Brandon Whichard
@brandonwhichard.com
Product Marketing and Management, Host of Software Defined Talk
How normal people actually use AI, Alphabet's Anthropic-powered earnings, and the skills vs. agents debate this week.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 5d agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com, @cote.io and @mattray.dev discuss how normal people use AI, Alphabet's Anthropic-fueled earnings, and skills vs. agents. Plus, catching AI-cheating students with a hidden prompt. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/583
Bun's Rust rewrite, OpenAI's hunt for revenue, and Stripe possibly buying PayPal. Plenty to dig into this week.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 2w agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com, @cote.io and @mattray.dev discuss Bun's move to Rust, OpenAI hunting for revenue, and Stripe's bid for PayPal. Plus, Coté's Dad wisdom. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/582
Signadot's Arjun Iyer joins to talk ephemeral environments, letting AI agents run their own end-to-end tests, and how Brex saved $2M in cloud spend doing it.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 3w ago@brandonwhichard.com interviews Arjun Iyer, CEO & Co-founder of Signadot. They discuss Ephemeral Environments, AI agents running tests autonomously via MCP, & Brex saving $2M in cloud spend. Plus, Cisco buying AppD for ~$4B the day before the IPO. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/581
The .env file: every project has one, almost nobody manages it well. This week I sat down with the founders of varlock to talk about fixing that.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 4w agoEvery project has environment variables. Almost nobody manages them well. This week @brandonwhichard.com talks with Phil Miller and @theozero.bsky.social, who built varlock to fix that — bringing structure and security to the humble .env file. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/580
Anthropic's 18-day Fable outage, whether AI is actually killing jobs, and OpenAI's trillion-dollar IPO problem. Lots to discuss this week.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · last mo.This week, @brandonwhichard.com and @cote.io discuss Anthropic's 18-day Fable timeout, whether AI is actually killing jobs, and OpenAI's trillion-dollar IPO problem. Plus, SoftBank's golden goose slides. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/579
Who's winning the war for AI talent? We get into that, plus Gartner's new AI Governance MQ and some Fable follow-up.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · last mo.This week, @brandonwhichard.com, @cote.io and @mattray.dev discuss Fable follow-up, Gartner's AI Governance MQ, and the war for AI talent. Plus, Matt and Brandon review "Disclosure Day." https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/578
SpaceX drops $60B on Cursor, Fable gets banned, and when AI picks your dev stack it picks Lovable. We dig into all of it this week.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 2mo agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com, @cote.io and @mattray.dev discuss the Fable ban, SpaceX's $60B Cursor buy, and why Lovable wins when AI picks your stack. Plus, Europeans are at the World Cup and already drank Boston dry. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/577
Observability is still broken. OpenObserve's Prabhat Sharma and Shani Shoham explain why — and where AI takes it next.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 2mo ago@brandonwhichard.com talks with OpenObserve's Prabhat Sharma and Shani Shoham: why observability is still broken, how they fixed it, and where AI takes it next. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/576
NVIDIA going consumer, Microsoft Build, and the Anthropic/OpenAI IPO race. Who gets to the public markets first? Plenty to discuss this week.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 2mo agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com, @cote.io and @mattray.dev discuss NVIDIA going consumer, Microsoft Build, and the Anthropic/OpenAI IPO race. Plus, does credit card insurance work? https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/575
GitHub got breached, the tech IPO queue is building, and Cloudflare's CEO wrote an op-ed. We cover it all.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 2mo agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com, @cote.io and @mattray.dev discuss the Cloudflare CEO's op-ed, upcoming tech IPOs and GitHub getting breached. Plus, ranking our favorite manifestos. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/574
Joined the crew at The Enterprise AI Show to go through the biggest AI stories from May. A lot happened.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 2mo ago@brandonwhichard.com joins @bgracely.bsky.social on @theentaishow.bsky.social to break down the biggest AI stories from May 2026. theenterpriseaishow.com/episodes/192...
OpenAI drama, Google I/O, and apparently ChatGPT is a financial advisor now. Lots to discuss this week.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 3mo agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com and @mattray.dev discuss Google I/O, the OpenAI soap opera, and ChatGPT going full financial advisor. Plus, thoughts on improving the conference hallway track. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/573
How do you actually sell security to execs? We cover that, agentic coding's collision with security, and Cloudflare vs. Datadog taking very different paths this week.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 3mo agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com, @cote.io and @mattray.dev discuss how security gets sold to execs, where agentic coding and security collide, and Cloudflare vs. Datadog's diverging paths. Plus, Coté weighs in on sugar cookies. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/572
If AI labs are driving half of cloud revenue, why are the hyperscalers still laying people off? We discuss that contradiction this week.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 3mo agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com, @cote.io and @mattray.dev discuss AI labs driving cloud revenue, hyperscalers laying off instead of building, and kids defeating age verification. Plus, Brandon has too many thoughts on Workday. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/571
Had a good conversation with Brian Gracely covering the AI stories that actually mattered in April. Give it a listen.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 3mo ago@brandonwhichard.com joins @bgracely.bsky.social on @reasoningshow.bsky.social to break down the biggest AI stories from April 2026. https://www.reasoning.show/episodes/19128484
I'm on The Reasoning Show this week for the 2026 AI Draft. Let me know what I got wrong!
