GOTO - The Brightest Minds in Tech

The GOTO podcast seeks out the brightest and boldest ideas from language creators and the world's leading experts in software development in the form of interviews and conference talks. Tune in to get the inspiration you need to bring in new technologies or gain extra evidence to support your software development plan.

GOTO - The Brightest Minds in Tech is a technology podcast hosted by GOTO, with 332 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.

GOTO hosts GOTO - The Brightest Minds in Tech, a technology show with 332 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #58

  The Platform Engineer’s Handbook • Ajay Chankramath & Kaspar von Grünberg

  Aug 14, 202632 minS6

  This interview was recorded for the GOTO Book Club. http://gotopia.tech/bookclub Check out more here: https://gotopia.tech/episodes/451 Ajay Chankramath - Founder & CEO at Platformetrics & Co-Author of "The Platform Engineer’s Handbook" Kaspar von Grünberg - Founder & CEO at Stealth & Author of "Thinking in Platforms" RESOURCES Ajay https://www.linkedin.com/in/chankramath https://github.com/achankra https://x.com/ajchantw https://chankramath.com https://platformetrics.com Kaspar https://www.linkedin.com/in/kvgruenberg https://github.com/Kasparvongruenberg https://kasparvongruenberg.com Links https://peh-packt.platformetrics.com DESCRIPTION Ajay Chankramath — author of The Platform Engineer’s Handbook — joins Kaspar von Grünberg to unpack why he wrote a 14-chapter, code-first practitioner's guide instead of another theory-heavy platform book. The conversation's core thesis: the reason developers don't adopt platforms isn't a technology gap, it's a product discipline gap — a failure to treat developer experience as a first-class outcome with a real feedback loop. Ajay walks through the book's arc, from Kubernetes and service-mesh foundations through self-service portals to enterprise-grade concerns like policy-as-code and FinOps, and makes a pointed case for building on 100% open-source, vendor-agnostic tooling as a hedge against geopolitical and licensing whiplash. The most relevant thread for engineers building with AI today: citing a McKinsey finding that only 6% of AI initiatives show real productivity gains, Ajay argues that agentic AI doesn't reduce the need for platform engineering — it raises the stakes. As coding agents become genuine actors in the SDLC rather than tools, IDPs need a new layer for agent context, memory, tool registries, and guardrails, and that layer "must be built, owned, and operated by you," not bought off the shelf. His conclusion: the differentiator in the AI era isn't which frontier model you use — it's whether your platform foundations are solid enough to make agents safe and productive at all. RECOMMENDED BOOKS Ajay Chankramath • The Platform Engineer's Handbook • https://amzn.to/4eCSibM Ajay Chankramath & Eamonn Ryan • Domain-Driven Platform Engineering • https://amzn.to/3TdiC3J Chankramath, Cheneweth, Oliver & Alvarez • Effective Platform Engineering • https://amzn.to/3OnxN8i Kaspar von Grünberg & Luca Galante • Thinking in Plat­forms • https://weaveintelligence.io/thinking-in-platforms-book Gregor Hohpe • Platform Strategy • https://amzn.to/4cxfYdb Bluesky Instagram LinkedIn Facebook CHANNEL MEMBERSHIP BONUS Join this channel to get early access to videos & other perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs_tLP3AiwYKwdUHpltJPuA/join Looking for a unique learning experience? Attend the next GOTO conference near you! Get your ticket: gotopia.tech SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL - new videos posted daily!

