
alphalist.CTO Podcast - For CTOs and Technical Leaders
by Tobias Schlottke - alphalist CTO Podcast
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Estimated from 2 chart positions in 2 markets.
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- 🇵🇪PE · Technology#2310K to 30K
- 🇷🇴RO · Technology#199500 to 3K
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5.3K to 17K🎙 Weekly cadence·135 episodes·Last published 1w ago - Monthly Reach
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11K to 33K🇵🇪91%🇷🇴9% - Active Followers
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3.1K to 9.9K
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From 12 epsHost
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Recent episodes
#140 From Stripe's Fifth Engineer to Serving Millions of Developers with Anurag Goel // Founder & CEO @ Render Goel
Jun 18, 2026
1h 12m 32s
#139 Your Future Job Is a Decision Inbox — Max Deichmann Built the Layer That Gets You There // Co-Founder @ Langfuse
Jun 4, 2026
1h 03m 25s
#138 From Hacker News to W3C: How One Amazon Engineer Accidentally Shaped the Future of AI Browsers // Alex Nahas, MCP-B
May 21, 2026
41m 12s
#137 - Only Three Search Engines Left Standing: One of Them Powers Your AI with JP Schmetz // Chief of Ads @ Brave
May 7, 2026
1h 33m 17s
#136 - AI Writes Code: Who Architects the Consequences? with Neal Ford // Software Architect & Author
Apr 23, 2026
56m 51s
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| Date | Episode | Topics | Guests | Brands | Places | Keywords | Sponsor | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6/18/26 | ![]() #140 From Stripe's Fifth Engineer to Serving Millions of Developers with Anurag Goel // Founder & CEO @ Render Goel | Before he founded Render, Anurag Goel was the fifth engineer at Stripe, where he watched roughly a fifth of the engineering team disappear into managing AWS, writing brittle, repetitive, error-prone infrastructure scripts that had nothing to do with the actual product. That experience became the seed for Render: a platform that automates away the undifferentiated DevOps work and lets application teams ship without standing up their own cloud team. Today, millions of developers build on it, and Render has raised over $260M from Bessemer and General Catalyst. In this episode, Tobi and Anurag get into what's actually changing as AI moves from hype to production. Anurag makes the case that agents are simply a new kind of application, long-running, stateful, tool-heavy, and a new kind of end user you have to design for. He explains why Render deliberately refuses the "AI cloud" label, what he's building with Workflows and sandboxes, and why the hardest part of shipping agents isn't building them but seeing inside them. The conversation also goes wide: how to hire executives when interviews lie, why short-lived keys and blast-radius thinking matter more than container escapes, how distribution is shifting from SEO to getting ChatGPT and Claude to recommend you, and why, despite all the "SaaS is dead" noise, specialization isn't going anywhere. Topics covered: Why ~20% of Stripe's engineers were stuck managing AWS and how that became Render "We're not the AI cloud, we're the application cloud," and why the distinction matters Agents, as a new type of application (and a new end user), you have to build for Render Workflows and sandboxes: the consolidated AI runtime Hiring executives when interviews are an imperfect signal Security as blast-radius management: short-lived keys over "admin forever" The shift from SEO to GEO, getting chatbots to recommend your product Why SaaS isn't dying, and specialization still wins | 1h 12m 32s | ||||||
| 6/4/26 | ![]() #139 Your Future Job Is a Decision Inbox — Max Deichmann Built the Layer That Gets You There // Co-Founder @ Langfuse✨ | AI agentsobservability+3 | Max Deichmann | LangfuseClickHouse+1 | — | LangfuseClickHouse+5 | — | 1h 03m 25s | |
| 5/21/26 | ![]() #138 From Hacker News to W3C: How One Amazon Engineer Accidentally Shaped the Future of AI Browsers // Alex Nahas, MCP-B✨ | Web standardsAI development+5 | Alex Nahas | OAuthSAML+7 | — | MCPOAuth+7 | — | 41m 12s | |
| 5/7/26 | ![]() #137 - Only Three Search Engines Left Standing: One of Them Powers Your AI with JP Schmetz // Chief of Ads @ Brave✨ | search enginesAI infrastructure+4 | Jean-Paul Schmetz | BraveGoogle+4 | — | search enginesAI companies+5 | — | 1h 33m 17s | |
| 4/23/26 | ![]() #136 - AI Writes Code: Who Architects the Consequences? with Neal Ford // Software Architect & Author✨ | AI in software developmentsoftware architecture+5 | Neal Ford | ThoughtWorks | — | AIsoftware architecture+7 | — | 56m 51s | |
