Podcasts from around the Web

After 30 years in marketing, Melissa Puls, CMO and SVP, Customer Success & Renewals at Ivanti, has seen it all: the highs, the lows, and the evolution of marketing itself. In this episode, she shares how she’s built her career around people-first leadership, purpose-driven strategy, and performance that actually moves the business forward. Melissa breaks down why B2B and B2C are outdated concepts, why it’s time to think “business-to-human,” and how aligning marketing, customer success, and renewals can transform growth. She also opens up about lessons learned from failure, how AI is reshaping efficiency and personalization, and why transparency and data-driven decisions are a CMO’s real superpowers. Whether you’re a rising marketing leader or a seasoned exec, this episode delivers practical insights on building teams, earning trust, and driving measurable impact across the entire customer lifecycle.

What if marketing didn’t just support company strategy, but shaped it from the start? 8x8 CMO Bruno Bertini breaks down how today’s marketing leaders can elevate their role through goal-driven alignment, end-to-end customer experience, and real-world applications of AI. Bruno shares his approach to building marketing-led OKRs, driving measurable outcomes like LTV and retention, and using AI to streamline enrichment, targeting, and creative production. It’s a must-listen for CMOs who want to operate as true business leaders and make marketing central to growth.

How do you thrive in private equity while maintaining local autonomy and driving growth? Meghann McNally, CMO of Wrench Group, shares her unique approach to leading marketing in a fast-growing, private equity-backed company. From scaling brand strategies in 27 markets across 14 states to navigating the challenges of a male-dominated industry, Meghann emphasizes the importance of hands-on leadership and data-driven decision-making. She also reveals how fostering curiosity, maintaining local connections, and balancing efficiency with personal touch have been key to Wrench Group’s success.

In this episode of the State of Customer Storytelling podcast, DailyPay Director of Client Advocacy Maria Braune shares how to truly listen to your customers and get the best testimonials possible.

In this episode of the State of Customer Storytelling podcast, Chief Outsiders Partner and CMO Jeff Loeb shares how to gather customer insights and share them with the rest of your team.

In this episode of the State of Customer Storytelling podcast, Airtable Customer Marketing Programs lead Valeria Gomez shares how to show love to your customers the way you want them to show love to your company.

Thank you to the folks at Sustain for providing the hosting account for CHAOSSCast! CHAOSScast – Episode 125 In this final episode of the year from CHAOSScast, hosts Alice Sowerby and Harmony Elendu welcome members of the CHAOSS Board, Sean Goggins, Anita Ihuman, Georg Link, and Elizabeth Barron, for an in-depth discussion on the project's developments and future. They share their reflections on key events and trends in the open-source community over 2025. Topics include the impact of AI on open source, shifts in funding, community engagement, and the importance of psychological safety. The panelists also spotlight various CHAOSS working groups, including education, design, and technical writing, while sharing their wishes for the CHAOSS Project in 2026. Press download now! [00:00:49] The hosts and guests introduce themselves and their backgrounds. [00:02:28] Georg announces CHAOSScon in Brussels, Jan 29, 2026, Co-located with FOSDEM. [00:04:51] The guests talk about factors affecting OSS communities in 2025. [00:11:39] We hear where CHAOSS grew the most in 2025 such as regional chapters, global reach, CHAOSS Asia, with shout-outs to Divvya Mohan and Rowland Mosbergen, how metrics are being used, Design Working Group, accessibility, Practitioner Guides, and two new working groups. [00:19:45] The panel shares project and working groups they’re most proud of: Package Management, AI Alignment, Alice and Harmony for keeping CHAOSScast podcast active and alive, Paul and Peachtree Sound for editing the podcast and keeping episodes on track, Education Project, Practitioner Guides, and shared ownership of community growth. [00:28:55] What is some work that went under the radar in 2025? The guests talk about DEI Working Group, DEI Badging, Harmony and the Technical Writers Working Group, and AI’s impact on maintainers. [00:35:41] Georg and Sean have additional thoughts on AI identity and bots. Current tooling assumes human contributions, but AI agents and bots break those assumptions and there’s a need for better identity solutions and metrics that distinguish humans, bots, and multi-account actors. [00:39:33] Elizabeth would love people to give CHAOSS more feedback on engagement for newcomers to make onboarding smoother and encourages people to use the Education Project as a starting point. [00:42:07] Georg, Sean, and Anita talk about CHAOSS board priorities for 2025-2026. [00:45:25] Everyone shares their wishes for CHAOSS in 2026.

