Ryan Peterman
@ryanlpeterman • 28,045 subscribers
Quit my job to build the podcast & ergonomic keyboard I wish existed • ex-software engineer @instagram, @meta • See what I'm building here ↓
Videos
I don't think you'll be able to find a conversation like this one on the internet. I interviewed Ethan Evans (former Amazon VP) about every possible corporate politics situation I could think of and he told me everything since he's retired. Topics we covered: • Managing people out + promos via reorgs • Orgs trying to steal scope • How to fire managers • What leverage engineers have when getting managed out • Handling politically skilled operators • Examples of political messaging • Handling bad managers and mutiny • Empire building + effective backchanneling • Influence without authority • How to avoid politics if you hate them It was fascinating in a morbid curiosity kind of way. I heard so many things in this conversation which I wish weren't true but are. Hopefully this conversation is helpful for people navigating corporate politics. Where to watch: • YouTube: • Spotify: • Apple Podcasts: • Transcript:
Ryan Peterman2,974,327 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten
ex-Amazon VP (Ethan Evans): "One of the hardest things for people to understand is I've identified a legitimate weakness in my boss. I go to my skip. Why doesn't he do something? Well, if you come to me with a weakness in one of my employees, there is subconsciously this process that goes on that says, I have two choices. I can believe that you're overly sensitive and high maintenance. In which case, I don't really have a problem. You are the problem. And you know, you're two levels down for me. So if you quit, well, the manager has to do the backfill. And I can tell the manager, you know, Ryan was here. He said this, that and the other. Maybe you can work with him. And that's exactly what you don't want is me ratting you out. But I can make it my manager's problem. On the other hand, if I agree with you and I'm like, you know what, this manager I have really isn't that good. Now I have three problems. This is really bad for me. One, I have to decide what to do with my manager. Maybe I have to manage them out. Two, if I do manage them out, I have to hire and train somebody else. And three, while they're gone, I have to do all their work myself. So you can see why, even if it's subconscious, I have a lot of reasons not to listen "
Ryan Peterman1,247,080 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten
Avi Wigderson is the only person in history to have won both a Turing Award (computer science) and Abel Prize (math). I interviewed him all about his field. We discussed: • His intuition on a proof of P vs NP • Why we use SAT solvers for most NP problems • Zero knowledge proofs and their impact • Quantum computation and implications • Math and computer science's relationship Where to watch: • YouTube: • Spotify: • Apple Podcasts: • Transcript: Thank you to this episode's sponsors for supporting my work: • WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 01:08 - P vs NP 14:51 - What if you relaxed correctness 25:38 - Why NP complete problems are equivalent 30:33 - Space vs time complexity 43:06 - Why people use SAT solvers 45:53 - Randomness is a resource 55:48 - Randomness depends on computational power 01:21:20 - Zero knowledge proofs and their significance 01:38:30 - Quantum computation and why it matters 01:56:24 - Math vs computer science 02:08:16 - Major breakthroughs and his experience 02:12:31 - Advice for his younger self 02:14:48 - Outro
Ryan Peterman258,982 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
Bjarne Stroustrup is the creator of C++ and a former researcher at Bell Labs at its peak. I interviewed him about: • What made Bell Labs different • Programming language design: types, memory safety, bootstrapping • When abstraction improves performance • Anecdotes from building C++ • Thoughts on AI writing C++ • Mistakes he'd change while building C++ Where to watch: • YouTube: • Spotify: • Apple Podcasts: • Transcript: Thank you to this episode's sponsors for supporting my work: • Cursor 3: a unified workspace for building software with agents, check it out at • WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 0:50 - The origin of C++ 8:46 - What Bell Labs was like 17:24 - Dennis Ritchie 24:00 - When to build a programming language 31:59 - Bootstrapping a language 33:58 - C++ is not object-oriented 37:32 - Discussing type systems 46:20 - Memory safety 49:26 - Standards committee anecdotes 1:09:40 - Adding automatic garbage collection to C++ 1:18:25 - Template instantiation is Turing complete 1:21:57 - Abstraction and performance 1:28:51 - AI writing code 1:35:54 - His motivation 1:39:18 - Famous quotes 1:46:48 - Reflecting on building C++ 1:49:12 - Top C++ book recommendation 1:50:59 - Advice for his younger self 1:58:06 - Outro
Ryan Peterman322,029 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
Vlad Feinberg (Vlad Feinberg) is Google DeepMind’s pre-training area lead and I asked him all about how to land a job at a frontier lab like Google DeepMind, Anthropic or OpenAI. In this episode: • Skills frontier labs need • Differences between software engineering and AI research • Domains that matter for frontier research • Concrete steps engineers can take to get closer to research • Jeff Dean spot bonus story Where to watch: • YouTube - • Spotify - • Apple Podcasts - • Transcript - Thank you to the sponsor of this episode for supporting my work: • WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 00:33 - Skills frontier labs need 08:45 - The difference between AI research and engineering 21:41 - Domains that matter for the frontier 30:50 - Marketing yourself to frontier labs 35:13 - Concrete steps engineers can take 38:29 - Overview of pre-training areas 47:23 - Jeff Dean spot bonus story 50:14 - Favorite Gemini war story 58:59 - Advice for his younger self 01:03:07 - Outro