| 1/29/26 | ![]() #135 - From Legacy to Innovation: Yahoo's Modernization & AI with Lee Zen // CTO @ Yahoo✨ | modernizationAI+4 | Lee Zen | Yahoo | — | Yahoomodernization+5 | — | 37m 55s | |
| 1/15/26 | ![]() #134 - From Inner to Outer Loop: Agentic Coding, Stacking PRs, and the Cursor Merger with Greg Foster // CTO @ Graphite✨ | software engineeringInner Loop+5 | Greg Foster | GraphiteCursor | — | agentic codingsoftware engineer+5 | — | 54m 51s | |
| 12/15/25 | ![]() #133 - Build the Learning Machine: AI Adoption, Flow Metrics, and the Future of the CTO Role with Eric Bowman✨ | AI adoptionagentic engineering+4 | Eric Bowman | King.comTomTom+1 | — | AI-assisted commitsDORA+5 | — | 57m 00s | |
| 11/27/25 | ![]() #132 - Clarity Over Tooling: Velocity & Building Teams Without Drama with Loïc Houssier // CTO @ Superhuman Mail✨ | execution velocityteam clarity+4 | Loïc Houssier | Superhuman MailDocuSign+1 | — | execution velocityteam missions+6 | — | 54m 11s | |
| 11/13/25 | ![]() #131 - AI Product Strategy: When to Build and When to Wait with Matthias Keller // CPO @ Kayak✨ | AI product strategyemerging platforms+5 | Matthias Keller | KayakETH Zurich | — | AI strategyproduct management+6 | — | 51m 41s | |
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| 10/16/25 | ![]() #130 - From PhD Research to DuckDB: Building the Next Generation of Analytical DBs with Mark Raasveldt // CTO @ DuckDB✨ | analytical databasesopen source+3 | Mark Raasveldt | DuckDBParquet+2 | — | DuckDBanalytical databases+3 | — | 53m 12s | |
| 9/18/25 | ![]() #129 - $32B Lessons: Building CTO Teams, Rapid Innovation, and Staying Customer-Connected with Solal Raveh✨ | CTO teamsrapid innovation+4 | Solal Raveh | WizCTO+1 | — | $32 billiontechnical teams+5 | — | 48m 12s | |
| 9/4/25 | ![]() #128 - From Tickets to Problems: Klaus Breyer // Head of Product & Technology @ Edding✨ | agile transformationscollaboration+4 | Klaus Breyer | B2B driver license verification systemEdding+1 | Germany | agilecollaboration+6 | — | 55m 33s | |
| 8/7/25 | ![]() #127 - Kelsey Hightower's Unfiltered Truths: 25 Years of Infrastructure, DevOps, and Retiring at 42 | What happens when a distinguished engineer who shaped the cloud-native landscape decides to retire at 42? Kelsey Hightower, a pivotal figure in the Kubernetes community and former Google engineer, shares brutally honest insights from his 25-year journey. This isn't a conversation about the next hype cycle; it's a masterclass in the timeless principles of infrastructure, maintenance, and technical strategy. From the fallacy of technology replacement to the hard business realities that should drive engineering decisions, Kelsey provides a minimalist's guide to navigating complexity. Learn why most companies should embrace managed services, why engineers who can't link commits to revenue are at risk, and what the future of AI really means for the systems we build and maintain. Technical insights for CTOs and engineering leaders: - 🏗️ System Accumulation: Why new technology rarely replaces the old, leading to a complex, multi-generational stack that must be maintained. - ☁️ Managed Services: The economic and expertise-driven argument for outsourcing infrastructure management. - 🔄 Evolutionary Architecture: How to avoid the trap of making permanent technology decisions on day one. - 💰 Business-Driven Engineering: The critical need for engineers to understand revenue, and for CTOs to use business metrics to guide technical priorities. - 🤖 The AI Reality: A grounded take on how AI will impact software, and the fundamental system evolution required for it to reach its true potential." | 1h 00m 30s | ||||||
| 7/24/25 | ![]() #126 - AI Transformation at Scale: Practical Adoption Across 150+ Engineers with Peter Gostev // Head of AI @ Moonpig | How do you drive meaningful AI transformation across 150 software engineers without mandates or force? Peter Gostev, Head of AI at Moonpig, reveals the technical strategies and organizational approaches behind scaling AI adoption from 130 to 400+ users while navigating the gap between industry hype and implementation reality. From managing complex integration challenges where 80% of AI projects involve traditional software engineering to implementing three-pillar strategies (tool adoption, automation workflows, experimental features), Peter shares hard-earned insights on building AI capabilities through process re-engineering rather than simple automation. Technical insights for CTOs and engineering leaders: • 🏗️ Portfolio approach: balancing quick wins with experimental high-impact projects • ⚡ Prototype-first methodology for validating AI solutions before full development • 🤖 Reality gap between agentic AI hype and production deployment complexity • 👥 Organic adoption strategies that scale without top-down mandates • 🔧 Custom GPT frameworks for non-technical subject matter experts • 📊 Why most AI work is integration, scaffolding, and deployment—not just AI • 🔄 Process re-engineering with AI: changing workflows rather than automating existing inefficiencies | 1h 05m 48s | ||||||
| 7/10/25 | ![]() #125 - Two CTO Dinosaurs vs. Today's Tech Hype with Raz Shuty // CTO @ auxmoney | What happens when two experienced CTOs sit down to debunk the latest tech trends? Raz Schweiger-Shuty, CTO at auxmoney, joins Tobi for an unfiltered discussion about the hypes, myths, and wastes of resources that plague modern tech companies. After taking over a 17-year-old fintech platform with no prior CTO, Raz made controversial decisions that flew in the face of conventional wisdom: stopping a microservices migration, questioning Kubernetes adoption, and focusing on measurable business value over engineering trends. His ""dinosaur CTO"" perspective offers a refreshing antidote to tech hype. This conversation cuts through the noise with practical insights on: • 🚫 Why every monolith-to-microservices story ends the same way (spoiler: badly) • 💰 Reducing cloud costs from €120k to €85k through systematic waste elimination • 🔧 When Kubernetes complexity becomes a liability rather than an asset • 📊 Using DORA metrics and cost-per-transaction instead of vanity metrics • 🏗️ Building modular monoliths with domain-driven design principles • 👥 Organizing engineering teams around business value streams, not technology stacks | 1h 03m 15s | ||||||
| 6/27/25 | ![]() #124 - The Path to AGI: Inside poolside’s AI Model Factory for Code with Eiso Kant | How do you build a foundation model that can write code at a human level? Eiso Kant (CTO & co-founder, Poolside) reveals the technical architecture, distributed team strategies, and reinforcement learning breakthroughs powering one of Europe’s most ambitious AI startups. Learn how Poolside operates 10,000+ H200s, runs the world’s largest code execution RL environment, and why CTOs must rethink engineering orgs for an agent-driven future. | 1h 03m 56s | ||||||
| 6/12/25 | ![]() #123 - From Nokia to AI-IoT: Engineering the Physical World with Bernd Groß // CEO @ Cumulocity | The physical world is becoming digital—and it requires fundamentally different technical architecture than traditional IT systems. Bernd Groß leads technical leaders through the evolution from enterprise software to industrial IoT, where real-time data from 30,000 wind turbines and millisecond-level decision-making define system requirements. As co-founder and CEO of Cumulocity, Bernd has navigated one of tech's most complex domains: connecting industrial hardware through standardized platforms. His journey from Nokia's early cloud computing initiatives to building Germany's leading IoT platform offers unique insights on technical leadership in physical-digital convergence. Technical leaders will gain valuable perspectives on: • 🏗️ Architecting speed-layer systems that handle 50TB monthly data flows while maintaining real-time responsiveness • 🔄 Managing technical debt across hundreds of industrial protocols while modernizing from monoliths to microservices • 🤖 Implementing "AI-IoT" strategies that bridge machine learning models with operational technology deployments • ⚡ Building edge-cloud hybrid architectures for regulated environments and latency-critical applications • 🛠️ Engineering platforms that scale from device management to data operationalization across industrial verticals | 1h 03m 07s | ||||||
| 5/16/25 | ![]() #122 - Grid Control in Milliseconds: Engineering Energy Systems with Barbara Wittenberg // CTO @ 1KOMMA5° | Behind the renewable energy revolution lies complex technical infrastructure that CTOs across industries can learn from. Barbara Wittenberg leads a 250-person tech team at 1KOMMA5° that manages real-time data from 40,000+ connected energy assets while coordinating post-merger integration across 80+ companies in 7 countries. This episode unveils the technical architecture powering virtual power plants, where millisecond-level responsiveness can prevent grid failures and optimize energy usage. Barbara's journey from electrical engineering to Oracle and Google, then back to energy tech, provides unique insights on combining domain expertise with cutting-edge technology. Technical leaders will appreciate: - 🔄 How to manage distributed systems requiring real-time synchronization across numerous endpoints - 🧩 Strategies for standardizing operations while respecting existing successful processes after acquisitions - 🛠️ Practical applications of AI for automating complex technical explanations to customers - 🌐 Navigating complex regulatory environments that differ by country, region, and technical standards - 🚀 Building technical platforms that unite previously disconnected systems and data flows | 1h 01m 14s | ||||||