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 3mo ago@brandonwhichard.com joins @bgracely.bsky.social on @reasoningshow.bsky.social this week for the 2026 AI Draft — picking winners, losers, and the headlines that'll define the next year in AI. https://www.reasoning.show/episodes/19114514
What makes an agent an agent? Google has some answers. We have some follow-up questions. Also: AI's biggest critic gets the full treatment.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 3mo agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com, @cote.io and @mattray.dev discuss Google's enterprise agent stack, what makes an agent an agent, and AI's biggest critic. Plus, Coté wants better vision. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/570
Agents everywhere at Google Cloud Next, Apple's changing of the guard, and Cursor's very complicated acquisition. Lots to discuss this week.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 3mo agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com, @cote.io and @mattray.dev discuss agents taking over at Google Cloud Next, Apple's new CEO, and Cursor getting acquired (sort of). Plus, Coté's e-waste has no exit strategy. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/569
We dig into Claude's harness, the latest OpenAI drama, and whether Backstage has quietly become shelfware.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 4mo agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com, @cote.io and @mattray.dev discuss Claude's harness, OpenAI's ongoing drama, and whether Backstage is still a thing. Plus, Coté gives up on the green screen. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/568
What does it actually take to ship WebRTC at enterprise scale? Talked with Alberto González, CTO of WebRTC.ventures, about voice apps, streaming, and AI on the latest episode.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 4mo ago@brandonwhichard.com interviews Alberto González, CTO of WebRTC.ventures, on building voice and streaming apps for the enterprise — WebRTC integration, AI, and the unique challenges developers face. Plus kitesurfing tips. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/567
Between the Claude Code leak and the Axios supply chain attack, it's been a rough week for trusting software. We also get into locking down coding agents.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 4mo agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com, @cote.io and @mattray.dev discuss the Claude Code leak, locking down coding agents, and the Axios supply chain attack. Plus, Coté considers breaking up with his Gmail address of 20+ years. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/566
Crossed the streams this week. Brian Gracely and I went through all the AI chaos from March so you don't have to.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 4mo ago@brandonwhichard.com crossed over to @reasoningshow.bsky.social this week — he and @bgracely.bsky.social dug into the biggest AI stories from March. If you're trying to make sense of the last month in AI, start here. https://www.reasoning.show/episodes/18922706
Big bets gone wrong, OpenAI acquiring the Python toolchain, and Claude's favorite tools. The real question this week: should AI agents be shipping bug fixes faster than your human engineers?
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 4mo agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com and @mattray.dev discuss big bets gone wrong, OpenAI buying the Python toolchain, and Claude's favorite tools. Plus, how fast should AI agents ship bug fixes? https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/565
I've been building everything around Claude Code. @bgracely asked me to break down what that actually looks like day-to-day. Turns out, a lot changes.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 4mo ago@brandonwhichard.com joins @bgracely.bsky.social on @reasoningshow.bsky.social to discuss daily work-life changes when you make Claude Code the center of all workflow activities. https://www.reasoning.show/episodes/18903593
NVIDIA GTC, token budgets, and an AWS outage that definitely had nothing to do with AI.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 5mo agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com, @cote.io and @mattray.dev discuss NVIDIA GTC, token machines, token budgets, and an AWS outage that may or may not involve AI. Plus, Matt reviews The Wizard of Oz at The Sphere. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/564
Turns out Claude Code isn't just for coders. We've been using it to automate newsletters, status reports, and apparently taxes. Plus, Coté has feelings about it.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 5mo agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com and @cote.io discuss Claude Code for non-coders, automating newsletters and status reports, and AI tax prep. Plus, Coté finds unexpected joy in a coding assistant. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/563
Claude Code, Cursor, the future of the SDLC, and somehow Markdown is to blame for all of it. New episode is up.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 5mo agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com, @cote.io and @mattray.dev discuss Claude Code's momentum, Cursor's identity crisis, and the SDLC's uncertain future. Plus, Coté finally explains how Markdown is destroying the economy. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/562
Between AI rewriting COBOL and the predicted death of Microsoft Office, we’re covering a lot of ground this week. Plus, we debate if TSA PreCheck Touchless is the ultimate peak of airport efficiency.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 5mo agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com and @mattray.dev discuss AI-assisted COBOL migrations, the OpenClaw Foundation, and AI killing Office. Plus, is TSA PreCheck Touchless the peak of airport efficiency? https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/561
The Modern Stack simplifying cloud, AI hype cycles, and how bottoms-up adoption actually plays out. Lots to discuss this week.
Software Defined Talk@softwaredefinedtalk.com · 6mo agoThis week, @brandonwhichard.com, @cote.io and @mattray.dev discuss personal AI hype cycles, bottoms-up adoption, and "The Modern Stack" simplifying cloud. Plus, thoughts on new cars and the dogs that ride in them. https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/560