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  Episode #57

  State of the Art of Platform Engineering • Abby Bangser & Charles Humble

  Aug 7, 202647 minS6

  This interview was recorded for GOTO State of the Art in April 2026. https://gotopia.tech Read the full transcription of this interview here: https://gotopia.tech/articles/450 Abby Bangser - Principal Engineer at Syntasso & Team Topologies Advocate Charles Humble - Freelance Techie, Podcaster, Editor, Author & Consultant RESOURCES Abby https://bsky.app/profile/abangser.bsky.social https://twitter.com/a_bangser https://github.com/abangser https://www.linkedin.com/in/abbybangser https://www.syntasso.io/members-area/abby/profile Charles https://bsky.app/profile/charleshumble.bsky.social https://linkedin.com/in/charleshumble https://mastodon.social/@charleshumble https://conissaunce.com Links https://blog.container-solutions.com/paula-kennedy-on-platform-team-responsibilities-patterns-and-anti-patterns http://sites.libsyn.com/406853/syntasso-coo-paula-kennedy-on-platform-team-responsibilities-patterns-and-anti-patterns https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/platform-as-a/0642572243777 https://github.com/Cloud-Native-Platform-Engineering/cnpe-community/issues/79 https://www.kratix.io https://leaddev.com/ai/nobody-knows-what-programming-will-look-like-in-two-years https://leaddev.com/ai/shipping-faster-thinking-less-the-ai-code-verification-trap https://www.cncf.io/blog/2023/11/20/announcing-the-platform-engineering-maturity-model https://platformengineering.com/features/portals-and-pipelines-arent-enough-avoiding-the-platform-facade DESCRIPTION Abby Bangser opens with a clear-eyed status report on platform engineering: the concept of centralizing shared capabilities with self-service delivery is well understood, but the execution keeps going wrong in the same way. Organizations move from DevOps to platform engineering, but their platform teams end up becoming the new bottleneck — a centralized group drowning under the weight of the entire organization's requests, which is exactly what DevOps was supposed to fix. Abby traces this to an architectural problem: too many platforms are still built as centralized Terraform machines rather than as a marketplace of composable offerings. Her "platform as a product" test is blunt and useful: has the team ever said "no" to a feature request, or deprecated something? If not, they don't have a product — they have a request queue. The AI dimension is where the conversation gets most urgent. Abby's position is direct: AI agents are the new forcing function for platform maturity. The biggest misconception she wants to dismantle is the persistent equation of platform engineering with infrastructure-as-code: renaming your Terraform team doesn't count. Platform engineering is about building an experience — for human developers and increasingly for AI agents — that is self-service, compliant, and coherent at organizational scale. The Team Topologies model of interaction modes (from high-collaboration to fully automated on-demand APIs) gives a useful health check for where a platform actually sits on that maturity curve. RECOMMENDED BOOKS Chankramath, Cheneweth, Oliver & Alvarez • Effective Platform Engineering • https://amzn.to/3OnxN8i Gregor Hohpe • Platform Strategy • https://amzn.to/4cxfYdb Bluesky Instagram LinkedIn Facebook CHANNEL MEMBERSHIP BONUS Join this channel to get early access to videos & other perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs_tLP3AiwYKwdUHpltJPuA/join Looking for a unique learning experience? Attend the next GOTO conference near you! Get your ticket: gotopia.tech SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL - new videos posted daily!