[00:48:52] If anyone has any ideas, topics, questions, and guests for future CHAOSS episodes please send us an email. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Panelists:

Alice Sowerby

Harmony Elendu Guests:

Sean Goggins

Anita Ihuman

Georg Link

Elizabeth Barron Links:

CHAOSS

CHAOSS Project X

CHAOSScast Podcast

CHAOSS YouTube

podcast@chaoss.community

Georg Link Website

Harmony Elendu X

Alice Sowerby LinkedIn

Sean Goggins X

Elizabeth Barron X

Anita Ihuman GitHub

CHAOSScon 2026 Brussles, Belgium

FOSDEM 2026

CHAOSS Education Project

CHAOSS Onboarding Courses-GitHub

CHAOSS Practitioner Guides

First Person Project White Paper

The Road Ahead For Identity Management In Open Source: Humans, Bots, AI Agents-And The Future Of Attribution by Diane Mueller (Bitergia)

CHAOSScast Podcast-Episode 121: Package Metadata Working Group with Andrew Nesbitt and Damián Vicino CHAOSScast Podcast-Episode 100: Celebrating 100 episodes of CHAOSScast

CHAOSScast Podcast-Episode 76: CHAOSS Goals for 2024 and Beyond

CHAOSScast Podcast-Episode 71: What’s New in CHAOSS: Podcast Reboot Episode

CHAOSScast Podcast-Episode 49: CHAOSS Community Year 2021 in Review

CHAOSScast Podcast-Episode 1: Hello, World!

Peachtree SoundSpecial Guest: Anita ihuman.Support CHAOSScast

Thank you to the folks at Sustain for providing the hosting account for CHAOSSCast! CHAOSScast – Episode 124 This episode of CHAOSScast kicks off a new Practitioner Guide series focused on “Building Diverse Leadership” in open source communities. Harmony Elendu hosts with co-host Georg Link and guests Dawn Foster and Peculiar Umeh, exploring why diverse leadership matters, how CHAOSS’ practitioner guides turn “walls of metrics” into practical action, and how three specific metrics: Board/Council Diversity, Sponsorship, and Inclusive Leadership, can help projects become more welcoming, representative, and sustainable. Hit download now to hear more! [00:00:35] Dawn, Peculiar, Georg, and Harmony share their backgrounds. [00:02:57] Dawn gives us an overview of the Practitioner Guide series and emphasizes that the guides focus on how to improve projects using metrics, not just on measuring. [00:05:13] Georg asks Peculiar what inspired her to write the “Getting Started with Building Diverse Leadership” guide. She describes working on CHAOSS metrics templates and wanting to help non-data science people use them. [00:08:09] Harmony connects the topic to broader industry conversations on diversity and inclusion. Peculiar explains that diverse leadership brings different perspectives, experiences, and voices into decision making and uses CHAOSS as an example. [00:10:30] Dawn expands on how seeing leaders “who look like you” motivates people to participate and aspire to leadership. [00:11:28] Georg talks about diversity as social justice and explains benefits for the projects: resilience, innovation, and better products for diverse users. [00:14:25] Peculiar shares the three metrics and why there were chosen. Dawn adds that guides are designed to change projects, not just describe them. [00:18:09] Georg notes Board/Council Diversity is the most intuitive to measure and Dawn cautions that many aspects of identity are invisible and the guide recommends surveys to ask community members whether they feel represented and heard. [00:21:03] Georg explains sponsorship vs. mentorship. Peculiar shares her own experience of being advocated for and supported in open source. Dawn tells the story of Danese Cooper sponsoring her showing how sponsorship accelerates careers. [00:25:27] Georg explains Inclusive Leadership as the governance scaffolding and Peculiar describes what the guide offers. [00:27:50] Harmony asks how they can implement the guide and monitor progress. Peculiar highlights some implementation steps and Dawn re-emphasizes using recurring surveys as monitoring tools.