Ryan Peterman186,169 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
Boris Cherny (Creator of Claude Code): "The one technical book I would recommend to everyone that has had the greatest impact on me as an engineer is functional programming in Scala. You're probably never going to use Scala day today, but the way it teaches you to think about coding problems is just such a change from the way that most people were in coding, either practically or in school. It's just. It's incredible. It's going to completely change the way that you code now. I think in types, when I code, the thing that matters in your code the most is the type signatures. This is more important than the code itself." Boris Cherny
Ryan Peterman364,477 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten
Ryan Williams (Ryan Williams @rrwilliams.bsky.social) is a professor at MIT and the winner of the Gödel Prize in theoretical computer science. I interviewed him all about his work starting by asking him a popular Leetcode question (3 SUM). In this episode: • Solving Leetcode faster than popular "optimal" solutions • SAT problems and solvers • Hot takes on famous open questions • How to pick good research direction Where to watch: • YouTube - • Spotify - • Apple Podcasts - • Transcript - Thank you to the sponsor of this episode for supporting my work: • WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 00:41 - Asking him a popular Leetcode question 03:54 - Doing better than the popular optimal solution 08:26 - Fine grained complexity 17:00 - A severe strengthening of P vs NP 24:38 - SAT problems and solvers 34:51 - Hot takes on famous open questions 46:57 - Simulating space with time 01:01:02 - Why he solves hard problems 01:02:35 - How to pick good research direction 01:07:14 - Technical book recommendations 01:08:31 - Advice for his younger self 01:11:56 - Outro
Ryan Peterman83,584 Aufrufe • vor 29 Tagen
Boris Cherny ( Boris Cherny ) created Claude Code, but few know his full career story. Today I'm sharing an interview with him about how he grew as an engineer, we discussed: • Why every engineer needs "side quests" • Why being under leveled is a good thing • The story behind his growth to Principal (IC8) at Meta • Technical book that had the biggest impact on him as an engineer • The most important principle in product engineering • Claude Code stories & competition in AI coding products You can find the full episode here: • YouTube: • Spotify: • Transcript: • Apple:
Ryan Peterman577,196 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten
Xavier Leroy (creator of OCaml) is an expert in compilers, formal verification of software and functional programming. This interview should be an approachable resource if you're curious about formal verification of software since I was learning that on the fly during it. In this episode: • OCaml compared with Rust and JavaScript • What is formal verification and how does it work • How languages call each other across boundaries • How to address "almost-correct" LLM code • How type inference works in programming languages Where to watch: • YouTube - • Spotify - • Apple Podcasts - • Transcript - Thank you to the sponsor of this episode for supporting my work: • WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 00:43 - What sets OCaml apart 04:39 - OCaml vs Rust 07:57 - Why is manual memory management more performant 11:21 - Javascript vs OCaml 14:00 - Famous Rob Pike quote 16:05 - Type inference and how it works 22:12 - What is formal verification and how does it work 40:07 - What made multicore support difficult for OCaml 50:17 - How programming languages interface and call each other 57:41 - The danger of almost-correct LLM code 01:05:39 - How LLMs will change programming languages 01:10:26 - Industry vs academia 01:15:05 - Most interesting unsolved problems 01:18:30 - Top book recommendations for engineers 01:21:17 - Advice for his younger self 01:23:31 - Outro
Ryan Peterman23,082 Aufrufe • vor 8 Tagen
Simon Peyton Jones is the co-creator of Haskell (pure functional programming language) and I interviewed him about functional programming, why it matters, and his thoughts on other programming languages. In this episode: • Useful and useless programming languages • Rust vs C • Haskell vs OCaml • Why functional programming matters • Static languages and their value for LLMs • Why Excel is his 2nd favorite programming language Where to watch: • YouTube - • Spotify - • Apple Podcasts - • Transcript - Thank you to the sponsor of this episode for supporting my work: • WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 00:39 - What functional programming is 09:18 - Downsides of functional programming 10:53 - Specialized hardware for functional programming 21:47 - Haskell is useless 25:59 - Rust vs C 28:26 - Haskell vs OCaml 35:26 - Side effects in Haskell 44:26 - Type systems 57:30 - How the Haskell compiler works 01:04:35 - Why Haskell is talked about more than used 01:09:07 - Avoiding success at all costs 01:11:12 - LLMs and programming languages 01:13:57 - New programming language design 01:15:59 - Should students continue to learn programming 01:22:33 - Why Excel is is 2nd favorite programming language 01:25:04 - Advice for his younger self
Ryan Peterman127,721 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
