Podcasts about VMware

When does a body of work reach completion? One answer is to end it by choice. This week in episode 356 you'll hear the reasons behind our intentional ending of the Nerd Journey Podcast. We'll rewind the clock and focus on the show's trajectory and inflection points over time just like we've done for guests, share what we learned over the course of an 8-year journey from idea to consistently released show, and discuss our favorite moments. All of our content will remain online and accessible for listeners like you to go back and enjoy. Don't miss our final call to action in this episode. Just because this body of work is complete, there is still work for all of us to do for our careers. Original Recording Date: 12-20-2025 Topics – A Purposeful Ending, Where We Started, Interview Format and Getting to Launch, The Why Behind the Ending, The Lessons We Learned, Our Favorite Moments, What to Expect from Us Moving Forward, There's More to Be Done for All of Us. 1:01 – A Purposeful Ending We'll give you the bottom line up front: this is the last episode of the Nerd Journey podcast. We still love the mission, but the time has come for us to complete this body of work. When we have interviewed guests on the show, we've talked through their career timeline and pulled out the lessons learned. Today, we're going to do it for the show itself. 1:38 – Where We Started John was working as a sales engineer at VMware and was the co-host of the VMware Community Roundtable Podcast. He loved listening to podcasts, enjoyed the medium, and wanted to find a topic for a show. At the same time Nick was in the process of joining VMware, John and Nick were discussing all the things Nick needed to know to transition into sales engineering for a technology vendor. “In that conversation, I said ‘maybe we should start a podcast.'” – John White As Nick remembers it, this happened the weekend before Nick started at VMware in December 2017 (almost exactly 8 years before this episode's recording). Nick wasn't sure what he would talk about on a podcast. This suggestion from John started the ideation period, and our launch of the show was in July 2018. John talks about some of the initial ideas for the focus of the show. At that time, VMware podcasts and blogs were a great way to interact with the greater community. Doing something like this was also a way to become what John calls “nerd famous.” By the way, no one else can use that term now (trademarked by John). We initially considered talking about VMware news and our opinions on it since we both were going to be working at VMware. Both John and Nick came from small-to-medium business IT operations and eventually became sales engineers at a technology vendor. One of the things the show could be for is to talk about that journey and help others understand it was a possibility for them as well. John and Nick recorded about 10 episodes before launching to help hit the release cadence. Nick doesn't remember why they chose a weekly release cadence but remembers the show launched while he was on vacation. John and Nick even recorded a podcast episode while Nick was on that vacation, which started a habit of Nick doing podcast work while on vacation. Because they had recorded so many episodes in advance, they were not going to be timely or points of authority on VMware technology. Both Nick and John's roles were as technical generalists on the VMware side. “The only evergreen stuff that we had was the career stuff, so that became a little bit more the focus. I think that we were still thinking…we'll just record more maybe VMware specific stuff later on…as that happens. For right now, here it is.” – John White Early episodes were very prescriptive about resumes and job interview processes at larger tech companies, for example. Nick points out that John had to carry the conversation in these early episodes because he was just learning to think about career focused topics (sort of like being new to lifting weights). But, Nick picked up a lot just from the conversations on the show. 7:50 – Interview Format and Getting to Launch Nick couldn't remember what made them bring in guests originally, but Episode 13 with Tom Delicati was our very first guest interview on the show. John feels bringing in guests was always back of mind for him, and it was what he saw happen on the VMware Community Roundtable Podcast. “We're just 2 people and we have our experience. But we can't represent that as the full breadth of all of experience. That just doesn't make any sense. So, we need to start exploring what other people's career journeys have looked like and see if we can extract some knowledge and recommendations from that.” – John White Nick doesn't remember having a prescriptive plan for interviewing guests but feels like they settled into long-form interviews as a style pretty quickly. John says this was a structure they hit upon in the beginning (talking through someone's job history). The lessons learned from career inflection points like job transitions emerged from conversations with guests. John and Nick did not know this was going to happen when they began. Nick likes being able to highlight more of one specific guest's story than otherwise could have been done if each interview was only 30 minutes with a guest. But we fully acknowledge people like different lengths of podcasts. “We wanted to tell interesting stories that had an arc: a beginning and an end and a journey in between. And we were able to find those even chopping people's long 2-hour conversations up into 2 or even 3 episodes. I think that worked for us. I don't know if it worked for everybody.” – John White “We probably spent the same time interviewing people as we would have. We just didn't interview as many as if it had been 1 episode per person.” – Nick Korte We also didn't want to release a 2-hour interview as one episode. That's a lot of editing for just one episode release. People might not realize how much time goes into editing and production even after recording an interview. At the beginning, John had to give Nick advice on the kind of microphone to get. Nick started recording with a headset and then bought the same mic as John. They would each later invest in nicer microphones as the show progressed. “I knew nothing about editing and really not that much about how to make a podcast.” – Nick Korte, on beginning as a podcaster There were a lot of things we had to figure out just to make the podcast publicly available. John had researched some of the administrative things. He knew there was a WordPress plugin that could be used to turn MP3 files of released episodes into publicly available audio feed that would be the podcast. John says there were some mental blocks and hurdles he had to get through before launching the show, highlighting the fact that it took 6 months to go from idea to publishing. He was getting overwhelmed trying to figure out the back-end production and publishing process. John thinks it was Nick who kept asking what needed to happen for us to launch, and we went with WordPress and the plugin mentioned but never changed anything…because we had no time to go back. Nick and John learned that once you start a show and get it going, you will never run out of ideas. 13:58 – The Why Behind the Ending We never ran out of ideas. In fact, we still have ideas. So why are we stopping the podcast? We ran out of time. Nick has run out of time to work on editing and production. This has been a weekly show (up until the last couple months of our run), and it takes a large time commitment each week. For guest interview episodes, the intro and outro were not recorded at the same time the interview took place. These had to be recorded before the episode was released. The show notes are not AI-generated. Nick enjoyed writing them and adding in important links and references, feeling like it allowed him to remember the episodes better and internalize the lessons within them. Nick has a teenager now with many extracurricular activities and has had a workload increase at his job. “Probably for the last year I think I've been fooling myself at how much of a toll it's been to just get an episode out each week.” – Nick Korte We even tried changing the release schedule to bi-weekly and have missed that cadence a couple of times. John ran out of time about 4 years ago and hasn't had much time since to handle podcast related tasks. John experienced a job change and new baby at that time and couldn't add anything else. He also moved at some point. John and Nick have been advancing in their own careers over time as well, which has added responsibility. John and his wife recently had a second child. He also left his job in June 2025 and has been doing a job search at the same time. Before Nick and John made this decision, Nick listened back to some previous episodes to get advice and perspective. Some of the advice that echoed the loudest came from Amy Lewis in Episode 302 – Ending with Intention: Once a Geek Whisperer with Amy Lewis (2/2). The idea of ending with intention stood out. “Rather than being spotty on our releases and not keeping our promise of how often we say we're going to get the show out, we wanted to end it with intention and say, ‘ok, this is it.'” – Nick Korte “We haven't lost the love of this task. We both want this to continue. But realistically, we can't do it. And rather than sputter and peter out and never be heard from again, we just thought we'll follow the lessons that we've learned from our bettors and do what they did. Let's be intentional about the end.” – John White 18:02 – The Lessons We Learned John learned how much we can learn from the experience of others. He had ideas and biases about how we should handle specific aspects of our career, but doing the podcast allowed him to pressure test these ideas against the experience of others. John appreciates the breadth of background and experience our collective guests have brought to the show. It made him realize there are so many different ways to do certain things. Nick learned a ton about the mechanics of podcast production. It was around Episode 113 when Nick became the editor because John needed to take a break. If you want to hear more about how this happened, check out this blog post. Nick got hooked into podcast communities and even attended a podcast conference in 2025, meeting many other people who run their own podcast. Nick learned how much salesmanship is involved in getting a guest. You have to sell someone on the idea of being on the show and what they can bring to your listeners. How easy can you make it for them to say yes? John and Nick asked guests for 1.5 – 2 hours for an interview. “If you make it easy for someone to say yes and you build the outline of questions you might ask and you tell them what your show is about and what you want to cover, they'll say yes. And they might give you more time than that…. I learned so much about different people that I never would have met otherwise. I am thankful for all the learnings of all the people who have been on the show. And I'm thankful for everything I've learned from you, John.” – Nick Korte John is grateful for the difference in skills he and Nick have and their ability to learn from one another just by co-hosting together. He likes to apply the idea of making it easy for others to say yes when he's asking something of someone at work, for example. Nick learned how to beat perfectionism weekly. Something can always be edited more or re-recorded. There was a weekly ship date. “The deadline was always there to keep me honest.” – Nick Korte Seth Godin's The Practice talks about keeping a promise to the people who follow you. Having a weekly release cadence meant we were promising to ship episodes weekly. “So, whether one person listened or a million people listened, we tried to keep that promise. And it was important to us to keep it, even if it was hard.” – Nick Korte “Having a million people listen to a specific episode or even hit the site in a specific week wasn't the goal. I think the goal was the breadth of work and making it accessible and having people be able to benefit from it.” – John White We also had to learn how to tell people about the show in a clear, succinct way. When John or Nick would join video calls for work, people would see their microphones and ask if they had a podcast. We also used generative AI in our workflow for production a little bit, even if it was not for show notes. Doing the show has dragged with it some reasons to tinker with generative AI. With John's help Nick learned how to build a Gemini prompt that would take the handwritten show notes and brainstorm titles, episode descriptions, and even create a prompt for a featured image based on the themes in the episode. John shares that we never wanted to use generative AI to take a transcript and generate an episode outline. We might lose touch with the content that way. John talks about the curse of being an audio editor. It's impossible to NOT hear issues in other audio. Nick can hear mouth noises on Zoom calls like you wouldn't believe. John says we can listen to someone else's podcast and may be able to tell who is and is not the editor based on whether they speak into the microphone or move away from it and keep talking. 25:15 – Our Favorite Moments John says it's hard to pick just one favorite moment. We got to meet some of our heroes in podcasting and other people who were “nerd famous” about their career stories. We had some great conversations with John Nicholson about how to evaluate a job offer and personal finance. Check out these for reference: Episode 224 – Tech Marketing, Interview Questions, and Executives as Wild Bears with John Nicholson (1/3) Episode 225 – Take Stock of Your Compensation with John Nicholson (2/3) Episode 226 – Negotiating Job Offers and Personal Finance Tips with John Nicholson (3/3) Having a podcast allowed us to have lengthy conversations with people who may not have otherwise had a reason to talk to us. John doesn't think asking someone out of the blue for 2 hours of time without having a podcast would have worked well. John says he has a strong recency bias, often walking away from an interview with a guest thinking it was the best one yet. Nick's favorite moments Nick remembers the first time we interviewed Mike Burkhart (in Episode 64 and Episode 65). He was having wifi issues and had to move everything into his living room floor to record the episode. John and Mike were kind enough to stay online and still do the interview. John and Nick live in different parts of the United States and have only been able to record together in person a handful of times. These times were special and rare. Nick remembers the time they recorded at VMware Explore and forgot to hit record…twice in a row! If John had to succumb to recency bias, he would pick the recent interview with Milin Desai. This set of interviews stands alone as the only time we were cold pitched a guest by someone we did not know, and it was a perfect fit. We got over 2 hours with a CEO! Episode 349 – Expand Your Curiosity: Build, Own, and Maintain Relevance with Milin Desai (1/3) Episode 350 – Scope and Upside: The Importance of Contextual Communication with Milin Desai (2/3) Episode 350 – Opt In: A CEO's Take on Becoming AI Native with Milin Desai (3/3) People being both generous with their time and inciteful has been a pattern with guests. Nick and John got to have conversations with people both on the air and off the air. Nick appreciated having Dale McKay on the show (a mentor of his). You can find those episodes here: Episode 288 – Guardrails for Growth: A Mentor's Experience with Dale McKay (1/2) Episode 289 – Enhance Your Personal Brand: Feedback as a Catalyst for Change with Dale McKay (2/2) Some other favorites from Nick: He enjoyed all of the conversations about the principal title and principal engineers. See also the principal tag for more of these stories. Nick also really enjoyed hearing the stories about why people went into leadership roles and why they moved away from them. One specific episode Nick highlights as a favorite is Episode 127 – Countdown to Burnout with Tom Hollingsworth (3/3). John mentions we all battle burnout from time to time, and having such great advice to go back to is a gift. Nick says being the editor is also a gift because you're going to get to listen to the recorded discussion multiple times. Many times, the questions Nick and John asked in guest interviews were things they needed help with in their own careers. Hopefully the answers to those questions helped you as a listener too! John liked the fact that we were able to clip some of the times we messed up on the air and include those sound bites at the very end of an episode for people. To find these episodes, look for the Stinger metadata tag on an episode post. Nick mentions the Barry White intro stinger. It's actually at the end of Episode 17. There are also some good stingers with guest Chris Williams. 31:05 – What to Expect from Us Moving Forward What are the things that will, won't, and might happen in the future? The Nerd Journey site will remain online and accessible so our content will not disappear. You can still enjoy past episodes, browse the show notes, and leverage the Layoff Resources Page as well as our Career Uncertainty Action Guide. John and Nick can keep it online in a very cost-effective way just as they have to this point since the podcast was never monetized (not even Amazon affiliate links). John still has a dream of making sure we have transcripts of all the episodes and making these available in addition to the show notes. Maybe that could be extended to an AI chat bot that was trained on the transcripts. There would be some overhead involved in doing it, but John thinks it's definitely possible. You can still reach out to John or Nick on LinkedIn or send us an e-mail. All current communication channels will remain in place. We are available for questions, if you want to talk, etc. We will definitely NOT restart this show. We have declared it complete. Even if we were going to do a show like this again in the future, we would do it differently. We might choose a different name, a different description, or a different format even. But we don't have the time to do that right now anyway. We are NOT starting a new show (at least not right now). 34:59 – There's More to Be Done for All of Us Just because the show is ending, that doesn't mean your work is complete. None of our work is complete when it comes to career. “The things that we've talked about in curating your own career and being intentional about it always apply. We're not going to be around to remind you of that every week, so I hope that people have learned those lessons and internalized them. But if not, do something to make those things intentional. You need to prioritize your career on a consistent basis.” – John White Here are some specific actions that you should take: Document your work. Generate proof of work. Show your work (similar to generating proof of work). John says this is what we were unconsciously doing when we began the podcast, sharing how we got to where we are and our job transitions so others can follow a similar path if they choose. The purpose of showing your work is so that others can learn from your experience and so you can remind yourself of what you've accomplished at a later time. Nick highlights that Episode 66: Three-Month Check-In as a Google Cloud Customer Engineer with John White, Part 1 remains the most downloaded episode in our catalog. Aim for small, iterative improvements. Turn information into knowledge. Some of this is through writing. We spoke several times on the show about writing being thinking, and it was specifically referenced in an episode with Josh Duffney – Episode 156 – Better Notes, Better You with Josh Duffney (1/2). Manage your knowledge in some kind of written form that isn't in your head. Make it a knowledge management system of some kind. Practice Deep Work. It's the most important work you can do because the skill of sustained attention will be the thing for which people are paid. Be mindful of technology waves and trends, and consider placing some small bets. Many guests have invested time and effort to become proficient in a newer technology before or as it was catching on. Don't be afraid to tinker with those newer technologies. Consistently invest in your professional network. One way to do this could be via meetup groups or online communities. Reach out to use if you want to talk about careers, starting a podcast, or other fun topics. Nick can also tell you what it's like to go through the John White School of Mentoring. We want to say a special thank you to every guest who took the time to be on the podcast and every listener who took the time to listen to an episode. Contact the Hosts The hosts of Nerd Journey are John White and Nick Korte. E-mail: nerdjourneypodcast@gmail.com DM us on Twitter/X @NerdJourney Connect with John on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @vJourneyman Connect with Nick on LinkedIn or DM him on Twitter/X @NetworkNerd_ Leave a Comment on Your Favorite Episode on YouTube If you've been impacted by a layoff or need advice, check out our Layoff Resources Page. If uncertainty is getting to you, check out or Career Uncertainty Action Guide with a checklist of actions to take control during uncertain periods and AI prompts to help you think through topics like navigating a recent layoff, financial planning, or managing your mindset and being overwhelmed.

Analysis of Single Sign-On Abuse on FortiOS Fortinet released an advisory. FortiOS devices are vulnerable if configured with any SAML integration, not just FortiCloud https://www.fortinet.com/blog/psirt-blogs/analysis-of-sso-abuse-on-fortios Outlook OOB Update Microsoft released a non-security OOB Update for Outlook, fixing an issue introduced with this months security patches. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/january-24-2026-kb5078127-os-builds-26200-7628-and-26100-7628-out-of-band-cf5777f6-bb4e-4adb-b9cd-2b64df577491 VMware vCenter Server Vulnerabilities Exploited (CVE-2024-37079, CVE-2024-37080, CVE-2024-37081) A VMWare vCenter vulnerability patched last June is now actively exploited. https://support.broadcom.com/web/ecx/support-content-notification/-/external/content/SecurityAdvisories/0/24453

The Monday Microsegment for the week of January 26th. All the cybersecurity news you need to stay ahead, from Illumio's The Segment podcast.A critical vulnerability is being actively exploited in core infrastructure, VMware warns.Hackers looking for extortion payoff tell Nike to… just do it.And a massive database leak exposes 149 million stolen credentials.And Christer Swartz joins us for January's Boos and Bravos. Head to The Zero Trust Hub: hub.illumio.comDownload The 2025 Global Cloud Detection and Response Report: https://www.illumio.com/resource-center/global-cloud-detection-and-response-report-2025 

This week, we discuss the end of Cloud 1.0, AI agents fixing old apps, and Chainguard vs. Docker images. Plus, the mystery of Dutch broth is finally solved. Watch the YouTube Live Recording of Episode 556 Runner-up Titles His overall deal Been there and done that been ignoring that shift key for years Cloud is just fine I'll be back in Bartertown The “F” Word Hardened-washing We'll never do this, but we should check back in in 3 months Libraries are the best Elves don't belong in space Rundown Are we at the end of cloud or cloud 1.0 It's the beginning of Cloud 2.0 Spec-driven development system for Claude Code Anthropic and App Modernization A meta-prompting, context engineering and spec-driven development What comes next, if Claude Code is as good as people say. Microsoft Spending on Anthropic Approaches $500 Million a Year Claude Code Won't Fix Your Life Coté and Tony contemplate day two AI-generated apps, and an excerpt. Why We've Tried to Replace Developers Every Decade Since 1969 Well, that escalated quickly: Zero CVEs, lots of vendors Relevant to your Interests Beijing tells Chinese firms to stop using US and Israeli cybersecurity software China blacklists VMware, Palo Alto Networks software over national security fears Kroger taps Google Gemini, announces more key AI moves Texas judge throws out second lawsuit over CrowdStrike outage Apple will pay billions for Gemini after OpenAI declined Dell wants £10m+ from VMware if Tesco case goes against it Tailscale: The Best Free App Most Mac Power Users Aren't Using How WhatsApp Took Over the Global Conversation Our approach to advertising and expanding access to ChatGPT OpenAI's ARR reached over $20 billion in 2025, CFO says Simon Willison's take on Our approach to advertising and ChatGPT The AI lab revolving door spins ever faster | TechCrunch How Markdown took over the world An Interview with United CEO Scott Kirby About Tech Transformation Conferences cfgmgmtcamp 2026, February 2nd to 4th, Ghent, BE. Coté speaking - anyone interested in being an SDI guest? DevOpsDayLA at SCALE23x, March 6th, Pasadena, CA Use code: DEVOP for 50% off. Devnexus 2026, March 4th to 6th, Atlanta, GA. Use this 30% off discount code from your pals at Tanzu: DN26VMWARE30. KubeCon EU, March 23rd to 26th, 2026 - Coté will be there on a media pass. VMware User Groups (VMUGs): Amsterdam (March 17-19, 2026) Minneapolis (April 7-9, 2026) Toronto (May 12-14, 2026) Dallas (June 9-11, 2026) Orlando (October 20-22, 2026) SDT News & Community Join our Slack community Email the show: questions@softwaredefinedtalk.com Free stickers: Email your address to stickers@softwaredefinedtalk.com Follow us on social media: Twitter, Threads, Mastodon, LinkedIn, BlueSky Watch us on: Twitch, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok Book offer: Use code SDT for $20 off "Digital WTF" by Coté Sponsor the show Recommendations Brandon: The Library will loan you a 5G hotspot Matt: Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor (rogue-like Vampire Hunters-type game) Coté: Streamyard shorts generation. Salesforce was inspired by dolphins.

