[Dev]olution

The development world is cluttered with buzzwords and distractions. Speed, focus, and freedom? Gone. I’m Nicky Pike. And it’s time for a reset. [Dev]olution is here to help you get back to what matters: creating, solving, and making an impact. No trend chasing, just asking better questions. What do devs really want? How can platform teams drive flow, not friction? How does AI actually help? Join me every two weeks for straight talk with the people shaping the future of dev. This is the [Dev]olution.

[Dev]olution is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 0 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts [Dev]olution, a business show with 0 episodes published.

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  Episode #25

  The Thing You Tested Isn't The Thing That's Running feat. Rick Clark

  Aug 19, 20261h 2m

  For 15 years, enterprises have signed off on a promise: the thing we tested is the thing that's running. Rick Clark , Global Head of Cloud Advisory at UST , says that promise dies the moment an agent starts making its own decisions in production. Rick helped build the cloud era himself, from Ubuntu Server to OpenStack to the Four Opens framework that still governs the OpenInfra community today. Now he's telling enterprise leaders that agentic AI is the biggest wave he's seen, bigger than cloud, bigger than open source, and it's compressing a decade of hard lessons into eighteen months. In this episode, Rick and Nicky Pike dig into why most enterprise leaders running agents in production can't fully trace what those agents are doing, why audit is the first promise to break, and why testing something yesterday tells you nothing about what it does today. If your company is racing agents into production before anyone's decided who signs off when it goes wrong, this conversation will change how you think about what "tested" and "deployed" actually mean. In this episode, you'll learn: Why the behavioral envelope replaces the pass or fail test for good How one company's 57 secret managers became a warning story Why the AI developer scares Rick more than any 2am coder ever did Things to listen for: (00:00) Meet Rick Clark (01:45) The cloud moment that changed everything for Rick (07:20) Is enterprise AI skipping the usual hype cycle (08:30) The stat that says agents can't be traced (13:45) Three promises about production that just broke (18:00) Why production is a promise, not a place (24:45) What a behavioral envelope actually replaces (29:00) How to test something you can't fully trust (32:45) The first thing a CTO should measure now (38:00) The 57 secret manager mess AI will amplify (48:00) Charred bodies and the cost of moving fast (51:00) Rapid fire on banks, AI, and observability (55:15) Predictions: when the tested artifact stops being a promise (58:50) Defining a Coder: promises a machine can keep (01:00:12) Final thoughts: getting this right instead of fast Resources : Rick Clark's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dendrobates/ UST website: https://www.ust.com

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  Episode #24

  If You Wake Up Hoping the Model Got Dumber, Get Out of That Business

  Aug 5, 20261h 10m

  Wave one was everyone grabbing a shovel and vibe-coding as fast as possible. Wave two is the bill showing up. Rob Whiteley has watched this movie before as he ran NGINX through the last major platform shift, and now as CEO of Coder , he's watching companies rack up token bills and security holes from software nobody thought to govern. In this episode, Rob sits down with Nicky Pike (full disclosure, Coder sponsors this show, and Rob signs Nicky's paychecks) to talk about what actually comes after the AI gold rush. They get into why the model layer is the one thing you should never lock yourself into, how to think about tiered model strategy using a tenured employee analogy, and why governance and rules are not the same thing. Rob also breaks down the real difference between a sandbox, a workspace, and a harness, and makes the case for why an engineer driving an agent will always beat a product manager doing the same. If your team is already sitting on a token bill nobody budgeted for, this conversation is your map for wave two. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why letting a product manager drive an agent alone puts your company at risk Why there will be just as many developers, only far fewer software engineers Why Rob expects two or three more Anthropic-style upsets before the year is out Things to listen for: (00:00) Meet Rob Whiteley (01:20) Why this wave feels different from cloud (06:59) Betting on infrastructure, not the tools (11:34) The Excel analogy for your job (15:39) One customer went from 800 apps to 10,000 (17:04) Your token bill is AWS all over again (21:40) Rating AI models like tenured employees (24:12) Why nobody saw the token bill coming (31:05) Governance and rules are not the same (36:20) Why an engineer beats a PM (40:47) Sandbox, workspace, or harness, know the difference (46:52) Why Coder refuses to bet on one model (56:48) Should you go vertical or horizontal (1:04:47) Predictions: who gets usurped and who wins (1:07:56) Defining a Coder: what it means to build Resources: Rob Whiteley's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwhiteley/ Coder website: https://coder.com/