| 5/1/25 | ![]() #121 - Canva's Playbook: Scaling Teams, Tech, and AI with Adam Schuck // Senior Engineering Director @ Canva | In this episode, Tobi chats with Adam Schuck, Senior Engineering Director at Canva, a company that has scaled to over 5,000 employees, 2,000+ engineers, and 230 million MAUs while remaining profitable. Adam shares his journey through startups (including acquisitions by Twitter and Canva) and large tech companies like Google, leading to his current role managing 220 engineers at Canva. They dive deep into the challenges and strategies behind Canva's hypergrowth, including: 📈 Scaling engineering teams from 150 to over 2000. 🏗️ Implementing a career framework (Growth & Development Framework) relatively late at 1000+ engineers, moving beyond "minimum viable structure." 🤖 Canva's approach to AI: Viewing it as a tailwind, fostering experimentation ("AI Impact"), providing broad access to tools (Cursor, Copilot, LLMs), and emphasizing human responsibility ("humans as shepherds"). 💻 The core technology decisions enabling Canva's success, particularly the operational transformation logic for real-time concurrent editing and the strategic shift to a unified web-based mobile experience (WebX). ⚙️ Maintaining a startup culture of adaptability despite massive scale. 📅 Adam's personal productivity hacks for leaders, focusing on ruthless calendar management and clear goal setting. | 1h 01m 03s | ||||||
| 4/17/25 | ![]() #120 - AI's Singularity & Commoditization: Navigating Hype vs. Reality with Georg Zoeller // Co-Founder @ C4AIL | In this episode, Tobi talks with Georg Zoeller, Co-Founder of the Centre for AI Leadership and mercenaries.ai, about the turbulent landscape of AI. Georg, with his background at Meta and deep expertise in AI strategy, cuts through the hype surrounding AI's capabilities and economic impact. They discuss the 'singularity' we're already in, driven by rapid, open-source AI development, and why this makes future predictions impossible. Georg argues that software engineering is being commoditized due to the vast amount of training data available (Stack Overflow, GitHub), making AI adept at code generation but raising profound security concerns like prompt injection. Explore: - Why Georg believes blindly adopting AI early is a 'terrible mistake' for most companies. - The fundamental security flaws in LLMs (prompt injection) and why they're currently unsolvable for open input spaces. - The questionable economics of AI: high costs, self-cannibalizing business models, and the reliance on performative fundraising. - How AI tools impact engineer productivity, shifting the bottleneck to decision-making and validation. - The geopolitical risks and diminishing trust associated with Big Tech's AI dominance. - Actionable advice for CTOs: Invest in understanding, focus on governance beyond the tech team, and consider the strategic value of local/open-source alternatives. | 1h 13m 51s | ||||||
| 4/4/25 | ![]() #119 - Navigating Ambiguity and AI's Impact on Engineering feat. Ivan Kusalic // CTO @ Enpal | In this episode, Tobi talks with Ivan Kusalic, CTO of Enpal, who leads a team of 250 engineers at one of Germany's leading solar energy companies. Ivan shares insights from his extensive technical leadership journey and his recent return to coding after seven years due to his excitement about AI. Ivan discusses how he navigates complexity and ambiguity in the renewable energy sector, where Enpal builds systems to help households manage solar panels, batteries, EV chargers, and heat pumps as integrated energy solutions. He explains the challenges of coordinating with Germany's fragmented energy grid infrastructure and how Enpal's Virtual Power Plant stabilizes the grid by coordinating household energy consumption in real-time. Discover: - 🧠 How Ivan uses intuition as a leadership tool while managing complex technical organizations - 🌞 The technical challenges of building integrated renewable energy systems for households - ⚡ How Enpal's Virtual Power Plant (VPP) helps stabilize the energy grid through coordinated home energy management - 📱 Ivan's personal productivity system and thought management techniques - 🤖 Insights on AI's impact on engineering productivity and the future of coding - 🚀 Practical tips for managing complexity and making decisions in ambiguous environments | 56m 31s | ||||||
| 3/20/25 | ![]() #118 - Radical Engineering Culture and High Bar Hiring feat. Stefan Richter // Founder & CTO @ freiheit.com technologies | Discover insights into building a high-performance engineering organization with Stefan Richter, founder of freiheit.com technologies. With 25+ years of experience delivering successful software projects for the Who’s Who of European businesses and industries, Stefan shares his philosophy of radical engineering culture and maintaining an exceptionally high bar in recruiting. This episode dives deep into how freiheit.com has achieved their "Never Late, Never Failed" mission through disciplined processes, carefully selected talent, and a relentless focus on simplicity. Listen to find out 🎯 Why shipping great software is their mission 🧑💻 How they maintain a high bar in recruiting with "tested in life" candidates 📊 Their approach to engineering career levels and continuous feedback 🏗️ Why they prefer full stack engineers over specialized roles 🧩 How they build complex systems from simple components ⚙️ Their custom-built engineering project management tool 🔄 Their program to continually find and remove friction 📈 How they've delivered every project successfully for 25 years 🔍 Why reducing entropy is critical in large software projects 🌐 Why great software should be simple and maintainable for decades | 1h 02m 51s | ||||||
| 2/7/25 | ![]() #117 - Navigating AI Trends with Dat Tran // Partner & CTO @ DATANOMIQ, VP AI/ML @ Beams Safety AI | AI is moving faster than ever, and staying ahead of the curve is a challenge for every tech leader. In this episode, Dat Tran joins Tobi to break down what’s happening in the AI space, from cutting-edge model releases to AI-powered productivity tools and the global race for AI dominance. Dat has spent years leading AI teams at Idealo and Axel Springer, co-founding AI-driven startups, and now helps companies make sense of AI without the fluff. Together, they explore the latest AI trends, the reality behind AI agents, and how engineering teams can actually get more done with AI today. 🚀 Dat’s journey in AI and tech leadership – From hacking on machine learning before it was cool to leading AI at Axel Springer and co-founding AI startups 🤖 DeepSeek R1’s impact – Why this new Chinese AI model is shaking up the industry and what makes it different from OpenAI’s GPT and Meta’s Llama 🛠️ AI agents & automation – What’s real and what’s just hype? Where do AI agents actually work in business today? 💻 The evolution of coding assistants – How AI tools like Cursor and GitHub Copilot are redefining what it means to be a full-stack engineer 🌍 The global AI race – Is Europe really falling behind? A look at China’s AI boom, US dominance, and what European AI companies need to do to compete 📈 CTO strategies for AI adoption – How to separate hype from real opportunities and where AI can have the biggest impact in engineering teams today If you’re a CTO, AI enthusiast, or just trying to keep up with the latest AI breakthroughs, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss. | 1h 08m 42s | ||||||
| 1/22/25 | ![]() #116 - Exploring Platform Engineering feat. Camille Fournier // CTO @ Open Athena & Author @ O'Reilly Media | How do you create an effective platform team and optimize DevOps? Tobi interviews Camille Fournier about her career, technical insights, and best practices in platform engineering. Camille shares her journey from building her own computers and installing Linux in high school to becoming Managing Director at JPMorgan Chase and authoring influential books for engineers 📚. 👩💻 Camille's early fascination with computers and engineering, including building her own systems and installing Linux 📚 Authoring 'The Manager's Path' and 'Platform Engineering' 🌐 Understanding platform engineering and its evolution from DevOps 🚀 Challenges and strategies in platform engineering for larger companies 💡 Key advice for CTOs on starting and managing successful platform teams | 1h 03m 04s | ||||||
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Chart Positions
2 placements across 2 markets.
Chart Positions
2 placements across 2 markets.

