Join us as Gautam breaks down the evolution of tool use in generative AI and dives deep into MCP. Gautam walks through the progression from simple prompt engineering to function calling, structured outputs, and now MCP—explaining why MCP matters and how it's changing the way AI systems interact with external tools and data. You'll learn about the differences between MCP and traditional API integrations, how to build your first MCP server, best practices for implementation, and where the ecosystem is heading. Whether you're building AI-powered applications, integrating AI into your infrastructure workflows, or just trying to keep up with the latest developments, this episode provides the practical knowledge you need. Gautam also shares real-world examples and discusses the competitive landscape between various AI workflow approaches. Subscribe to vBrownBag for weekly tech education covering AI, cloud, DevOps, and more! ⸻ Timestamps 0:00 Introduction & Welcome 7:28 Gautam's Background & Journey to AI Product Management 12:45 The Evolution of Tool Use in AI 18:32 What is Model Context Protocol (MCP)? 24:16 MCP vs Traditional API Integrations 30:41 Building Your First MCP Server 36:52 MCP Server Discovery & Architecture 42:18 Real-World Use Cases & Examples 47:35 Best Practices & Implementation Tips 51:12 The Competitive Landscape: Skills, Extensions, & More 52:14 Q&A: AI Agents & Infrastructure Predictions 55:09 Closing & Giveaway How to find Gautam: https://gautambaghel.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/gautambaghel/ Links from the show: https://www.hashicorp.com/en/blog/build-secure-ai-driven-workflows-with-new-terraform-and-vault-mcp-servers Presentation from HashiConf: https://youtu.be/eamE18_WrW0?si=9AJ9HUBOy7-HlQOK Kiro Powers: https://www.hashicorp.com/en/blog/hashicorp-is-a-kiro-powers-launch-partner Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11dZZUO2w7ObjwYtf1At4WnL-ZPW1QyaWnNjzSQKQEe0/edit?usp=sharing

In this episode of Tank Talks, Matt Cohen sits down with Timothy Chen, the sole General Partner at Essence VC. Tim shares his remarkable journey from being a “nerdy, geeky kid” who hacked open-source projects to becoming one of the most respected early-stage infrastructure investors, backing breakout companies like Tabular (acquired by Databricks for $2.2 billion). A former engineer at Microsoft and VMware, co-founder of Hyperpilot (acquired by Cloudera), and now a solo GP who quietly raised over $41 million for his latest fund, Tim offers a unique, no-BS perspective on spotting technical founders, navigating the idea maze, and rethinking sales and traction in the world of AI and infrastructure.We dive deep into his unconventional path into VC, rejected by traditional Sand Hill Road firms, only to build a powerhouse reputation through sheer technical credibility and founder empathy. Tim reveals the patterns behind disruptive infra companies, why most VCs can't help with product-market fit, and how he leverages his engineering background to win competitive deals.Whether you're a founder building the next foundational layer or an investor trying to understand the infra and AI boom, this conversation is packed with hard-won insights.The Open Source Resume (00:03:44)* How contributing to Apache projects (Drill, Cloud Foundry) built his career when a CS degree couldn't.* The moment he realized open source was a path to industry influence, not just a hobby.* Why the open source model is more “vertical than horizontal”, allowing deep contribution without corporate red tape.From Engineer to Founder: The Hyperpilot Journey (00:13:24)* Leaving Docker to start Hyperpilot and raising seed funding from NEA and Bessemer.* The harsh reality of founder responsibility: “It's not about the effort hard, it's about all the other things that has to go right.”* Learning from being “way too early to market” and the acquisition by Cloudera.The Unlikely Path into Venture Capital (00:26:07)* Rejected by top-tier VC firms for a job, then prompted to start his own fund via AngelList.* Starting with a $1M “Tim Chen Angel Fund” focused solely on infrastructure.* How Bain Capital's small anchor investment gave him the initial credibility.Building a Brand Through Focus & Reputation (00:30:42)* Why focusing exclusively on infrastructure was his “best blessing” creating a standout identity in a sparse field.* The reputation flywheel: Founders praising his help led to introductions from top-tier GPs and LPs.* StepStone reaching out for a commitment before he even had fund documents ready.The Essence VC Investment Philosophy (00:44:34)* Pattern Recognition: What he learned from witnessing the early days of Confluent, Databricks, and Docker.* Seeking Disruptors, Not Incrementalists: Backing founders who have a “non-common belief” that leads to a 10x better product (e.g., Modal Labs, Cursor, Warp).* Rethinking Sales & Traction: Why revenue-first playbooks don't apply in early-stage infra; comfort comes from technical co-building and roadmap planning.* The “Superpower”: Using his engineering background to pressure-test technical assumptions and timelines with founders.The Future of Infra & AI (00:52:09)* Infrastructure as an “enabler” for new application paradigms (real-time video, multimodal apps).* The coming democratization of building complex systems (the “next Netflix” built by smaller teams).* The shift from generalist backend engineers to specialists, enabled by new stacks and AI.Solo GP Life & Staying Relevant (00:54:55)* Why being a solo GP doesn't mean being a lone wolf; 20-30% of his time is spent syncing with other investors to learn.* The importance of continuous learning and adaptation in a fast-moving tech landscape.* His toolkit: Using portfolio company Clerky (a CRM) to manage workflow.About Timothy ChenFounder and Sole General Partner, Essence VCTimothy Chen is the Sole General Partner at Essence VC, a fund focused on early-stage infrastructure, AI, and open-source innovation. A three-time founder with an exit, his journey from Microsoft engineer to sought-after investor is a masterclass in building credibility through technical depth and founder-centric support. He has backed companies like Tabular, Iteratively, and Warp, and his insights are shaped by hundreds of conversations at the bleeding edge of infrastructure.Connect with Timothy Chen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timchenVisit the Essence VC Website: https://www.essencevc.fund/Connect with Matt Cohen on LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/matt-cohen1Visit the Ripple Ventures website: https://www.rippleventures.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tanktalks.substack.com

This week we welcome Paul Joyce, who leads one of Pure Storage's largest Field Solution Architect (FSA) teams. Our discussion begins by exploring the philosophy behind building a team of super technical specialists and key capabilities for this specialized role. Paul highlights that in addition to deep technical expertise in areas like databases and virtualization, he seeks candidates who demonstrate passion, a willingness to be vulnerable to build their personal brand, and, most critically, empathy for customers. This empathy should be rooted in a foundation of hands-on experience, where the architects have "lived the pain" of IT operations and can truly understand the challenges faced by customers, allowing them to focus on delivering time and value back to the business. We then move to what's top of mind for Paul, focusing on two major industry dilemmas. First is the ongoing virtualization dilemma, the continuing need for customers to re-evaluate their virtualization strategy following changes to VMware licensing. Paul emphasizes that the key challenge is not just the technology conversion (like moving to another hypervisor) but the business risks involved—including the cost of retraining entire staff on a new enterprise-ready platform and the complications of creating complex, high-risk migration pipelines between different environments. The second dilemma, around Big Iron, covers the massive shift in mission-critical storage. Paul contrasts the legacy multi-controller, spinning-disk systems of the past, built primarily for high availability, with Pure Storage's all-flash, two-controller architecture, which he attests delivers equal or greater availability with a simpler architecture and superior performance. This simplified approach enables massive consolidation for complex database environments. Finally, Paul shares his hot takes on database trends. He points to the growing importance of vector embedding, noting that major enterprise databases like Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server 2025 are building native vector capabilities into their platforms to bring AI/data lake functionality directly to the data. He also discusses the implications of Oracle's 23ai release, which has focused on cloud and engineered systems, prompting on-premises customers to consult with their FSA teams on their future database strategy. The episode concludes with a classic IT mess up story from Paul's early career as a jack-of-all-trades network administrator, recounting a failed, all-weekend core switch replacement in a freezing data center. To learn more, visit https://www.purestorage.com/databases Check out the new Pure Storage digital customer community to join the conversation with peers and Pure experts: https://purecommunity.purestorage.com/ 00:00 Intro and Welcome 01:44 Building a Specialist Team 05:53 Prior Experience in IT 09:45 Working with Rockets 15:15 Virtualization Dilemma 24:09 Enterprise Storage for Databases 37:01 Hot Takes Segment

Join the vBrownBag crew and AWS Hero Peter Sankauskas for the 2026 AWS Community Survey

Episode Summary Enterprise leaders are facing two equally hard problems at the same time: deciding what to do next with virtualization in the post-VMware era, and figuring out how—or whether—to deploy AI infrastructure responsibly. In this episode of The CTO Advisor Podcast, Keith Townsend sits down with long-time industry peer and infrastructure expert [...]

In this episode of Alexa's Input (AI), Alexa sits down with Joe Beda, co-creator of Kubernetes and one of the key figures behind modern cloud computing.Joe talks through his journey from big tech to founding a startup and back again, and what it actually takes to build systems that scale technically, organizationally, and emotionally. Joe shares the origin story of Kubernetes, what people often misunderstand about open source, and why infrastructure success sometimes comes with unexpected personal costs.They also discuss tradeoffs between shipping fast and getting it right, how incentives shape engineering culture, and why identity standards like SPIFFE/SPIRE is just now getting more attention. Joe gives a wide-ranging, honest look at infrastructure, innovation, and the people behind it.LinksWatch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@alexa_griffith⁠⁠⁠⁠Read: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://alexasinput.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Listen:⁠⁠ https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/alexagriffith/⁠⁠More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/alexagriffith⁠⁠⁠⁠Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://alexagriffith.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexa-griffith/⁠⁠⁠⁠Find out more about the guest at:LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jbeda/SPIFFE: https://spiffe.io/Kubernetes: https://kubernetes.io/Joe Beda Interview – Increment Magazinehttps://increment.com/containers/joe-beda-interview/Joe Beda on The Podlets Podcasthttps://thepodlets.io/episodes/006-joe-beda/GitLab Blog: Kubernetes & Community (Joe Beda)https://about.gitlab.com/blog/kubernetes-chat-with-joe-beda/KeywordsKubernetes, Joe Beda, cloud-native, open source, technology, Google, VMware, Heptio, AI, security standardsChapters00:00 Introduction to Joe Beda and Kubernetes02:50 Understanding Kubernetes: The Foundation of Modern Computing04:36 The Birth of Kubernetes: From Idea to Reality07:38 Internal Debates: Navigating Challenges at Google10:14 Key Innovations: What Sets Kubernetes Apart13:30 The Role of Community: Collaborating with Red Hat15:26 Design Challenges: Networking and Configuration Pain Points19:28 Joe's Journey: Transitioning from Microsoft to Google23:02 Navigating Corporate Politics: Influence and Success25:24 Career Growth: Balancing Company Success and Personal Development30:44 Navigating Industry Trends and Career Durability35:46 The Balance of Work and Life40:40 Understanding Burnout and Personal Ownership47:49 The Journey of Founding Heptio54:31 The Acquisition by VMware and Its Implications01:00:15 Authenticity in Sales and Motivation01:01:23 Career Transitions: From Engineer to Founder01:02:11 The Evolution of Perspective in Tech Careers01:04:26 Navigating the Challenges of Startup Life01:06:12 Post-Acquisition Dynamics at VMware01:09:52 Finding Purpose in Corporate Structures01:11:32 Philanthropy and Personal Values01:13:02 Open Source Contributions: Spiffy and Spire01:16:51 The State of Security Standards in AI01:22:12 Advising Principles and Green Flags in Startups

In this year's first episode of the new year, Guy and Eitan discuss the new Next-gen General Purpose tier of Azure SQL Managed Instance, which is now GA. They also discuss a few interesting customer stories, how they were resolved, and how they're not actually SQL Server's fault. Relevant links: Generally Available: Azure SQL Managed Instance Next-gen General Purpose | Microsoft Community Hub The Bitmap Index query plan operator SQL Server on VMware best practices guide How to Save Money on Your SQL Server Hardware

Something New!  For HR teams who discuss this podcast in their team meetings, we've created a discussion starter PDF to help guide your conversation. Download it here https://goodmorninghr.com/EP232 In episode 232, Coffey talks with Margarita Ramos about the importance and future of the employee relations function following the $11.5 million SHRM discrimination verdict. They discuss the SHRM jury verdict and its implications for HR credibility; the role of employee relations at the intersection of compliance and employee experience; proactive versus reactive approaches to workplace conflict; multiple complaint channels and manager escalation obligations; why dismissing concerns as "not illegal" undermines trust; investigation failures highlighted in the SHRM case; investigator neutrality, training, and experience requirements; when and why to use outside investigators or counsel; leadership accountability and the role of the CHRO in employee relations; the three-legged stool of employee relations, HR business partners, and employment counsel; building ER infrastructure with case management systems and data analytics; handling high-performing but high-risk leaders; transparency in employee relations processes; reducing gossip through consistent and fair investigations; and the future of employee relations including responsible use of AI in investigations. Good Morning, HR is brought to you by Imperative—Bulletproof Background Checks. For more information about our commitment to quality and excellent customer service, visit us at https://imperativeinfo.com.  If you are an HRCI or SHRM-certified professional, this episode of Good Morning, HR has been pre-approved for half a recertification credit. To obtain the recertification information for this episode, visit https://goodmorninghr.com.  About our Guest: Margarita Ramos is a highly respected Global Employee Relations executive and employment attorney with more than two decades of experience across technology, SaaS, and financial services. She is trusted by CHROs, HR Business Partners, and C-suite leaders to build scalable ER infrastructures, stabilize organizations through change, and elevate the employee experience through disciplined governance and operational excellence. With a foundation rooted in JD-trained employment law—including roles as In-House Employment Counsel at Merrill Lynch and Principal Corporate Counsel at Microsoft—Margarita developed deep legal expertise in compliance, risk mitigation, and workplace investigations.  She later translated this expertise into senior ER and HR Compliance leadership roles at VMware, Splunk, RBC, and Bank of America, where she supported complex global workforces navigating rapid growth, cultural transformation, and organizational change. Throughout her career, Margarita has been brought in to create structure where ambiguity exists. She has built and led global ER Centers of Excellence, developed investigations and performance-management frameworks, and implemented modern case-management systems such as Workday, HR Acuity, and AI-enabled governance tools. Her approach blends empathy with operational rigor, ensuring ER functions are both employee-centric and aligned with business strategy. A skilled investigator and ER strategist, Margarita advises senior leaders on workplace investigations, conflict resolution, performance management, DEI&B, and global employment compliance. She is known for her ability to translate data, case trends, and cultural signals into actionable insights—leveraging ER metrics, KPIs, and reporting to influence leadership decisions, drive fairness, and strengthen organizational culture. Her data-driven approach enables leaders to make well-informed, consistent decisions that reinforce trust and accountability across the enterprise.  Margarita has also led M&A HR integration efforts at VMware and Splunk, overseeing cultural alignment, workforce assessments, and change-management strategies during periods of significant transformation. Her leadership in these environments reflects her commitment to creating workplaces where clarity, belonging, and operational excellence coexist. Beyond her corporate work, Margarita is deeply committed to developing future talent. She has mentored first-generation college students and contributed to organizations such as Girls Who Code, Year Up, and Hobart & William Smith Colleges. At Microsoft, she provided pro bono support for Kids in Need of Defense (KIND). Outside of work, she enjoys ballroom dancing and cooking. Margarita is passionate about shaping modern, strategic, tech-forward ER functions that support organizational values, reduce risk, build leadership capability, and create an environment where employees can do their best work with trust, fairness, and accountability. Margarita Ramos can be reached athttps://www.linkedin.com/in/margarita-ramos/ About Mike Coffey: Mike Coffey is an entrepreneur, licensed private investigator, business strategist, HR consultant, and registered yoga teacher.In 1999, he founded Imperative, a background investigations and due diligence firm helping risk-averse clients make well-informed decisions about the people they involve in their business.Imperative delivers in-depth employment background investigations, know-your-customer and anti-money laundering compliance, and due diligence investigations to more than 300 risk-averse corporate clients across the US, and, through its PFC Caregiver & Household Screening brand, many more private estates, family offices, and personal service agencies.Imperative has been named a Best Places to Work, the Texas Association of Business' small business of the year, and is accredited by the Professional Background Screening Association. Mike shares his insight from 25+ years of HR-entrepreneurship on the Good Morning, HR podcast, where each week he talks to business leaders about bringing people together to create value for customers, shareholders, and community.Mike has been recognized as an Entrepreneur of Excellence by FW, Inc. and has twice been recognized as the North Texas HR Professional of the Year. Mike serves as a board member of a number of organizations, including the Texas State Council, where he serves Texas' 31 SHRM chapters as State Director-Elect; Workforce Solutions for Tarrant County; the Texas Association of Business; and the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, where he is chair of the Talent Committee.Mike is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) through the HR Certification Institute and a SHRM Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP). He is also a Yoga Alliance registered yoga teacher (RYT-200) and teach...

Bhavesh Mehta and Mahesh Kumar—senior technology leaders at Uber and co-authors of the practical guide AI-First Leader—discuss the lessons learned from Nova Bridge's collapse, and share best practices for mitigating hidden risks that can derail ambitious AI projects. They also share specific ways that small businesses and Fortune 500 companies can embrace AI from a place of empowerment rather than fear. Key Takeaways:  Ways to align C-suite leaders and engineering teams around a unified AI roadmap The most underestimated human factor that determines whether an AI transformation succeeds How overlooked vulnerabilities, insufficient oversight, and the rush to deploy led to unexpected fallout of the Nova Bridge Chat The unforeseen dangers lurking within AI systems Guest Bio:  Bhavesh Mehta is a technology leader and co-author of AI-First Leader, a practical guide for executives navigating enterprise AI adoption. With over 20 years of experience across Cisco, Uber, and VMware, Bhavesh has architected large-scale conversational and generative AI systems that support millions of users daily. His work bridges deep technical design and executive strategy, helping organizations deploy AI responsibly and at scale. Mahesh Kumar is a seasoned product executive and co-author of AI-First Leader, a practical guide for executives navigating enterprise AI adoption. With over 20 years of experience across Uber, Veritas, and VMware, Mahesh has led the development of multi-billion-dollar product portfolios and enterprise AI strategies. Known for bridging deep technology with strategic vision, he helps organizations move from experimentation to large-scale AI transformation. His work focuses on responsible innovation, combining business storytelling with technical fluency to make AI both accessible and actionable for leaders.   ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte  

Join us for the final episode of 2025 as Mark Tinderholt (Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft Azure, HashiCorp Ambassador, and author of "Mastering Terraform") teaches us Infrastructure as Code through Minecraft! If you've ever wanted to learn Terraform in a fun, visual way, this is the episode for you. Mark demonstrates how to use the Minecraft Terraform provider to build infrastructure in-game, making complex IaC concepts tangible and engaging. You'll see live demos of provisioning Minecraft resources, managing dependencies, handling state, and even importing existing structures into Terraform. This unique approach transforms abstract infrastructure concepts into something you can literally see and interact with—perfect for visual learners, educators, or anyone looking to make IaC training more engaging. Whether you're teaching your team Terraform or just want a creative way to understand infrastructure patterns, this episode shows you how gaming and cloud engineering can come together. Subscribe to vBrownBag for weekly tech education! ⸻ Timestamps 0:00 Welcome & Technical Difficulties 1:27 Last Episode of 2025! 4:41 Planning for 2026 5:37 Mark Tinderholt Joins 6:14 Introduction to Minecraft + Terraform 8:52 Why Use Minecraft for Teaching IaC? 12:35 Getting Started: Requirements & Setup 16:47 The Minecraft Terraform Provider 20:18 First Demo: Provisioning Basic Blocks 28:32 Managing State in Minecraft 35:41 Working with Dependencies 42:16 Advanced Patterns: For_each & Count 48:55 Importing Existing Structures 55:23 Real-World Applications & Teaching 1:00:17 Q&A: Provider Limitations & Features 1:05:24 Minecraft Level Building Tools Discussion 1:09:05 Final Giveaway & Wrap-Up How to find Mark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marktinderholt/ Links from the show: Marks repos: https://github.com/markti?tab=repositories Marks book: https://amzn.to/3N1rnuJ Mark's Ignite talk: https://ignite.microsoft.com/en-US/sessions/7fa5095f-9f65-46e3-9f82-9af6603ea903

He leads a US tech firm valued at $8bn, but Sanjay Poonen puts his success down to a major career setback. Poonen is CEO of US cybersecurity and AI company Cohesity, based in Silicon Valley. He grew up in Bangalore, India, but a scholarship to Dartmouth College in the US to study computer science brought him to the US. On graduation, he rose up the ranks of a Who's Who of Silicon Valley tech companies, including Microsoft, Apple, Symantec, SAP and VMware. It was while he was vice president of marketing at Informatica that he suffered his first major career setback – he was fired. Poonen explains to Dougal Shaw why this moment of rejection ultimately made him a better, more mature and compassionate leader. He also gives advice on how to hire the best talent in the competitive world of tech. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ari Morcos and Rob Toews return for their spiciest conversation yet. Fresh from NeurIPS, they debate whether models are truly plateauing or if we're just myopically focused on LLMs while breakthroughs happen in other modalities.They reveal why infinite capital at labs may actually constrain innovation, explain the narrow "Goldilocks zone" where RL actually works, and argue why U.S. chip restrictions may have backfired catastrophically—accelerating China's path to self-sufficiency by a decade. The conversation covers OpenAI's code red moment and structural vulnerabilities, the mystique surrounding SSI and Ilya's "two words," and why the real bottleneck in AI research is compute, not ideas.The episode closes with bold 2026 predictions: Rob forecasts Sam Altman won't be OpenAI's CEO by year-end, while Ari gives 50%+ odds a Chinese open-source model will be the world's best at least once next year. (0:00) Intro(1:51) Reflections on NeurIPS Conference(5:14) Are AI Models Plateauing?(11:12) Reinforcement Learning and Enterprise Adoption(16:16) Future Research Vectors in AI(28:40) The Role of Neo Labs(39:35) The Myth of the Great Man Theory in Science(41:47) OpenAI's Code Red and Market Position(47:19) Disney and OpenAI's Strategic Partnership(51:28) Meta's Super Intelligence Team Challenges(54:33) US-China AI Chip Dynamics(1:00:54) Amazon's Nova Forge and Enterprise AI(1:03:38) End of Year Reflections and Predictions With your co-hosts:@jacobeffron  - Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health@patrickachase  - Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn@ericabrescia  - Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq'd by VMWare)@jordan_segall  - Partner at Redpoint

Enterprise IT didn't plan for this problem—but now it has to solve it. In this episode of The CTO Advisor Podcast, Keith Townsend sits down with Lynn Comp, Head of Data Center Market Readiness at Intel, for a candid, unsugarcoated conversation about how Broadcom's acquisition of VMware has fundamentally disrupted the enterprise infrastructure status quo. [...]

Episode SummaryThe future of cyber resilience lies at the intersection of data protection, security, and AI. In this conversation, Cohesity CEO Sanjay Poonen joins Danny Allan to explore how organisations can unlock new value by unifying these domains. Sanjay outlines Cohesity's evolution from data protection to security in the ransomware era, to today's AI-focused capabilities, and explains why the company's vast secondary data platform is becoming a foundation for next-generation analytics.Show NotesIn this episode, Sanjay Poonen shares his journey from SAP and VMware to leading Cohesity, highlighting the company's mission to protect, secure, and provide insights on the world's data. He explains the concept of the "data iceberg," where visible production data represents only a small fraction of enterprise assets, while vast amounts of "dark" secondary data remain locked in backups and archives. Poonen discusses how Cohesity is transforming this secondary data from a storage efficiency problem into a source of business intelligence using generative AI and RAG, particularly for unstructured data like documents and images.The conversation delves into the technical integration of Veritas' NetBackup data mover onto Cohesity's file system, creating a unified platform for security scanning and AI analytics. Poonen also elaborates on Cohesity's collaboration with NVIDIA, explaining how they are building AI applications like Gaia on the NVIDIA stack to enable on-premises and sovereign cloud deployments. This approach allows highly regulated industries, such as banking and the public sector, to utilize advanced AI capabilities without exposing sensitive data to public clouds.Looking toward the future, Poonen outlines Cohesity's "three acts": data protection, security (ransomware resilience), and AI-driven insights. He and Danny Allan discuss the critical importance of identity resilience, noting that in an AI-driven world, the security perimeter shifts from network boundaries to the identities of both human users and autonomous AI agents.LinksCohesityNvidiaSnyk - The Developer Security Company Follow UsOur WebsiteOur LinkedIn

Edwin Chen is the founder and CEO of Surge AI, the data infrastructure company behind nearly every major frontier model. Surge works with OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Google, providing the high-quality data and evaluation infrastructure that powers their models.  Edwin reveals why optimizing for popular benchmarks like LMArena is "basically optimizing for clickbait," how one frontier lab's models regressed for 6-12 months without anyone knowing, and why the industry's approach to measurement is fundamentally broken. Jacob and Edwin discuss what actually makes elite AI evaluators, why "there's never going to be a one size fits all solution" for AI models, and how frontier labs are taking surprisingly divergent paths to AGI. (0:00) Intro(0:56) The Pitfalls of Optimizing for LMArena(4:34) Issues with Data Quality and Measurement(9:44) The Importance of Human Evaluations(13:40) The Rise of RL Environments(17:21) Challenges and Lessons in Model Training(19:59) Silicon Valley's Pivot Culture(23:06) Technology-Driven Approach(24:18) Quality Beyond Credentials(27:51) Impact of Scale Acquisition(28:35) Hiring for Research Culture(30:48) Divergence in AI Training Paradigms(34:16) Future of AI Models(39:32) Multimodal AI and Quality(43:44) Quickfire With your co-hosts: @jacobeffron - Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health @patrickachase - Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn @ericabrescia - Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq'd by VMWare) @jordan_segall - Partner at Redpoint

In this episode of The PowerShell Podcast, Shannon Eldridge-Kuehn returns to discuss her journey since becoming a Microsoft MVP, her experiences at Microsoft Ignite, and her evolving views on technology, communication, and personal growth. Shannon shares stories from Ignite, including Mark Russinovich's fascinating demo on optical computing, and offers insight into how AI is reshaping IT work, both in efficiency and responsibility.The conversation expands beyond tech, touching on mentorship, emotional intelligence, and the importance of grace, empathy, and connection in professional and personal life. Shannon and host Andrew Pla explore how better communication, mental health awareness, and authentic collaboration can transform careers and communities alike.   Key Takeaways: AI as a partner, not a replacement – Shannon views AI as a powerful companion that amplifies human creativity, not a threat to jobs or individuality. Communication is the real superpower – Technical skills open doors, but empathy, curiosity, and active listening sustain success and build trust. Find your community and give grace – Whether mentoring or learning, everyone benefits from patience, understanding, and a supportive network. Guest Bio: Shannon Eldridge-Kuehn is a Principal Solutions Architect at AHEAD and a Microsoft MVP with a unique blend of technical depth and strong communication roots. A University of Nebraska–Lincoln graduate in Communication Studies with a minor in English, she began her journey into tech through DJing and audio troubleshooting, which sparked a passion for problem-solving. Over time, she progressed from help desk roles into advanced infrastructure and cloud engineering, with experience spanning Windows systems, VMware, Exchange, Office 365, and Azure. Her career includes roles at Microsoft and 10th Magnitude, where her love for cloud truly flourished. Shannon leverages her background in public speaking and writing to bridge the gap between business needs and technical solutions.   Resource Links: Shannon's Blog – https://shankuehn.io Shannon on X (Twitter) – https://twitter.com/shankuehn Connect with Andrew - https://andrewpla.tech/links Microsoft Ignite – https://ignite.microsoft.com PDQ Discord – https://discord.gg/PDQ PowerShell Wednesdays – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBLDfE1aiuE&list=PL1mL90yFExsix-L0havb8SbZXoYRPol0B The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/okVO33wX5xY

This episode features Olivier Godement, Head of Product for Business Products at OpenAI, discussing the current state and future of AI adoption in enterprises, with a particular focus on the recent releases of GPT 5.1 and Codex. The conversation explores how these models are achieving meaningful automation in specific domains like coding, customer support, and life sciences: where companies like Amgen are using AI to accelerate drug development timelines from months to weeks through automated regulatory documentation. Olivier reveals that while complete job automation remains challenging and requires substantial scaffolding, harnesses, and evaluation frameworks, certain use cases like coding are reaching a tipping point where engineers would "riot" if AI tools were taken away. The discussion covers the importance of cost reduction in unlocking new use cases, the emerging significance of reinforcement fine-tuning (RFT) for frontier customers, and OpenAI's philosophy of providing not just models but reference architectures and harnesses to maximize developer success. (0:00) Intro(1:46) Discussing GPT-5.1(2:57) Adoption and Impact of Codex(4:09) Scientific Community's Use of GPT-5.1(6:37) Challenges in AI Automation(8:19) AI in Life Sciences and Pharma(11:48) Enterprise AI Adoption and Ecosystem(16:04) Future of AI Models and Continuous Learning(24:20) Cost and Efficiency in AI Deployment(27:10) Reinforcement Learning and Enterprise Use Cases(31:17) Key Factors Influencing Model Choice(34:21) Challenges in Model Deployment and Adaptation(38:29) Voice Technology: The Next Frontier(41:08) The Rise of AI in Software Engineering(52:09) Quickfire With your co-hosts: @jacobeffron - Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health @patrickachase - Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn @ericabrescia - Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq'd by VMWare) @jordan_segall - Partner at Redpoint

In this episode of The Segment, host Raghu Nandakumara sits down with one of the most influential technology leaders of our time: Tony Scott, President & CEO of Intrusion and former U.S. Federal CIO under President Obama. With CIO roles at Microsoft, VMware, Disney, General Motors, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Sun Microsystems, Tony brings a rare, decades-wide perspective on how enterprise technology evolves—and where it's heading next.Tony shares his journey through some of the world's most complex organizations, offering a candid look at the forces that drive digital transformation, why organizational silos still shape most architectures, and how AI may finally help dissolve them. He breaks down how cybersecurity models must shift in an era of ubiquitous AI, legacy infrastructure, and escalating regulatory complexity—and explains why continuous monitoring and long-term institutional memory are now essential.We also dive into Tony's leadership philosophy, how he balances transformation with cyber risk, and what he's learned transitioning from CIO to CEO of a cybersecurity company tackling some of today's hardest problems. Key themes discussed:The evolution of the CIO role across decades of transformation Managing cyber risk amid AI proliferation, legacy systems, and modern architectures The importance of “useful life” frameworks for tech modernization Leadership lessons from navigating both public and private sector tech at scale A must-listen for CIOs, CISOs, tech leaders, and anyone preparing their organization for what's next in AI-driven transformation and cybersecurity.

Take a Network Break! Our Red Alert calls out a dangerous vulnerability in the popular open-source React library. On the news front, HPE decides on a “both and” strategy for its two wireless portfolios and rolls out an option to let customers pick and choose among cross-platform features in Mist and Aruba Networking Central through... Read more »

Take a Network Break! Our Red Alert calls out a dangerous vulnerability in the popular open-source React library. On the news front, HPE decides on a “both and” strategy for its two wireless portfolios and rolls out an option to let customers pick and choose among cross-platform features in Mist and Aruba Networking Central through... Read more »

Take a Network Break! Our Red Alert calls out a dangerous vulnerability in the popular open-source React library. On the news front, HPE decides on a “both and” strategy for its two wireless portfolios and rolls out an option to let customers pick and choose among cross-platform features in Mist and Aruba Networking Central through... Read more »

At first, we wondered why Zane Rowe was once again leading us back to Continental Airlines. With notable CFO tenures at VMware and EMC—chapters rich with transformation—surely there were fresh stories to surface.But as Rowe began tracing the logic behind flight profitability, route modeling, and data-rich decision making, the relevance snapped into focus. His Continental experience isn't just a recurring anecdote; it's the lens through which he still interprets complex systems today. That early foundation made this discussion every bit as insightful as our last—especially as he connected those lessons to Workday's AI trajectory and the accelerating pace of strategic decision making.“I spent a lot of time in the airlines in what we called flight profitability,” Rowe tells us. At Continental, he helped build systems to understand which routes truly created value when full planes were still losing money, he tells us. That work, grounded in heavy telemetry and EMC technology, showed him how finance could move from reporting results to reshaping the route portfolio, he tells us.In his first conversation with CFO Thought Leader, Rowe walked through those early chapters—from revenue management at a post-bankruptcy airline to a bold sales pivot at Apple and multiple CFO roles in technology, he tells us. In this second interview, he returns to the same storyline but takes it one step further, drawing a direct line from that profitability model to today's AI-driven world, he tells us.Now, as Workday's CFO, he describes AI as an equalizer that lets small teams run multiple forecasting models and ingest far more variables in cash projections than before, he tells us. He points to “Everyday AI,” a company-wide initiative, and a cross-functional AI leadership group that pushes common tools, responsible use, and regular check-ins on what is changing in the work itself, he tells us.Rowe's finance strategic moment this year is “recognizing the importance of investing more into AI”—organically and inorganically—because peers are not standing still and customers want those capabilities, he tells us. With a total addressable market “in the hundreds of billions of dollars” and revenue “much less than that,” he frames leadership now as deciding where to lean in hardest, he tells us.