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  Episode #23

  AI Is Writing More Code Than Humans Can Review

  Jul 29, 202649 min

  What happens when the AI coder moves faster than the review process can handle? Nnenna Ndukwe has spent 8+ years as a software engineer and now works at the intersection of AI, developer relations, and enterprise engineering strategy. As AI developer relations lead at Qodo , she spends her time helping teams separate useful AI adoption from expensive chaos. In this episode of [Dev]olution, Nnenna joins Nicky Pike to talk about the part of AI coding most teams skip: review, verification, governance, and the outer loop where AI-generated code either gets controlled or breaks production. They dig into why AI does not fix broken engineering systems, how rework rate exposes the truth behind AI productivity, and why better code review needs more than another stream of AI comments. What it needs, instead, are deterministic gates, developer trust, and a clear view of where AI belongs in the software delivery process. If your team is shipping faster but fixing more, this episode will make you rethink what “AI productivity” actually means. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why rework rate may expose AI productivity better than velocity How deterministic gates keep AI review from becoming noise Where engineering leaders should introduce AI first Things to listen for: (00:00) Meet Nnenna Ndukwe (01:52) From writing code to advising leaders (04:09) Why AI made the work more interesting (07:02) Paying it forward in women in tech (09:23) AI speed is breaking production (10:30) Where the delivery jam really happens (12:32) Why rework rate tells the truth (15:42) Can AI review AI code (17:21) AI amplifies your current process (20:34) The risk of AI review slop (23:19) Why acceptance rate matters (26:27) Human-agent work needs better rules (29:23) More tokens is not discipline (36:44) Where leaders should start (41:25) Predictions: More managing systems (45:49) Defining a Coder: A problem-solver (47:08) Final thoughts: Cut the noise of AI hype Resources : Nnenna Ndukwe’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nnenna-ndukwe/ Qodo website: https://www.qodo.ai/

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  Episode #22

  Coding Isn't the Bottleneck Anymore. Gene Kim Explains What's Next

  Jul 8, 20261h 17m

  Coding used to be the bottleneck. Gene Kim says that era is ending, and most companies are not ready for what comes next. In this episode of [Dev]olution, Gene Kim, author, DevOps researcher, and founder of IT Revolution , joins Nicky Pike to talk about what happens when software is no longer built only by developers. Gene has spent decades studying high-performing technology organizations. He’s since helped shape the DevOps movement and co-authored the books many engineers grew up reading. Now, he’s deep in vibe coding, working with leaders, doctors, military teams, and people who have never written code before. The big question: if everyone can suddenly build, can the rest of the company keep up? Nicky and Gene get into citizen developers, broken review gates, and why the next DevOps-sized shift may be 100x bigger. If your company is still treating AI coding like a developer productivity tool, this conversation is the reset. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why the outer loop becomes the real bottleneck when coding gets faster How citizen developers change the job of professional developers What teams should rethink before AI-generated work floods the pipeline Things to listen for: (00:00) Meet Gene Kim (02:30) The project that changed everything (08:55) Pair programming with non-developers (15:45) Why AI feels like the spreadsheet revolution (20:07) Coding isn't the bottleneck anymore (28:11) Nobody knows what comes next (35:01) Why AI should review AI code (44:51) What engineering teams should change Monday morning (50:05) AI becomes the next DevOps specialist (53:50) Could AI replace open source dependencies? (01:00:40) The economics of AI coding (01:04:20) Predictions: 50x more software from non-developers (01:11:10) Defining a Coder: Dreams becoming reality (01:14:20) Final thoughts: Learn from the frontier Resources: Gene Kim’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/realgenekim/ Gene Kim’s website: http://www.realgenekim.me/ IT Revolution website: https://itrevolution.com/

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  Episode #20

  96% of Companies Run AI Agents. Only 21% Can Control Them

  Jun 24, 20261h 1m

  96% of companies are running AI agents in production. Only 21% can actually control them. Gari Singh has watched this movie before. Three times. XML middleware, enterprise blockchain, and now AI infrastructure at Google Cloud , and every wave has the same opening act: teams rush to deploy before the platform team is even in the room. In this episode of [Dev]olution, Nicky Pike , and Gari break down what the outer loop actually costs you when agents go ungoverned, why "Ninja IT" is the new shadow IT, and what platform engineers need to do this Monday to stop building on a foundation that's already cracking. If you're still treating agent governance as a roadmap item, this episode is the reason to move it to the top of the list. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why automating bad processes with AI just makes bad things happen faster The three things every platform engineer should do this week, according to Gari Why MCP servers are the new SOAP and will disappear in five years Things to listen for: (00:00) Meet Gari Singh (02:00) What DataPower taught him about governing traffic (04:30) AI adoption versus the blockchain free-for-all (06:30) The stat that should scare every platform team (09:00) Why Kubernetes took a decade but AI took 18 months (14:30) Prompt injection and limiting the blast radius (18:00) Ninja IT is the new shadow IT (20:30) Automating bad processes just makes bad things worse (25:00) Self-managed MCP versus the enterprise version (28:30) Why YOLO mode survives elicitation (35:00) How platform teams hold the line without becoming the villain (39:30) The outer loop is still the bottleneck (44:00) Three things every platform engineer should do this week (51:00) Rapid fire with Gari (53:30) 2028 predictions and the governance reckoning Resources: Gari Singh’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garisingh/ Google’s website: https://www.google.com

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