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  Episode #56

  The C4 Model: Visualizing Software Architecture • Simon Brown & Susanne Kaiser

  Jul 31, 202628 minS6

  This interview was recorded for the GOTO Book Club. http://gotopia.tech/bookclub Check out more here: https://gotopia.tech/episodes/449 Simon Brown - Author & Creator of "The C4 Model" Susanne Kaiser - Independent Tech Consultant & Author of "Architecture for Flow" RESOURCES Simon https://simonbrown.je https://bsky.app/profile/simonbrown.je https://twitter.com/simonbrown https://linkedin.com/in/simonbrownjersey https://c4model.com Susanne https://bsky.app/profile/suksr.bsky.social https://mastodon.social/@suksr https://www.linkedin.com/in/susannekaiser1 https://susannekaiser.net Links https://structurizr.com DESCRIPTION Simon Brown explains that the C4 Model started not as a grand design theory, but as a practical answer to an embarrassing problem: running a workshop on architecture diagramming, he realized he couldn't understand any of the diagrams being produced. The model formalized his own consulting practice of hierarchical handover documentation — context diagram at the top, containers below, components and code at the bottom — giving it a name and making it teachable. His core advice is to start with just the top two levels: context and container diagrams. These change infrequently, are quick to draw, and deliver immediate value. Levels three and four — components and code — are included for completeness but age rapidly with every commit, and in most cases aren't worth the maintenance overhead. Two especially practical insights emerge from the conversation. First, how to handle microservices: if your team owns all the services inside a system boundary, each service is a collection of C4 containers; if you depend on another team's service that you can't see inside, model it as an opaque software system. This maps naturally to how domain boundaries and team ownership actually work in practice. Second, the surprisingly important distinction between modeling and diagramming: C4's real value is the shared vocabulary — systems, containers, components, code — not the visual notation itself. Teams using entirely different tooling can communicate clearly because they've agreed on what the words mean. Simon is firm that there will be no C4 v2; the model is intentionally lightweight, and adding more would risk turning it into the next UML — comprehensive, heavy, and largely abandoned. RECOMMENDED BOOKS Simon Brown • The C4 Model • https://amzn.to/4xB9V33 Susanne Kaiser • Adaptive Systems With Domain-Driven Design, Wardley Mapping & Team Topologies • https://amzn.to/3XTmNCc Nick Rozanski &, Eóin Woods • Software Systems Architecture • https://amzn.to/4cOLtTv van Kelle, Verschatse &Baas-Schwegler • Collaborative Software Design • https://amzn.to/4iv0N8I Bluesky Instagram LinkedIn Facebook CHANNEL MEMBERSHIP BONUS Join this channel to get early access to videos & other perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs_tLP3AiwYKwdUHpltJPuA/join Looking for a unique learning experience? Attend the next GOTO conference near you! Get your ticket: gotopia.tech SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL - new videos posted daily!

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  Episode #55

  Cloud, Containers, Security & AI - What’s Now, What’s Next? • Adrian Mouat, Kief Morris & Sam Newman

  Jul 24, 202645 minS6

  This interview was recorded at GOTO Copenhagen 2025. https://gotocph.com Adrian Mouat - Developer Relations at Chainguard & Author of "Using Docker" Kief Morris - Author of "Infrastructure as Code" & Distinguished Engineer at Thoughtworks Sam Newman - Author of "Building Microservices" & "Monolith to Microservices" RESOURCES Adrian https://bsky.app/profile/adrianmouat.com https://twitter.com/adrianmouat https://github.com/amouat https://linkedin.com/in/adrianmouat http://www.adrianmouat.com Kief https://bsky.app/profile/kief.com https://twitter.com/kief https://github.com/kief https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiefmorris https://infrastructure-as-code.com https://kief.com Sam https://twitter.com/samnewman https://www.linkedin.com/in/samnewman http://samnewman.io http://samnewman.io/blog https://github.com/snewman ABSTRACT In this session, Sam Newman will interview Kief Morris and Adrian Mouat, both experts in their field. We will explore the current reality of security in the container world, how infrastructure automation is impacted by AI, and whether platform teams are actually working. We’ll also be taking lots of questions from the audience! [...] Read the full abstract here: https://gotocph.com/2025/sessions/3938 RECOMMENDED BOOKS Adrian Mouat • Using Docker • https://amzn.to/3PEYIJL Liz Rice • Container Security • https://amzn.to/3oU4iJe Kief Morris • Infrastructure as Code • https://amzn.to/4e6EBQc Sam Newman • Building Resilient Distributed Systems • https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/building-resilient-distributed/9781098163532 Sam Newman • Monolith to Microservices • https://amzn.to/2Nml96E Unlock The Mind Atlas Hear The Mind Atlas now on Spotify original score by mystery composer , narrated by Campo Bluesky Instagram LinkedIn Facebook CHANNEL MEMBERSHIP BONUS Join this channel to get early access to videos & other perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs_tLP3AiwYKwdUHpltJPuA/join Looking for a unique learning experience? Attend the next GOTO conference near you! Get your ticket: gotopia.tech SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL - new videos posted daily!