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation has introduced the Certified Kubernetes AI Conformance Program to bring consistency to an increasingly fragmented AI ecosystem. Announced at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2025, the program establishes open, community-driven standards to ensure AI applications run reliably and portably across different Kubernetes platforms. VMware by Broadcom's vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) is among the first platforms to achieve certification.In an interview with The New Stack, Broadcom leaders Dilpreet Bindra and Himanshu Singh explained that the program applies lessons from Kubernetes' early evolution, aiming to reduce the “muddiness” in AI tooling and improve cross-platform interoperability. They emphasized portability as a core value: organizations should be able to move AI workloads between public and private clouds with minimal friction.VKS integrates tightly with vSphere, using Kubernetes APIs directly to manage infrastructure components declaratively. This approach, along with new add-on management capabilities, reflects Kubernetes' growing maturity. According to Bindra and Singh, this stability now enables enterprises to trust Kubernetes as a foundation for production-grade AI. Learn more from The New Stack about Broadcom's latest updates with Kubernetes: Has VMware Finally Caught Up with Kubernetes?VMware VCF 9.0 Finally Unifies Container and VM ManagementJoin our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week on Unsupervised Learning, Jacob Effron is joined by Jordan Schneider, host of China Talk, who challenges widespread assumptions about US-China AI competition. China's AI development is driven by private capital and market competition—not central government planning—with companies like DeepSeek, Alibaba, and ByteDance operating more like Silicon Valley startups than state projects. The critical bottleneck is compute: the West maintains a 10-15x advantage in advanced chips, and US export controls implemented one month before ChatGPT created a structural edge favoring America for years. Chinese companies aggressively open-source models from strategic necessity—they couldn't establish a quality gap justifying paid access like OpenAI. Jordan explains why the "Goldilocks strategy" of controlled chip dependency fails, why expert consensus opposes selling advanced semiconductors to China despite Nvidia's lobbying, and how Taiwan's invasion risk is driven more by domestic politics than AGI scenarios. China's real advantage may emerge in robotics manufacturing at scale, where they're already deploying while the US debates strategy. Inside the Politburo's AI Study Session: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/xi-takes-an-ai-masterclassSubmit your questions to Jacob here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1vHBYv0bTT_EgFWTjbKnLr_sn3pZnFmcFGWYVTltKEco/edit (0:00) Intro(1:45) The Chinese AI Ecosystem: Pre and Post ChatGPT(3:45) Government Influence and Private Sector Dynamics(6:40) Venture Funding and Major Players(8:36) Talent and International Collaboration(11:25) Open Source Models and Market Dynamics(15:24) What Role Does The Chinese Government Play?(31:17) US-China AI Policy and Strategic Competition(36:18) The Argument for Selling AI Accelerators(37:02) Risks of Not Selling to China(43:34) Technological Constraints and Huawei's Challenges(51:18) US-China Relations and Taiwan(1:02:46) Quickfire With your co-hosts: @jacobeffron - Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health @patrickachase - Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn @ericabrescia - Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq'd by VMWare) @jordan_segall - Partner at Redpoint

Welcome to Episode 416 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast. In this week’s episode, Ben finally has a chance to sit down with Henrik Wojcik. Henrik has been a long-time listener as well as a fellow Microsoft MVP in Security and we finally had the chance to sit down and record an episode together, something we’ve talked about doing for years. As they sit down and enjoy a sunny afternoon in at Microsoft Ignite in San Francisco they discuss security in the financial sector, EU regulations (N2 and DORA), integrating Data Lake with Sentinel, optimizing log analytics, and the latest on Security Copilot and E5 licensing. They also spend some time chatting about some of their conference highlights, assisting as proctors in the hands-on labs, and the unique experience of Ignite in San Francisco. Your support makes this show possible! Please consider becoming a premium member for access to live shows and more. Check out our membership options. Show Notes Microsoft Ignite (with sessions on demand) Microsoft Ignite Book of News Catch up on Microsoft Security sessions and announcements from Ignite 2025 Microsoft Sentinel benefit for Microsoft 365 E5, A5, F5, and G5 customers Learn about Security Copilot inclusion in Microsoft 365 E5 subscription Microsoft Sentinel data lake: Unify signals, cut costs, and power agentic AI What is Microsoft Sentinel data lake? KQL and the Microsoft Sentinel data lake Henrik F. Wojcik Henrik has worked in the IT industry since 2003. He’s always had a passion for learning new technologies and expanding his knowledge through various means such as online courses, webinars, and reading up on the latest developments in the industry. Throughout his career, he’s gained experience in various areas of IT, making him a true jack of all trades. However, his latest interests lie in the security space, modern workplace and management in Azure, with a particular focus on cyber security. He has experience working with products such as Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Identity, Defender for Cloud Apps, Defender for Office 365, Conditional Access, Microsoft Sentinel, and Microsof t Entra ID. His primary focus is on security on Azure workloads and identity (Entra ID). He prioritizes security awareness and believe that learning never stops, which is why He’s always eager to expand my knowledge and skillset. In the past, He’s also worked with various tools and technologies such as Cisco, Citrix, Dynamics AX, Exchange, ITIL, Azure, SCCM & SCOM, Scrum & Kanban, VMware, Windows Servers, and Windows Desktops. About the sponsors Would you like to become the irreplaceable Microsoft 365 resource for your organization? Let us know!

This episode features Dianne Na Penn, a senior product leader at Anthropic, discussing the launch of Claude Opus 4.5 and the evolution of frontier AI models. The conversation explores how Anthropic approaches model development—balancing ambitious capability roadmaps with user feedback, making strategic bets on areas like agentic coding and computer use while deliberately avoiding others like image generation. Dianne shares insights on the shifting nature of AI evaluation (moving beyond saturated benchmarks like SWE-bench toward more open-ended measures), the evolution of scaffolding from "training wheels" to intelligence amplifiers, and why she believes we're closer to transformative long-running AI than most people think. She also discusses Anthropic's distinctive culture of authenticity, the under appreciated benefits of model alignment for producing independent-thinking AI, and why the real bottleneck to AI agents isn't model capability anymore but product innovation. (0:00) Intro(0:57) Starting the Work on Opus 4.5(2:04) Model Capabilities and Surprises(5:59) Computer Use and Practical Applications(7:21) Pricing and Positioning(10:02) Customer Feedback and Early Access(16:44) The Reality of Enterprise Agents(18:47) Future of AI and Long-Running Intelligence(28:06) Anthropic's Culture and Decision Making(30:31) Key Decisions and Fun Moments(33:45) Quickfire With your co-hosts: @jacobeffron - Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health @patrickachase - Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn @ericabrescia - Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq'd by VMWare) @jordan_segall - Partner at Redpoint

Stephen is a VMware trainer who teaches classes on NSX and now has been leaving VCF networking. Eric and Stephen talk about the setup and security aspects of VPC's and how the average admin can now tackle this config.

What if your company's greatest advantage isn't the product—but the purpose behind it? Mike Hayes, Managing Director at Insight Partners and former COO of VMware, believes mission clarity is more than culture—it's a strategic asset. Drawing on 20 years as a Navy SEAL and senior tech executive, Mike shares why knowing “who you want to be” is a superpower for founders and boards. In this episode, Mike and Peter High discuss: How purpose-led companies outperform in high-growth markets Mike's “Three Circles” framework for aligning talent to mission What Insight Partners looks for in founder-VC alignment How to say no (with clarity) when everything seems urgent Why values-based leadership scales in unpredictable markets

Windows is becoming an “agentic OS”, some WD SMR drives are dying prematurely, backing up VMware with ZFS, and separating trusted and non-trusted devices on your network. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Understanding Storage Performance Metrics December Webinar: The 12 Days of ZFS: Tips, Tricks, and Treats News/discussion Microsoft is turning Windows into an ‘agentic OS,' starting with the taskbar Critics scoff after Microsoft warns AI feature can infect machines and pilfer data WD launches investigation into problems with its controversial SMR hard drives Free consulting We were asked about backing up VMware with ZFS, and separating trusted and non-trusted devices on your network. See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

Join Du'An Lightfoot, AI Developer at AWS, as he dives deep into building AI agents with the strands framework. In this technical walkthrough, Du'An demonstrates how to create custom AI coding assistants and multi-agent systems in just a few lines of code. Learn how agentic AI frameworks have evolved from basic function calling to sophisticated systems that can rival tools like Cursor and Cloud Code. Du'An shares practical examples, including building content pipelines, preprocessing systems, and even generating a book outline from his own YouTube content. Whether you're looking to automate workflows or build your own AI-powered tools, this session covers the frameworks and techniques you need to get started with AI agents. Perfect for developers, DevOps engineers, and anyone interested in leveraging AI to enhance their development workflow. Subscribe to vBrownBag for more community-driven tech education! ⸻ Timestamps 0:00 - Introduction & Welcome 6:43 - AI Tools Discussion & Current Usage 9:33 - Technical Background & Getting Started with Agents 15:00 - Introduction to Strands Framework 25:00 - Building Custom AI Agents Demo 40:00 - Multi-Agent Systems & Workflows 55:00 - Content Pipeline & Preprocessing Examples 1:05:00 - Book Generation Demo 1:10:00 - Q&A & Wrap Up How to find Du'An: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duanlightfoot/ Links from the show: https://s12d.com/vbrownbag-2025 https://github.com/strands-agents/samples https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/getting-started/intro https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/building-effective-agents https://github.com/awslabs/amazon-bedrock-agentcore-samples https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/python-sdk https://modelcontextprotocol.io/llms-full.txt https://openai.com/index/whisper/ https://github.com/openai/whisper

Windows is becoming an “agentic OS”, some WD SMR drives are dying prematurely, backing up VMware with ZFS, and separating trusted and non-trusted devices on your network. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Understanding Storage Performance Metrics December Webinar: The 12 Days of ZFS: Tips, Tricks, and Treats News/discussion Microsoft is turning Windows into an ‘agentic OS,' starting with the taskbar Critics scoff after Microsoft warns AI feature can infect machines and pilfer data WD launches investigation into problems with its controversial SMR hard drives Free consulting We were asked about backing up VMware with ZFS, and separating trusted and non-trusted devices on your network. See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

In this episode of the WLEI Podcast, we speak with Julia Austin about what the lean product and process development principle “Put People First” looks like in practice.   An executive fellow at Harvard Business School, Julia is an executive coach with experience leading successful product teams in tech at companies like Akamai Technologies, VMware, Inc., and DigitalOcean. She is also author of the book, After the Idea: What It Really Takes to Create and Scale a Startup.   My conversation with Julia explores:  How to create effective collaboration across people and teams to support an excellent product or service  Where leaders and teams struggle in product development in 2025  How leaders can support people to drive high-performance  Standout moments of people working together vastly improve a product and service  How to leverage AI while keeping human beings at the center of work design  Why a culture of care and respect builds teams of responsible experts  

Jyoti Bansal is the co-founder and CEO of Harness, the software delivery platform used by thousands of engineering teams, and previously founded AppDynamics, which he led from inception to a multibillion-dollar acquisition by Cisco. In this episode, Jyoti unpacks what it really takes to move from mid-market to enterprise, why he thinks in terms of “product-market-sales fit,” and how he structures Harness as a collection of “startups within a startup” to launch multiple “best-of-breed” products. In today's episode, we discuss: Why companies get stuck in the mid-market and struggle to move up into enterprise Why Jyoti deliberately lost Netflix as their customer The difference between product-market-sales fit, and product-market-fit How to build a scalable, capacity-driven go-to-market machine (instead of chasing deals) Diagnosing whether you have a product problem or a distribution problem How to hire and evaluate your first head of sales and top sales leaders Why Jyoti sold AppDynamics three days before IPO The “binary differentiator” rule for launching new products into crowded markets Why Harness runs 16 product lines under one roof Where to find Jyoti: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jyotibansal/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/jyotibansalsf Where to find Brett: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson Where to find First Round Capital: Website: https://firstround.com/ First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast References: Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/ AppDynamics: https://www.appdynamics.com/ Barclays: https://home.barclays/ BIG Labs: https://www.biglabs.com/ Carlos Delatorre: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cadelatorre/ Charles Schwab: https://www.schwab.com/ Cisco: https://www.cisco.com/ Citi: https://www.citi.com/ Cloudability: https://www.apptio.com/products/cloudability/ Datadog: https://www.datadoghq.com/ Dynatrace: https://www.dynatrace.com/ Harness: https://www.harness.io/ Jeff Bezos: https://x.com/JeffBezos Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/ Nasdaq: https://www.nasdaq.com/ Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/ New Relic: https://newrelic.com/ Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/ Splunk: https://www.splunk.com/ Traceable: https://www.traceable.ai/ Unusual Ventures: https://www.unusual.vc/ VMware: https://www.vmware.com/ Timestamps: (01:48) Why do companies get stuck in the mid-market? (05:09) Designing a product for enterprise and mid-market (07:19) Why Jyoti lost Netflix as a customer - on purpose (10:18) Becoming a scalable GTM organization (12:32) The real signs of product-market fit (14:04) Have you delivered the value? (15:46) How to hire your first sales team (19:59) The four signs of excellent sales leaders (23:16) How to interview a sales leader (27:51) Where Jyoti developed his commercial taste (29:37) Why early founders need to learn sales (32:02) How AppDynamics began (36:36) Why Jyoti sold three days pre-IPO (41:55) What does a healthy board look like? (44:23) How Jyoti perceives competition (46:18) Why you need a binary differentiator (49:53) How to launch multiple products (52:00) “We need to be best of breed” (57:38) Why PMs are like mini-entrepreneurs (1:00:20) The startup within a startup (1:02:45) A culture of continuous improvement