[00:33:27] Dawn notes that every practitioner guide includes a Cautions and Considerations section, and Georg reminds us that interpersonal relationships are crucial for understanding how people experience the community. Value Adds (Picks) of the week: [00:35:25] Harmony’s pick is n8n and automations.
[00:36:10] Georg’s pick is looking forward to the holidays with his family.
[00:37:54] Dawn’s pick is watching chunky squirrels play outside her window.
[00:38:24] Peculiar’s pick is taking time to rest.
Panelists:

Harmony Elendu

Georg Link Guests:

Dawn Foster

Peculiar Umeh Links:

CHAOSS

CHAOSS Project X

CHAOSScast Podcast

CHAOSS YouTube

podcast@chaoss.community

Georg Link Website

Harmony Elendu X

Dawn Foster X

Peculiar Umeh LinkedIn

CHAOSS Practitioner Guide: Getting Started with Building Diverse Leadership

About the CHAOSS Practitioner Guides

The Linux Foundation Report -Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Open Source

The Linux Foundation-Decentralized innovation. Built on trust.

Inclusive Leadership: Effecting change: Introduction | OpenLearn-Open University

CHAOSS Data Use Awareness Recommendation: Privacy and Ethics

n8n

Previous Practitioner Guide Episodes:

Episode 85: Introducing CHAOSS Practitioner Guides: #1 Responsiveness

Episode 88: Practitioner Guides: #2 Contributor Sustainability

Episode 89: Practitioner Guides : #3 Organizational Participation

Episode 97: Practitioner Guides: #4 Security

Episode 120: Practitioner Guides: #5 Demonstrating Organizational Value

Episode 123: Practitioner Guides: #6 Sunsetting an Open Source ProjectSpecial Guest: Peculiar Umeh.Support CHAOSScast

Thank you to the folks at Sustain 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

CHAOSS Project X

CHAOSScast Podcast

CHAOSS YouTube

podcast@chaoss.community

Harmony Elendu X

Alice Sowerby LinkedIn

Dawn Foster X

Stefka Dimitrova LinkedIn

CHAOSS: Practitioner Guide: Getting Started with Sunsetting an Open Source Project

CHAOSS: About the CHAOSS Practitioner Guides

When and How to Deprecate an Open Source Project by Stefka Dimitrova

Deprecating an Open Source Project, Part 2 by Stefka Dimitrova
Simple Steps for a Calm “Sunset”- Stefka Dimitrova’s video from the Open Source Summit in Europe (2022)

Dos and don’ts when sunsetting open source projects (GitHub Blog)

Shutting Down An Open Source Project (TODO Group Guide)

When to Send Flowers? End of Life and End of Support Across the Ecosystem-Allen Friedman’s video Open Source Summit

10 quick tips for making your software outlive your job (white paper)

Playback Theatre Network

Vitamin B3 can help protect against skin cancer. Here’s who may benefit (npr)Special Guest: Stefka Dimitrova.Support CHAOSScast

Sander Schulhoff is an AI researcher specializing in AI security, prompt injection, and red teaming. He wrote the first comprehensive guide on prompt engineering and ran the first-ever prompt injection competition, working with top AI labs and companies. His dataset is now used by Fortune 500 companies to benchmark their AI systems security, he’s spent more time than anyone alive studying how attackers break AI systems, and what he’s found isn’t reassuring: the guardrails companies are buying don’t actually work, and we’ve been lucky we haven’t seen more harm so far, only because AI agents aren’t capable enough yet to do real damage.We discuss:1. The difference between jailbreaking and prompt injection attacks on AI systems2. Why AI guardrails don’t work3. Why we haven’t seen major AI security incidents yet (but soon will)4. Why AI browser agents are vulnerable to hidden attacks embedded in webpages5. The practical steps organizations should take instead of buying ineffective security tools6. Why solving this requires merging classical cybersecurity expertise with AI knowledge—Brought to you by:Datadog—Now home to Eppo, the leading experimentation and feature flagging platform: https://www.datadoghq.com/lennyMetronome—Monetization infrastructure for modern software companies: https://metronome.com/GoFundMe Giving Funds—Make year-end giving easy: http://gofundme.com/lenny—Transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-coming-ai-security-crisis—My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/181089452/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation—Where to find Sander Schulhoff:• X: https://x.com/sanderschulhoff• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sander-schulhoff• Website: https://sanderschulhoff.com• AI Red Teaming and AI Security Masterclass on Maven: https://bit.ly/44lLSbC—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Sander Schulhoff and AI security(05:14) Understanding AI vulnerabilities(11:42) Real-world examples of AI security breaches(17:55) The impact of intelligent agents(19:44) The rise of AI security solutions(21:09) Red teaming and guardrails(23:44) Adversarial robustness(27:52) Why guardrails fail(38:22) The lack of resources addressing this problem(44:44) Practical advice for addressing AI security(55:49) Why you shouldn’t spend your time on guardrails(59:06) Prompt injection and agentic systems(01:09:15) Education and awareness in AI security(01:11:47) Challenges and future directions in AI security(01:17:52) Companies that are doing this well(01:21:57) Final thoughts and recommendations—Referenced:• AI prompt engineering in 2025: What works and what doesn’t | Sander Schulhoff (Learn Prompting, HackAPrompt): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/ai-prompt-engineering-in-2025-sander-schulhoff• The AI Security Industry is Bullshit: https://sanderschulhoff.substack.com/p/the-ai-security-industry-is-bullshit• The Prompt Report: Insights from the Most Comprehensive Study of Prompting Ever Done: https://learnprompting.org/blog/the_prompt_report?srsltid=AfmBOoo7CRNNCtavzhyLbCMxc0LDmkSUakJ4P8XBaITbE6GXL1i2SvA0• OpenAI: https://openai.com• Scale: https://scale.com• Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co• Ignore This Title and HackAPrompt: Exposing Systemic Vulnerabilities of LLMs through a Global Scale Prompt Hacking Competition: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Ignore-This-Title-and-HackAPrompt%3A-Exposing-of-LLMs-Schulhoff-Pinto/f3de6ea08e2464190673c0ec8f78e5ec1cd08642• Simon Willison’s Weblog: https://simonwillison.net• ServiceNow: https://www.servicenow.com• ServiceNow AI Agents Can Be Tricked Into Acting Against Each Other via Second-Order Prompts: https://thehackernews.com/2025/11/servicenow-ai-agents-can-be-tricked.html• Alex Komoroske on X: https://x.com/komorama• Twitter pranksters derail GPT-3 bot with newly discovered “prompt injection” hack: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/09/twitter-pranksters-derail-gpt-3-bot-with-newly-discovered-prompt-injection-hack• MathGPT: https://math-gpt.org• 2025 Las Vegas Cybertruck explosion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Las_Vegas_Cybertruck_explosion• Disrupting the first reported AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign: https://www.anthropic.com/news/disrupting-AI-espionage• Thinking like a gardener not a builder, organizing teams like slime mold, the adjacent possible, and other unconventional product advice | Alex Komoroske (Stripe, Google): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/unconventional-product-advice-alex-komoroske• Prompt Optimization and Evaluation for LLM Automated Red Teaming: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.22133• MATS Research: https://substack.com/@matsresearch• CBRN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBRN_defense• CaMeL offers a promising new direction for mitigating prompt injection attacks: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Apr/11/camel• Trustible: https://trustible.ai• Repello: https://repello.ai• Do not write that jailbreak paper: https://javirando.com/blog/2024/jailbreaks—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