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  Episode #54

  Signals & Levers • Elisabeth Hendrickson, Joel Tosi & Charles Humble

  Jul 17, 20261h 3mS6

  This interview was recorded for the GOTO Book Club. http://gotopia.tech/bookclub Elisabeth Hendrickson - Advisor, Coach, Speaker & Co-Author of "Signals & Levers" Joel Tosi - Co-Founder & CTO at Dojo & Co & Co-Author of "Signals & Levers" Charles Humble - Freelance Techie, Podcaster, Editor, Author & Consultant Check out more here: https://gotopia.tech/episodes/448 RESOURCES Elisabeth https://ruby.social/@testobsessed https://github.com/testobsessed https://www.linkedin.com/in/testobsessed https://curiousduck.io Joel https://mastodon.social/@joeltosi https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-tosi-531a3b Charles https://bsky.app/profile/charleshumble.bsky.social https://linkedin.com/in/charleshumble https://mastodon.social/@charleshumble https://conissaunce.com Links https://ruthmalan.com http://www.ask-force.org/web/Discourse/Rittel-Dilemmas-General-Theory-Planning-1973.pdf DESCRIPTION Elisabeth Hendrickson and Joel Tosi open by explaining why systems thinking is having a moment right now: organizations that went all-in on Agile and DevOps are finding those returns plateauing, and the rise of AI is forcing engineering teams to reexamine where their real bottlenecks are. The book, Signals & Levers, gives software engineers a practical vocabulary and toolkit for that examination. A core insight is that most organizational dysfunction isn't caused by bad people or bad intentions, but by systems that produce bad outcomes predictably and structurally. The named archetypes in the book — over 20 of them, covering patterns like escalating technical debt, the "fixes that fail" loop, and the boiling frog — give teams a shared language to recognize and reason about those patterns without having to discover them from scratch. The most practically actionable section of the conversation covers signals versus levers: understanding the difference between information (a signal) and an intervention point (a lever) is the foundation for making changes that actually work rather than changes that feel productive and achieve nothing. On AI, both authors are cautious in the right ways: Elisabeth uses it daily as a thinking partner but keeps herself firmly at the steering wheel. Joel's warning is starker — AI amplifies whatever is already true about your organization, including dysfunction, and if it lets you ship faster than you can learn, the consequences may be severe. The book closes with an exercise for the reader: if AI doubles your delivery speed, what happens when you can ship faster than you can adapt? RECOMMENDED BOOKS Elisabeth Hendrickson & Joel Tosi • Signals & Levers • https://amzn.to/4g6Fb3C Diana Montalion • Learning Systems Thinking • https://amzn.to/3ZpycdJ Don Norman • The Design of Everyday Things • https://amzn.to/4fV6QVl Gene Kim • The Unicorn Project • https://amzn.to/3woXQDz Gene Kim, Kevin Behr & George Spafford • The Phoenix Project • https://amzn.to/3X9cYxa Peter Degrace & Leslie Hulet Stahl • Wicked Problems, Righteous Solutions • https://amzn.to/3ScP0D9 Frederick Brooks Jr. • The Mythical Man-Month • https://amzn.to/4gd10OV Gerald Weinberg • An Introduction to General Systems Thinking • https://amzn.to/4dZCsaO Donella H. Meadows • Thinking in Systems • https://amzn.to/3XtqYCV Bluesky Instagram LinkedIn Facebook CHANNEL MEMBERSHIP BONUS Join this channel to get early access to videos & other perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs_tLP3AiwYKwdUHpltJPuA/join Looking for a unique learning experience? Attend the next GOTO conference near you! Get your ticket: gotopia.tech SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL - new videos posted daily!

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