Jehad Affoneh is Chief Design Officer at Toast, where he leads design across product, platform, and culture. Previously, he held design leadership roles at VMware and other complex B2B companies. Starting his career as an engineer, Jehad brings a unique perspective to design, viewing it fundamentally as problem solving. On today's show we chat about the transition from engineering to design, the value of being multilingual across disciplines, organisational design, and how AI is transforming the way teams build products.Timestamps:00:00 – Intro02:08 – Jehad's journey from engineering to design leadership05:32 – Being multilingual across disciplines and bridging gaps09:48 – Organisational design and how teams should be structured20:16 – The role of design systems and platforms at scale31:44 – Leading design in complex B2B environments42:22 – How AI is changing product building and design tools52:18 – The future of AI agents and conversational interfaces58:02 – End of show questionsConnect with JehadLinkedIn

The recent partnership between OpenAI and Search Kings, a digital marketing firm, aims to provide ChatGPT services to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), particularly in the home services sector. This collaboration is designed to facilitate the integration of artificial intelligence into SMB operations, addressing the challenges these businesses face in adapting to AI technologies. The initiative highlights a shift in focus towards rapid AI adoption, which may lead to operational instability if not managed properly, as it lacks clear governance and standards.Supporting data from the 2026 State of IT report indicates that IT budgets are projected to increase by 11% year-on-year, with 55% of organizations planning to allocate more funds to IT, primarily driven by a heightened focus on cybersecurity. Despite this growth, over half of IT leaders report insufficient internal resources to address issues effectively or foster innovation. The report also reveals that 60% of organizations are now relying on managed service providers (MSPs) to oversee their data infrastructure, reflecting a significant shift in how businesses are approaching their IT needs.Additionally, the server virtualization market is experiencing disruption following Broadcom's acquisition of VMware, prompting many customers to seek alternatives and develop exit strategies from their current vendors. This situation presents an opportunity for MSPs to engage in broader discussions about modernization and technical debt reduction, rather than merely facilitating migrations. The tablet market is also stabilizing, with a notable decline in shipments, indicating a shift towards predictable refresh cycles rather than explosive growth.For MSPs and IT service leaders, these developments underscore the importance of positioning themselves as strategic partners in their clients' digital transformations. As organizations grapple with the complexities of AI integration and modernization, there is a clear opportunity for MSPs to lead in governance and operational efficiency. By stepping into roles that facilitate organizational capacity and strategic alignment, MSPs can capture the growing budgets and demand for innovative IT solutions.Four things to know today 00:00 Rising Budgets, Overwhelmed IT Teams, and Sovereignty Demands Signal a Market Shift Toward Modernization — and a Strategic Opening for MSPs06:07 Surging Tech Hiring, Massive Workforce Reconfiguration, and Undefined AI Ownership Point to a Single Trend: Organizations Need Structure, Not Just Tools09:57 VMware Upheaval and Tablet Market Slowdown Both Point to One Trend: IT Providers Must Shift From Tools to Transformation13:20 OpenAI's SearchKings Deal Shows AI Entering SMBs Through Marketing, Exposing Governance Gaps and Creating Opportunity for IT Providers This is the Business of Tech.    Supported by: https://try.auvik.com/dave-switchhttps://scalepad.com/dave/

Thank you to the folks at Sustain (https://sustainoss.org/) for providing the hosting account for CHAOSSCast! CHAOSScast – Episode 123 This episode of the CHAOSScast features hosts Harmony Elendu and Alice Sowerby, along with guests Stefka Dimitrova and Dawn Foster, discussing the process of sunsetting open source projects. Dawn and Stefka share their extensive experiences and the importance of managing the lifecycle of open source projects responsibly. They delve into the specifics of the 'Getting Started with Sunsetting an Open Source Project' guide from Dawn's series of practitioner guides, which aim to help practitioners, not just experts, interpret data and improve their project health. Key topics include identifying inactive projects, the responsible steps for sunsetting, and the crucial role of communication within the community. The episode also touches upon metrics to determine project activity and archive responsibly, highlighting that the process goes beyond simply pressing an 'archive' button. Hit download now to hear more! [00:00:23] The hosts and guests introduce themselves. [00:02:09] Dawn explains the purpose of the CHAOSS Practitioner Guides. [00:04:54] Harmony asks Dawn what inspired her to write the “Getting Started with Sunsetting an Open Source Project” guide. She highlights the problem of inactive, unarchived projects creating security and reputational risks and being inspired by VMware's internal sunset process let by Stefka when they both worked there. [00:06:23] Dawn explains why projects shouldn't remain unarchived and who the guide is intended for. [00:07:30] Stefka shares her background and how she got started with sunsetting projects while she was at VMware. [00:10:33] Dawn discusses the three Primary metrics: Change Requests, New Issues, and Technical Forks. [00:12:10] Harmony asks how to identify a functionally abandoned project and Dawn explains if there's no updates or security patches it's likely abandoned. [00:13:07] Stefka outlines some responsible “sunsetting” steps. [00:16:16] Harmony asks what to do if an active project decides to wind down and Stefka says it's better to decide proactively while still active, plan and communicate early, re-evaluate priorities, and prepare alternatives. [00:17:31] Dawn adds within companies, it must involve PR and customer teams to manage impact and have a transition plan and timeline. [00:18:20] Alice summarizes the dual responsibility of both OSPOs and maintainers to recognize when it's time to sunset and Stefka shares an example that was helpful for the teams she worked with. [00:21:17] Alice reflects that open source is about people as much as technology and managing emotional transitions is vital. [00:21:58] Final takeaways: Dawn encourages listeners to read the guide and follow its step-by-step approach for responsible project sunsetting and Stefka encourages people to be ready for the sunset form the start of a project and keep the guide handy as a reference for your teams. Value Adds (Picks) of the week: [00:23:36] Dawn's pick is her 3D printer. [00:24:47] Harmony's pick is talking a walk after the rain. [00:25:52] Stefka's pick is working with people at the Playback Theatre. [00:26:59] Alice's pick is Vitamin B3 for skin cancer prevention. Panelists: Harmony Elendu Alice Sowerby Guests: Dawn Foster Stefka Dimitrova Links: CHAOSS (https://chaoss.community/) CHAOSS Project X (https://twitter.com/chaossproj?lang=en) CHAOSScast Podcast (https://podcast.chaoss.community/) CHAOSS YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@CHAOSStube/videos) podcast@chaoss.community (mailto:podcast@chaoss.community) Harmony Elendu X (https://x.com/ogaharmony) Alice Sowerby LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-sowerby-ba692a13/?originalSubdomain=uk) Dawn Foster X (https://twitter.com/geekygirldawn?lang=en) Stefka Dimitrova LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/stdimitrova/) CHAOSS: Practitioner Guide: Getting Started with Sunsetting an Open Source Project (https://chaoss.community/practitioner-guide-sunset/) CHAOSS: About the CHAOSS Practitioner Guides (https://chaoss.community/about-chaoss-practitioner-guides/) When and How to Deprecate an Open Source Project by Stefka Dimitrova (https://blogs.vmware.com/opensource/2022/09/29/when-and-how-to-deprecate-an-open-source-project/) Deprecating an Open Source Project, Part 2 by Stefka Dimitrova (https://blogs.vmware.com/opensource/2023/05/17/deprecating-an-open-source-project-part-2/) Simple Steps for a Calm “Sunset”- Stefka Dimitrova's video from the Open Source Summit in Europe (2022) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdpkMkoKtDY) Dos and don'ts when sunsetting open source projects (GitHub Blog) (https://github.blog/open-source/maintainers/dos-and-donts-when-sunsetting-open-source-projects/) Shutting Down An Open Source Project (TODO Group Guide) (https://todogroup.org/resources/guides/shutting-down-an-open-source-project/?__hstc=14121576.ca3b263457931924011dadacce615967.1684843406300.1759854334257.1759905660008.767&__hssc=14121576.2.1759905660008&__hsfp=4218151876) When to Send Flowers? End of Life and End of Support Across the Ecosystem-Allen Friedman's video Open Source Summit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgWwiKLB6hE) 10 quick tips for making your software outlive your job (white paper) (https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.06484) Playback Theatre Network (https://playbacktheatrenetwork.org/) Vitamin B3 can help protect against skin cancer. Here's who may benefit (npr) (https://www.npr.org/2025/09/17/nx-s1-5544145/vitamin-b3-can-help-protect-against-skin-cancer-heres-who-may-benefit) Special Guest: Stefka Dimitrova.

Dive into KubeVirt with the vBrownBag crew and guest Eric Shanks!