Leslie Lamport won a Turing award for his fundamental contributions to distributed systems. For instance, he invented the Paxos consensus algorithm that is a critical component of many distributed systems today. I interviewed him about his work and career. We discussed: • Why he never considered himself smart • The stories behind Paxos and Byzantine Generals Problem • Experiences working with Dijkstra • Paxos vs Raft Algorithms • How to improve your thinking Where to watch: • YouTube: • Spotify: • Apple Podcasts: • Transcript:
Ryan Peterman338,615 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten
Marc Brooker ( Marc Brooker ) is a Distinguished Eng at AWS who has been building distributed systems there for almost 2 decades. I interviewed him about technical learnings from his experience. We discussed: • Learnings from 3000+ post mortems • When caching is a bad idea • How software engineering is changing • Visibility and apparent expertise • How to find the best problems Where to watch: • YouTube: • Spotify: • Apple Podcasts: • Transcript:
Ryan Peterman220,948 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten
Barbara Liskov (Turing Award Winner): "Python has modules, but it doesn't have encapsulation. It allows code on the outside to muck around with what's going on on the inside of a module. Encapsulation is a crucial part of making modularity work. And when you're building big programs so you have many programmers working on them, your team is really only as strong as your weakest programmer. So it's nice if the compiler can enforce things and make certain kinds of bad behavior not possible."
Ryan Peterman183,674 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
Bjarne Stroustrup (Creator of C++) on the costs of abstraction: "It's compiled away. This is why I talk about zero overhead abstraction. And people are beginning to take me to task for that because that's underestimating the ability of the C++ compiler. We can do negative overhead abstraction." Ryan: "What if you're really good at writing assembly and had all the time in the world to write it?" Bjarne: "If you are very smart and you have infinite time, you can do better. By and large, we are not as smart as the optimizers anymore, and we don't have infinite time."
Ryan Peterman144,978 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
Barbara Liskov is a Turing award winner famous for her contributions to programming languages and distributed systems. I interviewed her recently about: • Being rejected from college based on gender • The software crisis of the 1970s • Paxos vs Viewstamped replication (her invention) and why one is more well known • Stories of Dijkstra and how his work influenced hers • Why her Turing award was questioned Where to watch: • Youtube - • Spotify - • Apple Podcasts - • Transcript -
Ryan Peterman169,892 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten
Leslie Lamport (Turing Award Winner, Inventor of Paxos & Latex): "I would meet with Dijkstra once a week. When he thought of something, had some idea, he would write it down and send it out to people. He sent the first concurrent garbage collection algorithm. I looked at it, and I realized that I could simplify the algorithm. That seemed to me like a very simple idea, a very obvious idea. And I sent it to him, and then I got the next version of the paper. I discovered he had made me an author, and that had actually impressed Dijkstra. The reason for my success, the reason I wound up getting a Turing Award, was not that I was particularly that smart, but that I had this gift of abstraction, and Dijkstra was smart enough to realize that."
Ryan Peterman172,061 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten
Marc Brooker (AWS Distinguished Eng): "The downside of caches, especially in distributed systems, is they have this mode, where the cache is empty or contains the wrong data. The system is slow, often down, because now the backend isn't scaled to deal with all of this uncached traffic. Customers are very disappointed and often it is down in a stable way. Like it's still it's down, but it's not going to come back up under its own energy. Because, for example, all of this traffic is causing a huge amount of contention in my database or is saturating the network and so I can't even refill the cache. It's not even getting the right kind of data in In general, I prefer to see the teams around me avoiding caching where possible." Marc Brooker
Ryan Peterman136,918 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten
"C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do it, it blows your whole leg off." Bjarne (Creator of C++): "It's a good quote and it's correct. Arnold Penzias, who's got a Nobel Prize in physics, was once trying to explain to a large group of Bell Labs managers about C++, and he says you can't have a power tool without knowing how to use it. What is behind that is if you get a power tool and you misuse it, you will get more problems. Get a car that accelerates faster and it can wrap you around a tree in a way old fashioned, slow accelerating car can't. It's fundamental to having power tools."
Ryan Peterman97,234 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
Simon Peyton Jones (Co-creator of Haskell): "Why is the Internet so insecure? Primarily because all of our software infrastructure is written in unsafe languages like C. If we'd written all of our Internet software and operating Systems in Haskell, 99% of all these exploits would be removed by construction. It's like we've built a boat out of paper clips, and we're surprised if it's leaky. You shouldn't build boats out of paperclips, right, because they have holes in them. But then it's too late. So we spend incredible amounts of human ingenuity and effort patching the holes in our boat built of paper clips. It's tragic."
Ryan Peterman66,880 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat