Amjad Masad is the CEO of Replit. Masad joins Big Technology podcast for a frank discussion about vibe coding, or building software via prompt. We discuss all the use cases, whether anyone can do it or whether it's just a tool for already-technical builders, whether vibe coding replaces saas, and what the role of the engineer becomes in the future. Stay tuned for the second half where we discuss whether the AI coding business is sustainable given the costs of delivering the technology.
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Amita Prabhu, Amber Lao, and Kaila Cage from Adobe’s Public Sector Digital Strategy Group join the show unpack the inspiration, methodology, and key findings of the report, which benchmarks digital maturity across U.S. state governments. Together we discuss the origins of the DGI and how it evolved from a side project into a strategic benchmarking tool and why the three pillars of digital maturity – customer experience, site performance, and digital self-service – are so vital to digital government maturity. We also discuss why citizen expectations are outpacing government digital improvements—and what states can do about it and the growing influence of AI and ML in service delivery—from chatbots to fraud detection.
Dave Berner grew up in London, and got into coding through music. He used to be the lead singer in metal and hardcore bands. His bands couldn't afford a webmaster, so he learned how to code in order to launch his band's website, along with setting up friend's custom MySpace profiles. Beyond that, he partook in many startups and side projects, loving to build on the internet. Outside of tech, he's married with 3 kids. He mentions his family is a "low tech" family, teaching their kids fundamental education without a screen. The live in Australia, in a sleepy surfer town, though he admits he hasn't learned to surf just yet.
Dave has always been building side hustles, but none of them really got off the ground. What he noticed about the process was that the process of building the infra of an app - the auth, the billing, support, etc. - always took too long. Eventually, he thought that maybe the best product would be something combining these things.
Quinn Slack, CEO and co-founder of Sourcegraph, joins the show to dive into the implications of AI coding tools on the software engineering lifecycle. They explore how AI tools are transforming the work of developers from syntax-focused tasks to higher-level design and management roles, and how AI will integrate into enterprise environments.
Episode notes:
Sourcegraph is building AI-code agents for enterprises to accelerate how companies build software.
M.G. Siegler is the author of Spyglass. He joins Big Technology podcast for the latest of our first Monday of the month discussion about Big Tech strategy and AI. Today we cover Mark Zuckerberg's vision for personal superintelligence and whether it's more of a recruiting play or a real difference in the way the company builds AI. We also cover the massive bets on AI and whether they'll ever pay off, how interlinked big tech is with AI, and whether you should outsource your writing to AI.
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Michael #1:rumdl - A Markdown Linter written in Rust
patch allows coverage to run better when a covered project uses
subprocesses
os._exit()
execv family of functions
Looking at subprocess
“Coverage works great when you start your program with coverage measurement, but has long had the problem of how to also measure the coverage of sub-processes that your program created. The existing solution had been a complicated two-step process of creating obscure .pth files and setting environment variables. Whole projects appeared on PyPI to handle this for you.”
From release notes
for 7.10.0
A new configuration option: “
[run] patch
” specifies named patches to work around some limitations in coverage measurement. These patches are available:
patch = execv adjusts the <code>execv</code> family of functions to save coverage data before ending the current program and starting the next. Not available on Windows. Closes issue 43 after 15 years!
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover: 1) Alex's profile of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei + extra reporting 2) Are Anthropic's convictions earnest or marketing? 3) Where does Anthropic fit in the broader AI landscape 4) Will one AI company 'win it all' 5) Anthropic is raising at a new, $170 billion valuation 6) OpenAI hits 700 million ChatGPT users 7) Hyped for GPT-5? 8) AI video creation's promise 9) Videos in Google's NotebookLM 10) Is the stock market in a bubble or hitting real returns.
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Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice.
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Questions? Feedback? Write to: bigtechnologypodcast@gmail.com
Laura Bennett, host of the Coach’s Corner Podcast and a principal at BDL Consulting joins the show for a candid conversation on leadership, resilience, and how to take meaningful steps forward amid uncertainty. Together, we explore what it truly means to be resilient—not just to withstand challenges, but to actively navigate through them and emerge stronger. Laura shares insights from her coaching work and podcast guests, discussing the power of small, intentional steps, emotional detachment, and being selective about what we consume—especially in today’s distraction-heavy environment.
Jack Weatherford is an anthropologist and historian specializing in Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire.
Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep476-sc
See below for timestamps, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc.
OUTLINE:
(00:00) – Introduction
(00:44) – Sponsors, Comments, and Reflections
(10:44) – Origin story of Genghis Khan
(52:30) – Early battles & conquests
(1:05:11) – Power
(1:07:33) – Secret History
(1:20:58) – Mongolian steppe
(1:24:16) – Mounted archery and horse-riding
(1:32:36) – Genghis Khan’s army
(1:48:49) – Military tactics and strategy
(2:01:13) – Wars of conquest
(2:05:37) – Dan Carlin
(2:15:37) – Religious freedom
(2:31:24) – Trade and the Silk Road
(2:40:10) – Weapons innovation
(2:41:40) – Kublai Khan and conquering China
(3:23:31) – Fall of the Mongol Empire
(3:50:26) – Genetic legacy
(4:00:20) – Lessons from Genghis Khan
(4:10:36) – Human nature
(4:13:47) – Visiting Mongolia
(4:33:15) – Lex: Dan Carlin
(4:36:06) – Lex: Gaza
Tiffany Johnson is originally from Texas, but grew up in California. At a young age, she was a bit of an adrenaline junkie, partaking in skydiving, snowboarding, wakeboarding and gymnastics. In school, she fell in love with Econ, Mgmt, and Statistics - and eventually, fell into the payment industry by accident. Outside of tech, she has been married for 20 years with 3 kids. Her kids are all snow skiers, though she doesn't hold that against them as a snowboarder.
A few years ago, Tiffany was contacted about a new opportunity at a decades old company in the payments space. This company wanted to bring to market a solution around embedded finance, specifically for SaaS solutions - and Tiffany was the perfect product leader for the role.