In this transformative episode of Healthy Mind, Healthy Life, host Avik Chakraborty sits down with holistic life and career coach Susanna Kenyon-Moir to unpack the hidden drivers of burnout, limiting beliefs, and subconscious patterns holding us back. Susanna shares powerful insights from her journey through high-pressure corporate roles into a more aligned, soulful life. Discover how breathwork, NLP, emotional intelligence, and somatic healing can help you reclaim your energy, set boundaries, and shift from fear to action. This conversation invites every overwhelmed achiever to slow down, reconnect, and write a new story. About the Guest:Susanna Kenyon-Moir is a holistic life and career coach, NLP practitioner, and founder of Coaching by Susanna. After 15+ years in leadership roles at Salesforce, Citrix, and VMware, she pivoted to empower professionals to break free from burnout, rewire limiting beliefs, and align their lives through breathwork, emotional intelligence, and subconscious reprogramming. She guides clients worldwide to embrace clarity, purpose, and balance. Key Takeaways: Burnout is often fueled by both external pressures and deep internal patterns. Slowing down isn't weakness—it's essential for clarity, healing, and realignment. Limiting beliefs like “I'm too old” or “I can't afford change” keep high achievers stuck. Awareness, nervous system healing, and rewiring beliefs are key to bold moves. Breathwork, meditation, and somatic practices are powerful tools for releasing fear and restoring energy. Connect with Susanna:Visit coachingbysusanna.com to explore coaching, masterclasses, and retreats. Take your first step toward an aligned, empowered life. Want to be a guest on Healthy Mind, Healthy Life? DM me on PodMatch!DM Me Here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/avikTune to all our 15 podcasts: https://www.podbean.com/podcast-network/healthymindbyavikSubscribe To Newsletter: https://healthymindbyavik.substack.com/Join Community: https://nas.io/healthymind Stay Tuned And Follow Us!• YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@healthymind-healthylife• Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/healthyminds.pod• Threads – https://www.threads.net/@healthyminds.pod• Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/podcast.healthymind• LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/reemachatterjee/ | https://www.linkedin.com/in/avikchakrabortypodcaster #podmatch #healthymind #healthymindbyavik #wellness

This episode features the core team behind Sora, OpenAI's groundbreaking video generation platform that became the #1 app in the App Store. Bill Peebles (research lead), Rohan Sahai (product lead), and Thomas Dimson (engineering/product lead with Instagram background) discuss the unexpected viral success of Sora's launch, the product journey that led to the breakthrough "cameo" feature (putting yourself in AI-generated videos), and their philosophy of building a creator-first social network that prioritizes human creativity over passive consumption. They reveal the technical milestones in video generation, their small team size (under 50 people total at launch), navigation of content moderation challenges, early monetization strategy, and their ambitious vision for video models as world simulators that could eventually contribute to scientific breakthroughs by 2028. The conversation captures both the tactical product decisions and strategic philosophy that made Sora a cultural phenomenon. (0:00) Intro(1:35) Unexpected Success of ChatGPT and Sora(3:55) Sora as an Independent App(5:38) Sora Prototypes and Evolution(8:07) User Creativity and Surprising Use Cases(14:46) Celebrity Engagement and Rights Management(17:58) Competition and Future of AI Video Models(25:42) Empowering Creators(31:21) The Evolution of Image Generation(33:36) How Do Models Need to Improve?(42:10) Monetization of Sora(45:54) Global Reach and Cultural Impact(48:38) Moderation and Safety Challenges(50:09) Integration with Other OpenAI Products(52:07) How do Models Learn Physics?(55:16) Quickfire With your co-hosts:  @jacobeffron  - Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health  @patrickachase - Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn  @ericabrescia  - Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq'd by VMWare)  @jordan_segall  - Partner at Redpoint

Andrew's longtime friend, mentor, and PowerShell legend Josh King joins The PowerShell Podcast to celebrate the tenth anniversary and version 1.0 release of his popular open-source module BurntToast, which powers customizable Windows toast notifications. Josh shares the story behind the project's evolution, the challenges of maintaining an open-source module with millions of downloads, and the balance between community expectations and personal well-being.   In addition to diving into BurntToast's new actionable notifications and real-world use cases, Josh and host Andrew Pla reflect on their shared history in the PowerShell community, the importance of mentorship, and how taking small steps (like creating a GitHub repo or sharing a script) can lead to huge career growth.   Key Takeaways: BurntToast hits version 1.0 – After ten years of development, BurntToast now includes support for actionable notifications, letting users interact directly through PowerShell-based Windows alerts. Open-source and burnout – Josh discusses the pressures of maintaining a high-profile module and the importance of setting boundaries while giving back to the community. Mentorship and community matter – Simple encouragement, open sharing, and small contributions can transform careers and strengthen the PowerShell ecosystem. Guest Bio: Josh is a Senior Infrastructure Operations Engineer at Chocolatey Software and a former Microsoft MVP. He has a long history working within Windows and VMware environments and has a passion for all things PowerShell and automation.Resource Links BurntToast Module (PowerShell Gallery) – https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/BurntToast Josh's Blog – https://toastit.dev Josh King on GitHub – https://github.com/Windos Connect with Andrew - https://andrewpla.tech/links Josh on BlueSky – https://bsky.app/profile/toastit.dev Josh's PowerShell Wednesday BurntToast Presentation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD1VaxXWcXA Learn about #requires - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_requires?view=powershell-7.5 PDQ Discord – https://discord.gg/PDQ The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/wi7Ijo9Od-k

In this week's vBrownBag, Principal Software Engineer Dominik Wosiński takes us on a deep dive into Amazon Nova Sonic — AWS's latest speech-to-speech AI model. Dominik explores how unified voice models like Nova Sonic are reshaping customer experience, DevOps workflows, and real-time AI interaction, with live demos showing just how natural machine-generated speech can sound. We cover what makes speech-to-speech difficult, how latency and turn-detection affect conversational design, and why this technology marks the next frontier for AI-driven customer support. Stick around for audience Q&A, live experiments, and insights on where AWS Bedrock and generative AI are headed next.

Ashwin (“Ash”) Rangan currently serves as CEO with DoubleCheck Solutions Inc., an award-winning Fintech. He is a nationally-recognized and -decorated business and technology leader, and an experienced independent director. Ash chooses to lead and serve on boards in Mission-driven organizations, which broadly and demonstrably deliver safety, affordability and access. Ash “gets technology”. He skillfully guides group and boardroom discussions at the intersection of business strategies, applied information technologies, geopolitics and cybersecurity in simple language, accessible to his audience. Ash is an author, and a sought-after keynote speaker, especially in Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, Quantum computing, and Generative AI. Ash brings two decades of experience from technology-led global Brands. Prior to DoubleCheck, he served as Chief Innovation & Information Officer with ICANN – the organization accountable for the security, stability, and resiliency of the global Internet. Before that, Ash served as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) with Edwards Lifesciences, Bank of America online, Walmart.com, Conexant Systems, and Rockwell International. He served as Chief Product Officer with Marketshare (acquired by Neustar).  Currently, Ash serves on the boards of DoubleCheck, GrandPad, and the NACD Pacific Southwest. His prior board experience includes publicly-traded PiVX, an early leader in Cybersecurity (acquired by The Lotus Fund in 2005); Integrien (acquired by VMWare in 2010); and Marketshare (acquired by Neustar in 2015). In 2023, following roughly 10 years of service, Ash termed out as the Non-Executive Chair from the board of the American Red Cross; and stepped down as an independent director from Smart Energy Water, both based in Orange County, CA. -- Critical Mass Business Talk Show is Orange County, CA's longest-running business talk show, focused on offering value and insight to middle-market business leaders in the OC and beyond. Hosted by Ric Franzi, business partner at REF Orange County.

From Netscape to VMware, Raghu Raghuram has been at the center of nearly every major inflection point in enterprise technology.In this episode, Raghu joins Ben Horowitz, Martin Casado and David George to reflect on the early internet wars with Microsoft, how Netscape's browser battles shaped a generation of founders, and the inside story of one of the most successful tech acquisitions in history, VMware's $1.3B purchase of Nicira, which redefined modern networking and grew into a multi-billion-dollar business.They discuss how VMware scaled from tens of millions to over $13 billion in revenue, what it took to outlast the cloud revolution, and why AI is now triggering the biggest infrastructure reset since virtualization. Raghu shares his vision for the next decade — from data-center robotics and energy-aware compute to how AI is reshaping both startups and giants alike. Resources:Follow Raghu on X: https://x.com/RaghuRaghuramFollow Ben on X: https://x.com/bhorowitzFollow Martin on X: https://x.com/martin_casadoFollow David on X: https://x.com/DavidGeorge83 Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends!Find a16z on X: https://x.com/a16zFind a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16zListen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYXListen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenbergPlease note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures Stay Updated:Find a16z on XFind a16z on LinkedInListen to the a16z Podcast on SpotifyListen to the a16z Podcast on Apple PodcastsFollow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode features Rob Toews from Radical Ventures and Ari Morcos, Head of Research at Datology AI, reacting to Andrej Karpathy's recent statement that AGI is at least a decade away and that current AI capabilities are "slop." The discussion explores whether we're in an AI bubble, with both guests pushing back on overly bearish narratives while acknowledging legitimate concerns about hype and excessive CapEx spending. They debate the sustainability of AI scaling, examining whether continued progress will come from massive compute increases or from efficiency gains through better data quality, architectural innovations, and post-training techniques like reinforcement learning. The conversation also tackles which companies truly need frontier models versus those that can succeed with slightly-behind-the-curve alternatives, the surprisingly static landscape of AI application categories (coding, healthcare, and legal remain dominant), and emerging opportunities from brain-computer interfaces to more efficient scaling methods. (0:00) Intro(1:04) Debating the AI Bubble(1:50) Over-Hyping AI: Realities and Misconceptions(3:21) Enterprise AI and Data Center Investments(7:46) Consumer Adoption and Monetization Challenges(8:55) AI in Browsers and the Future of Internet Use(14:37) Deepfakes and Ethical Concerns(26:29) AI's Impact on Job Markets and Training(31:38) Google and Anthropic: Strategic Partnerships(34:51) OpenAI's Strategic Deals and Future Prospects(37:12) The Evolution of Vibe Coding(44:35) AI Outside of San Francisco(48:09) Data Moats in AI Startups(50:38) Comparing AI to the Human Brain(56:07) The Role of Physical Infrastructure in AI(56:55) The Potential of Chinese AI Models(1:03:15) Apple's AI Strategy(1:12:35) The Future of AI Applications With your co-hosts: @jacobeffron - Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health @patrickachase - Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn @ericabrescia - Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq'd by VMWare) @jordan_segall - Partner at Redpoint

Send us a text

Major federal cybersecurity programs expire amidst the government shutdown. Global leaders and experts convene in Riyadh for the Global Cybersecurity Forum. NIST tackles removable media. ICE buys vast troves of smartphone location data. Researchers claim a newly patched VMware vulnerability has been a zero-day for nearly a year. ClickFix-style attacks surge and spread across platforms. Battering RAM defeats memory encryption and boot-time defenses. A new phishing toolkit converts ordinary PDFs into interactive lures. A trio of breaches exposes data of 3.7 million across North America. Tim Starks from CyberScoop unpacks a report from Senate Democrats on DOGE. The Lone Star State proves even the internet isn't bulletproof.  Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Miss an episode? Sign-up for our daily intelligence roundup, Daily Briefing, and you'll never miss a beat. And be sure to follow CyberWire Daily on LinkedIn. CyberWire Guest Tim Starks, Senior Reporter from CyberScoop, is back and joins Dave to discuss a report from Senate Democrats on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). You can read Tim's article on the subject here. Selected Reading Cyber information-sharing law and state grants set to go dark as Congress stalls over funding (The Record) Live - Global Cybersecurity Forum in Riyadh tackles how technology can shape future of cyberspace (Euronews) NIST Publishes Guide for Protecting ICS Against USB-Borne Threats (SecurityWeek) ICE to Buy Tool that Tracks Locations of Hundreds of Millions of Phones Every Day (404 Media) Broadcom Fails to Disclose Zero-Day Exploitation of VMware Vulnerability (SecurityWeek) Don't Sweat the ClickFix Techniques: Variants & Detection Evolution (Huntress) Battering RAM Attack Breaks Intel and AMD Security Tech With $50 Device (SecurityWeek) New MatrixPDF toolkit turns PDFs into phishing and malware lures (Bleeping Computer) 3.7M breach notification letters set to flood North America's mailboxes (The Register) A Bullet Crashed the Internet in Texas (404 Media) Share your feedback. What do you think about CyberWire Daily? Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey. Thank you for helping us continue to improve our show.   Want to hear your company in the show? You too can reach the most influential leaders and operators in the industry. Here's our media kit. Contact us at cyberwire@n2k.com to request more info. The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices