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NEW - EPISODE 241
The AI Distribution Shift, Navigating PMF Collapse & Building AI-Native EPD Systems
with Brian Balfour
In this episode, Brian Balfour (Founder & CEO @ Reforge) deconstructs the two core, interconnected challenges leaders face in the AI age: deciding what to build and evolving the Engineering, Product, Design workflow to deliver it. We cover why you should avoid “the local maxima trap” and siphon off "skunkworks" teams to take high-risk, AI-native bets. Brian provides the blueprint for the "Great Distribution Shift," detailing how to reshape your product from the ground up to avoid being left behind as platforms close, and how to emerge as a winner in the new AI landscape. Plus, learn how to rethink what to build, avoid commoditization, compress product discovery from weeks to hours, scale feature variations & prototypes, evolve products to solve harder classes of problems and shift specialist roles from "inboxes" to system builders.
On this show, we uncover stories and examples of great leadership in software engineering, explore the experiences of industry leaders, as well as share actionable insights from leadership and management thought experts artful and skilled in the application of leadership.
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NEWSLETTER
EVENTS, PODCASTS AND MORE
FEATURED STORY
Dec 17, 2025
How Atlassian built Rovo in 6 months: systematizing developer joy, autonomy/ownership, productivity champions & reducing ship time
with Rajeev Rajan
Rajeev Rajan (CTO @ Atlassian) shares the leadership playbook he used to transform Atlassian’s engineering culture, and how that cultural foundation directly powered the build and launch of Rovo (Atlassian’s new AI powered app). We cover how they reduced ship time from 120 days to zero, why “developer joy” is the metric that matters, and how to create a community of developer productivity champions to scale DevEx transformation. Rajeev also breaks down his principles for systematizing autonomy and empowerment, including frameworks for giving direct reports more ownership. Plus, a look at the future of Atlassian’s “Systems of Work”!
FEATURED STORY
Dec 09, 2025
From developer to builder/system designer, managing AI agents like team members & monday.com’s evolving R&D playbook
with Daniel Lereya
In this episode, Daniel Lereya (Chief Product and Technology Officer @ Monday.com) shares how they are evolving their engineering roles from developers to builders & system designers, where the lines between product, engineering, and design are intentionally blurred, and developers manage AI Agents as team members, tackling an ever-expanding list of projects. We explore the shift from "developer" to "system designer" and why managing AI agents requires the same skills as managing people. Plus, a case study where the Monday.com team leveraged AI agents to decompose a monolith, autonomously manage the project board and assign strategic / high-risk tasks to humans.
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A breath of fresh air in a category that can have a lot of BS. Keep up the great work!
- Rudest Buddhist
Sept 1, 2020
LATEST
Episode 241: The AI Distribution Shift, Navigating PMF Collapse & Building AI-Native EPD Systems
with Brian Balfour
In this episode, Brian Balfour (Founder & CEO @ Reforge) deconstructs the two core, interconnected challenges leaders face in the AI age: deciding what to build and evolving the Engineering, Product, Design workflow to deliver it. We cover why you should avoid “the local maxima trap” and siphon off "skunkworks" teams to take high-risk, AI-native bets. Brian provides the blueprint for the "Great Distribution Shift," detailing how to reshape your product from the ground up to avoid being left behind as platforms close, and how to emerge as a winner in the new AI landscape. Plus, learn how to rethink what to build, avoid commoditization, compress product discovery from weeks to hours, scale feature variations & prototypes, evolve products to solve harder classes of problems and shift specialist roles from "inboxes" to system builders.
Dec 23, 2025
Episode 240: How Atlassian built Rovo in 6 months: systematizing developer joy, autonomy/ownership, productivity champions & reducing ship time
with Rajeev Rajan
Rajeev Rajan (CTO @ Atlassian) shares the leadership playbook he used to transform Atlassian’s engineering culture, and how that cultural foundation directly powered the build and launch of Rovo (Atlassian’s new AI powered app). We cover how they reduced ship time from 120 days to zero, why “developer joy” is the metric that matters, and how to create a community of developer productivity champions to scale DevEx transformation. Rajeev also breaks down his principles for systematizing autonomy and empowerment, including frameworks for giving direct reports more ownership. Plus, a look at the future of Atlassian’s “Systems of Work”!
Dec 17, 2025
Episode 239: From developer to builder/system designer, managing AI agents like team members & monday.com’s evolving R&D playbook
with Daniel Lereya
In this episode, Daniel Lereya (Chief Product and Technology Officer @ Monday.com) shares how they are evolving their engineering roles from developers to builders & system designers, where the lines between product, engineering, and design are intentionally blurred, and developers manage AI Agents as team members, tackling an ever-expanding list of projects. We explore the shift from "developer" to "system designer" and why managing AI agents requires the same skills as managing people. Plus, a case study where the Monday.com team leveraged AI agents to decompose a monolith, autonomously manage the project board and assign strategic / high-risk tasks to humans.
Dec 09, 2025
Episode 238: Beyond Replication: Building Non-Human Intelligence Through Physical AI
with Jaime Lien & Rashi Agrawal
This is a special episode, highlighting a session from ELC Annual 2025! The true promise of AI isn’t in replicating human intelligence. It’s in developing entirely new forms of non-human intelligence that perceive and understand the world in fundamentally different ways. Jamie Lien (Co-Founder and Chief Scientist @ Archetype AI) and Rashi Agarwal (Head of AI Engineering @ GoodLeap) explore the emergence of "Physical AI" - machines that sense the world through modalities beyond human biology to form internal representations free from our biases and then translate that understanding back to us in human terms.
Dec 03, 2025
Episode 237: Specs as the new source of truth, synthetic data as the next wave of defensibility, product vision & decision making frameworks
with Ruslan Belkin
Ruslan Belkin (Head of Platform Engineering @ Inflection AI) joins us to deconstruct fundamental shifts in engineering leadership. We explore the future of user interfaces, his “sci-fi” approach to establish & test product vision, & how to leverage “investor decks” for better decision-making and project validation. Ruslan also dives into the complexities of building emotional intelligence into AI systems, cultivating an outcome-oriented engineering culture & avoiding process traps. Plus, we discuss how to keep up with the velocity of change (including when new research necessitates a major pivot), synthetic data & the future of data as a defensibility strategy, & why agent reliability is the massive opportunity ahead.
Nov 20, 2025
Episode 236: Brex 3.0: An 18-Month Operational Evolution & the Brex Hacker House “AI Startup within a Startup" experiment
with James Reggio
James Reggio (CTO @ Brex) shares the story of "Brex 3.0", an 18-month journey behind their operational evolution. We explore how they rewound their org from a Series E to a Series C mindset, and replaced siloed OKRs with seasonal "marquee initiatives." James deconstructs the “Brex Hacker House”, an AI-focused startup within a startup experiment aimed to disrupt their core business. This conversation is all about evolving operational rhythms, layers of management, product building, and culture change!
Nov 12, 2025
Episode 235: The Impossible Job of Managers, Leadership Co-Pilots, Scaling Great Management & Augmenting Human Relationships
with Jonathan Raymond
Jonathan Raymond is the Founder and CEO of Ren, an AI agent for managers and teams that helps them give and receive feedback, have meaningful 1:1s, and access real-time personalized coaching. He is also the author of the award-winning book Good Authority and was named one of Inc. Magazine’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers. Previously the CEO of EMyth, Jonathan has led transformation projects across technology, renewable energy, and coaching. He’s a half-decent barista, a mediocre-but-enthusiastic surfer, and will never give up on the New York Knicks.
Nov 07, 2025
Episode 234: A Systems-Level Guide to High-ROI AI Impact
with Laura Tacho
Businesses are spending millions on AI tools hoping to accelerate time-to-market but aren't seeing organizational-level results. Laura Tacho (CTO @ DX) explains why an "individual productivity" mindset fails and how AI merely accelerates the condition of the system it enters. She provides a framework for leaders to shift to a systems-level approach, find high-leverage ROI by looking outside the 20% of time spent coding, and understand what sets high-ROI orgs apart. Plus Laura shares data literacy tools to cut through the "whiplash" of conflicting AI reports and provides key considerations for 2026 budgeting, detailing where and how companies are planning to strategically invest.
Oct 28, 2025
Episode 233: Platform Engineering's Shift from Tactical 'How' to Strategic Curator & Natural Language as the New Interface Paradigm
with Miriam Aguirre
What happens to platform engineering when natural language becomes the primary interface to infrastructure? Miriam Aguirre (Co-founder & CEO @ Ingenimax) joins us to explore how AI is fundamentally reshaping platform strategy, team structures, and the very role of the platform engineer. We deconstruct the shift from tactical "how" to strategic "why" and explore what it means to lead and build resilient systems in this new paradigm.
Oct 21, 2025
Episode 232: Grit, the vision bottleneck & building for a future where today’s technical constraints may disappear
with Chrystal Henke Ball
In this episode, we’re addressing one of the biggest challenges current eng leaders are facing – balancing yesterday’s constraints with tomorrow’s potential! Chrystal Henke Ball (VP of Engineering @ Yahoo) shares insights on why it’s important to constantly challenge your assumptions and how vision can sometimes work as a bottleneck for your organization. We dissect how the traditional product lifecycle is evolving to become more fluid and what that means for the collaborative relationship between product, eng, and design. Additionally, Chrystal defines grit, why it’s important for leaders to model it, and strategies for cultivating the trait within your eng team in order to move past short-term challenges and focus on long-term goals!
Oct 15, 2025
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