for fostering open dialogue, enhancing lodge management, and setting the stage for lasting success.

On Episode 136 of The Film ‘89 Podcast, Steve and Skye are joined by a mighty trio of film experts, returning Film ‘89 co-hosts, Bill Scurry, John Arminio and Martin Kessler And this episode, your five hosts will be wearing their underpants over their trousers as they give their in-depth and spoiler-filled review and analysis of director James Gunn's Superman, the 2025 big screen reboot for the caped crusader that's intended as a launching point for Gunn's new cinematic take on the DC Comics Universe. As well as the new film, the guys will be discussing the cinematic legacy of Superman through the ages. 

Pascal Papathemelis: From Mechanics to Human Factors—How Scrum Masters Grow Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Pascal shares his evolution as a Scrum Master, moving from focusing purely on the mechanics of Scrum to understanding the critical importance of human factors. Early in his career, Pascal worked with teams that struggled to achieve sprint goals, with stories floating from one sprint to another. Through retrospectives and continuous improvement, he learned essential tips like not taking too much into sprints and making stories smaller.  However, Pascal's biggest transformation came when he shifted focus to human elements - involving everyone in the team, improving collaboration during refinement, and developing people's skills and attitudes. He emphasizes that every person is an individual with the intention to be their best, and a good Scrum Master must sense when something is wrong and create safe environments for open conversations. Pascal highlights the importance of corridor conversations and coffee machine breakthroughs, especially before COVID, and stresses the need to invest effort in how teams start, using models like Tuckman's team growth model and Diana Larsen's Team Liftoff approach. In this segment, we also refer to the episode with Arne Roock, about the importance of team design and setup in the success of teams. Self-reflection Question: How might shifting your focus from Scrum mechanics to human factors transform the way you support your team's growth and collaboration? [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Stuart Tipples: Defining Scrum Master Success and the 4L's Retrospective Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. Stuart redefines success for Scrum Masters, moving beyond organized JIRA boards and well-structured stories to focus on team dynamics and behavior. True success means seeing healthy conflict that leads to insight, having transparent priorities, and watching teams call out their own behavior through self-checking mechanisms. Stuart emphasizes that happy teams aren't just content - they're energized by embracing obstacles and challenges. He stresses the importance of reinforcing great behaviors when you see them, creating an environment where teams can thrive independently. Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: 4L's The 4L's retrospective format is Stuart's favorite because it strikes the perfect balance between warmth and honest feedback. The format covers four areas: Liked (appreciation), Learned (growth opportunities), Lacked (identifying gaps), and Longed for (dreaming big). This structure prevents people from freezing up while uncovering golden moments and building psychological safety. As a bonus, the format allows facilitators to bring fun elements and themes, making retrospectives more engaging while maintaining their effectiveness in driving team improvement. Self-reflection Question: Does your team demonstrate healthy conflict that leads to insight, or are disagreements avoided and issues left unresolved? [Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]