Elena Verna is the head of growth at Lovable, the leading AI-powered app builder that hit $200 million in annual recurring revenue in under a year with just 100 employees. In this record fourth appearance on the podcast, Elena shares how the traditional growth playbook has been completely rewritten for AI companies. She explains why Lovable focuses on innovation over optimization, how they’ve shifted from activation to building new features, and why giving away their product for free has become their most powerful growth strategy.We discuss:1. Why 60% to 70% of traditional growth tactics no longer apply in AI2. Why you have to re-find product-market fit every 3 months3. The specific growth tactics driving Lovable’s unprecedented growth4. Why giving away product is a growth strategy that beats paid ads5. “Minimum lovable product” as the new standard (not minimum viable product)6. Why activation now belongs to product teams, not growth teams7. Whether you should join an AI startup (honest tradeoffs)—Brought to you by:WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUsVercel—Your collaborative AI assistant to design, iterate, and scale full-stack applications for the webPersona—A global leader in digital identity verification—Transcript: ⁠https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-new-ai-growth-playbook-for-2026-elena-verna⁠—My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): ⁠https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/181207556/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation⁠—Where to find Elena Verna:• X: https://x.com/elenaverna• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenaverna• Newsletter: https://www.elenaverna.com—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Elena Verna(05:19) The scale and growth of Lovable(08:55) Confidence in Lovable as a business(12:17) Retention at Lovable(15:02) Lovable’s unique growth levers(28:13) The role of marketing in Lovable’s success(38:09) Launching new features(40:59) Hiring and team dynamics(43:17) The value of vibe coding(49:46) The importance of community(51:47) Giving away your product for free(56:26) Tripling their company size(01:00:23) Product-market-fit challenges(01:08:50) Advice for joining AI companies(01:12:00) Work-life balance(01:15:20) What it’s like to work at Lovable(01:19:45) Women in tech(01:25:29) Final thoughts and lightning round—Referenced:• Elena Verna on how B2B growth is changing, product-led growth, product-led sales, why you should go freemium not trial, what features to make free, and much more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/elena-verna-on-why-every-company• The ultimate guide to product-led sales | Elena Verna: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-product-led• 10 growth tactics that never work | Elena Verna (Amplitude, Miro, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/10-growth-tactics-that-never-work-elena-verna• Lovable: https://lovable.dev• Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika• Stripe: https://stripe.com• What differentiates the highest-performing product teams | John Cutler (Amplitude, The Beautiful Mess): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/what-differentiates-the-highest-performing• How to win in the AI era: Ship a feature every week, embrace technical debt, ruthlessly cut scope, and create magic your competitors can’t copy | Gaurav Misra (CEO and co-founder of Captions): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-win-in-the-ai-era-gaurav-misra• “Dumbest idea I’ve heard” to $100M ARR: Inside the rise of Gamma | Grant Lee (CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-50-people-built-a-profitable-ai-unicorn• Eric Ries on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eries• Elena’s post on LinkedIn about Lovable Missions: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/elenaverna_everythingispossible-lovableway-activity-7401627519646474242-hn6e• SheBuilds: https://shebuilds.lovable.app• Shopify + Lovable: https://lovable.dev/shopify• The Product-Market Fit Treadmill: Why every AI company is sprinting just to stay in place: https://www.elenaverna.com/p/the-product-market-fit-treadmill• Cursor: https://cursor.com• The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell• Unorthodox frameworks for growing your product, career, and impact | Bangaly Kaba (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Instacart): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/frameworks-for-growing-your-career-bangaly-kaba• The adjacent user: https://brianbalfour.com/quick-takes/the-adjacent-user• Granola: https://www.granola.ai• Wispr Flow: https://wisprflow.ai• I’m worried about women in tech: https://www.elenaverna.com/p/im-worried-about-women-in-tech• Slack founder: Mental models for building products people love ft. Stewart Butterfield: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/slack-founder-stewart-butterfield—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

Alexander Embiricos leads product on Codex, OpenAI’s powerful coding agent, which has grown 20x since August and now serves trillions of tokens weekly. Before joining OpenAI, Alexander spent five years building a pair programming product for engineers. He now works at the frontier of AI-led software development, building what he describes as a software engineering teammate—an AI agent designed to participate across the entire development lifecycle.We discuss:1. Why Codex has grown 20x since launch and what product decisions unlocked this growth2. How OpenAI built the Sora Android app in just 18 days using Codex3. Why the real bottleneck to AGI-level productivity isn’t model capability—it’s human typing speed4. The vision of AI as a proactive teammate, not just a tool you prompt5. The bottleneck shifting from building to reviewing AI-generated work6. Why coding will be a core competency for every AI agent—because writing code is how agents use computers best—Brought to you by:WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs: https://workos.com/lennyFin—The #1 AI agent for customer service: https://fin.ai/lennyJira Product Discovery—Confidence to build the right thing: https://atlassian.com/lenny/?utm_source=lennypodcast&utm_medium=paid-audio&utm_campaign=fy24q1-jpd-imc—Transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-humans-are-ais-biggest-bottleneck—My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/180365355/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation—Where to find Alexander Embiricos:• X: https://x.com/embirico• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/embirico—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Alexander Embiricos (05:13) The speed and ambition at OpenAI(11:34) Codex: OpenAI’s coding agent(15:43) Codex’s explosive growth(24:59) The future of AI and coding agents(33:11) The impact of AI on engineering(44:08) How Codex has impacted the way PMs operate(45:40) Throwaway code and ubiquitous coding(47:10) Shipping the Sora Android app(49:01) Building the Atlas browser(53:34) Codex’s impact on productivity(55:35) Measuring progress on Codex(58:09) Why they are building a web browser(01:01:58) Non-engineering use cases for Codex(01:02:53) Codex’s capabilities(01:04:49) Tips for getting started with Codex(01:05:37) Skills to lean into in the AI age(01:10:36) How far are we from a human version of AI?(01:13:31) Hiring and team growth at Codex(01:15:47) Lightning round and final thoughts—Referenced:• OpenAI: https://openai.com• Codex: https://openai.com/codex• Inside ChatGPT: The fastest-growing product in history | Nick Turley (Head of ChatGPT at OpenAI): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-chatgpt-nick-turley• Dropbox: http://dropbox.com• Datadog: https://www.datadoghq.com• Andrej Karpathy on X: https://x.com/karpathy• The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell• Atlas: https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-atlas• How Block is becoming the most AI-native enterprise in the world | Dhanji R. Prasanna: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-block-is-becoming-the-most-ai-native• Goose: https://block.xyz/inside/block-open-source-introduces-codename-goose• Lessons on building product sense, navigating AI, optimizing the first mile, and making it through the messy middle | Scott Belsky (Adobe, Behance): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-on-building-product-sense• Sora Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.openai.sora&hl=en_US&pli=1• The OpenAI Podcast—ChatGPT Atlas and the next era of web browsing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdbgNC80PMw&list=PLOXw6I10VTv9GAOCZjUAAkSVyW2cDXs4u&index=2• How to measure AI developer productivity in 2025 | Nicole Forsgren: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-measure-ai-developer-productivity• Compiling: https://3d.xkcd.com/303• Jujutsu Kaisen on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81278456• Tesla: https://www.tesla.com• Radical Candor: From theory to practice with author Kim Scott: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/radical-candor-from-theory-to-practice• Andreas Embirikos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Embirikos• George Embiricos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Embiricos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Embiricos—Recommended books:• Culture series: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WLZZ9WV• The Lord of the Rings: https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0544003411• A Fire Upon the Deep (Zones of Thought series Book 1): https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Upon-Deep-Zones-Thought/dp/1250237750• Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity: https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Candor-Kick-Ass-Without-Humanity/dp/1250103509—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

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What happens when your referral program participants are literally trained to find holes in systems? How do you protect your program without making it so complicated that nobody wants to use it? To explore this, we welcome Mariana Doncel to The Advocacy Channel. Mariana leads B2C product marketing at Hack the Box, a cybersecurity training platform where users learn ethical hacking through hands-on challenges. When your customers spend their days breaking into systems for fun, you learn pretty quickly what actually works for fraud prevention. In this episode, Mariana and host Will Fraser get into the reality of protecting your referral program from abuse. Spoiler: it's not about building an airtight system with rules for every scenario. Mariana shares the pragmatic approach Hack the Box has taken, focusing on damage control and smart incentive design rather than trying to prevent every possible exploit. In this episode, Mariana walks us through: Why trying to close every possible loophole often backfires by making your program too complex for legitimate users The "accept and mitigate" approach: acknowledging that some people will try to game the system while capping your exposure How tying rewards to actual monetary actions creates natural fraud deterrence Setting per-person limits so even if someone does find a workaround, the damage is contained Thinking about fraud prevention as risk analysis rather than absolute protection How to balance moving fast with protecting your program from abuse Mariana also shares how this mindset extends beyond referral programs to everything her marketing team puts out at Hack the Box, where every campaign has to account for users who will look for alternative interpretations. Connect with Mariana on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marianadoncel/  Connect with us:  Get more customer marketing insights and strategies at impact.com/blog/  Connect with host Will on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/wifraser/   Have a question? Suggestion? Email us at advocacychannel@impact.com   Loving this show? Explore impact.com's other podcasts packed with insights: The Partnership Economy The Publisher's Playbook

Want to build a customer advisory board that actually drives business value? Struggling to figure out where to start or how to prove the ROI? To help, we welcome Cate Vanasse to The Advocacy Channel. Cate leads customer marketing at TalkDesk, where her team's mission is "igniting raving fans, driving growth, and building customers for life."  With extensive experience building and scaling customer advisory boards across multiple companies, Cate shares her practical framework for creating CABs that strengthen relationships, influence revenue, and create real brand advocates. In this episode, Cate walks us through: How to identify the right CAB members by balancing ideal account logos with the right human personalities in the room The art of balancing "give vs get" so it doesn't feel transactional Why in-person meetings matter for executive CABs versus when virtual works better for technical advisory boards Cate also shares insights from TalkDesk's CX Innovators Awards program, including how industry recognition has helped customers get promoted and secure internal resources.  Her closing advice? The best customer marketing programs don't start with a spreadsheet. They start with empathy. Connect with Cate on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catevanasse/  Connect with us:  Get more customer marketing insights and strategies at impact.com/blog/  Connect with host Will on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wifraser/  Have a question? Suggestion? Email us at advocacychannel@impact.com  Loving this show? Explore impact.com's other podcasts packed with insights: The Partnership Economy The Publisher's Playbook  

Want your referral program to succeed?  Start with the foundation first. Make sure your product infrastructure is solid and can handle growth before you launch. In this episode, we're excited to welcome Ashley Stead, Director, Growth Product at Nesto Group, a leading Canadian tech company building the mortgage ecosystem of the future. With over 15 years of experience spanning product management, UX research, marketing, and operations, Ashley brings a unique full-stack perspective to customer marketing and advocacy initiatives. In this episode, Ashley and our host Will Fraser dive into what it means to think about advocacy as infrastructure rather than one-off campaigns. Ashley shares her framework for creating product-led advocacy programs that integrate seamlessly into the customer journey.  From understanding the "micro-yeses" approach to breaking down complex customer paths, to navigating build vs. buy decisions and fostering collaboration between marketing and development teams, this conversation is packed with practical insights. In this episode, you'll discover: How to map customer journeys and identify the right moments for advocacy messaging without competing with other business priorities.  The framework for deciding when to build custom solutions versus buying existing platforms, and how to create hybrid approaches.  Strategies for empowering marketing teams to move quickly while keeping technical infrastructure robust and scalable.  The importance of breaking down big conversions into micro-yeses and understanding the data behind each step.  How to use AI tools and prompts to become more full-stack in your marketing role, even without technical resources. Listen to this episode to hear more about how infrastructure thinking can transform your advocacy programs and help you avoid the common mistakes marketers make with referral programs.  Connect with Ashley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-stead/ AI prompt from Ashley: The Advocacy Channel | Season 2 Episode 9 AI Prompt Connect with us:  Get more customer marketing insights and strategies at impact.com/blog/  Connect with host Will on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wifraser/  Have a question? Suggestion? Email us at advocacychannel@impact.com  Loving this show? Explore impact.com's other podcasts packed with insights: The Partnership Economy The Publisher's Playbook