https://www.kazi.io/ Every Meta-Cast and Tech Teams Today episode and every Leadership Lighthouse article, in one feed. en-us Wed, 21 Oct 2026 16:59:51 GMT https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/i-stopped-hedging-in-interviews-it https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/i-stopped-hedging-in-interviews-it Wed, 21 Oct 2026 06:53:33 GMT Leadership Lighthouse Early in my leadership career, every interview eventually got to the same question. What kind of leader are you? What’s your culture? I knew the answer. I’m a team-first leader, and I have been for as long as I’ve led… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/the-1-measuring-stick-we-hold-every-leader-to f415fa3a-6c92-44b7-a05b-731b135d17bd Mon, 19 Oct 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast What would change if you treated every person on your team as someone else's precious cargo? A friend of the show visited her son at Fort Bragg and came home less worried, because his leaders clearly took responsibility… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/your-ai-tokens-need-to-earn-4x-heres https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/your-ai-tokens-need-to-earn-4x-heres Wed, 14 Oct 2026 10:52:37 GMT Leadership Lighthouse A few weeks ago I sat down with a VP who is advising everyone he can about what he calls “The Great Token Teckoning of 2027.” His finance team has started asking about the AI bill and the associated/expected ROI. The… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/the-4x-rule-every-feature-must-pass 5b7ca0c8-d7f4-4dbc-9092-650bff917365 Mon, 12 Oct 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Josh and Bob discuss growing finance pressure over AI token spend—dubbed the “great token reckoning of 2027”—and the mismatch between claimed 10x developer productivity and lack of comparable revenue gains. Bob shares a… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/we-spent-25-years-getting-out-of https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/we-spent-25-years-getting-out-of Wed, 07 Oct 2026 04:30:33 GMT Leadership Lighthouse At one of my first jobs in North Carolina, there were stacks of 3-inch binders on a shelf with a layer of dust on them. I asked what they were, and why there was a shelf full of them in everyone’s cube. The answer was… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/CTO--CircleCI--Why-He-Is-Still-Hiring-Juniors-When-Everyone-Else-Stopped-e3pv2pr 5aeba29f-9bf5-4671-9989-a5978ff66cc5 Tue, 06 Oct 2026 14:00:00 GMT Tech Teams Today Rob Zuber has been CTO at CircleCI for just over 12 years. He came in through an acquisition, shipped a PR that took down production in his first week, and now runs an engineering org of a little over 100 people while… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/define-great-before-you-hire-for https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/define-great-before-you-hire-for Thu, 01 Oct 2026 08:32:35 GMT Leadership Lighthouse Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash Early in my career, I had to hire 1 new squad every quarter. That’s 6 to 8 engineers every 3 months, and I knew early on that the whole thing couldn’t rest on my shoulders. If the… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/the-new-ai-hiring-skills-are-the-ones-you-always-needed 029091de-8884-4d09-a3a2-91f8120c45a3 Mon, 28 Sep 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Open any hiring feed this year and you'll find a fresh list of skills for the AI era. Discernment. Judgment. Taste. Bob Galen and Josh Anderson think the list is fine. They just think it's old. The human skills behind… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/EVP-of-AI--DonerColle--HowTo-Transform-A-Creative-Agency-With-AI-e3p9kup c5aa8cde-5598-46d1-8b96-47e0f4c8ffc7 Thu, 24 Sep 2026 14:00:00 GMT Tech Teams Today Doug Guttenberg owns AI transformation at DonerColle Partners, a creative agency, and he's never been a developer. Since early 2024, he's built a team of about 15 engineers and creative technologists, and most of them… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/building-a-personal-brand-my-approach https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/building-a-personal-brand-my-approach Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:10:23 GMT Leadership Lighthouse Photo by Bagzhan Sadvakassov on Unsplash Somewhere in the corner of a closet or jammed in the back of a “junk drawer,” there’s an iPod with my voice on it. That’s how early we were to podcasting. We recorded an episode… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/VP--REPAY--The-AI-in-Payments-Playbook-Accuracy--Human-Review--and-Guardrails-e3ouq0b 25650421-d393-4d29-a766-aa587b32ab61 Thu, 17 Sep 2026 14:00:00 GMT Tech Teams Today Kish Khemani runs AI architecture for B2B payments at REPAY, and he's been leading engineering teams since his first job in 1993, building a C++ compiler at a Silicon Valley startup. His current team is roughly 20… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/i-argued-my-boss-out-of-a-rule-once https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/i-argued-my-boss-out-of-a-rule-once Wed, 16 Sep 2026 08:13:30 GMT Leadership Lighthouse Early in my career, I was building products in Visual Basic 6, and every variable I wrote started with a 3-letter prefix. strName. intCount. dtmStart. Hungarian notation, if you’re old enough to remember it. It wasn’t a… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/does-code-quality-still-matter-when-ai-writes-it 8269030d-d318-4859-b930-576ba69714b2 Mon, 14 Sep 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast The hottest take on LinkedIn right now is that coding was never the bottleneck. Josh and Bob have hired hundreds of developers, sat through the "why is this taking so long" meetings, and lived through waterfall, so… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/Recruiting-Leader--Zapier--Its-Not-Bots-Versus-Bots--Whats-Actually-Breaking-Hiring-in-2026-e3ojt3i 202d3dbb-f628-4b31-8fb5-e08c47264038 Thu, 10 Sep 2026 14:00:00 GMT Tech Teams Today Every hiring process at Zapier now includes an AI fluency assessment. Candidates are encouraged to use AI in technical work. And a human still reviews every single application that moves forward. Bonnie Dilber runs… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/if-being-great-isnt-the-plan-skip https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/if-being-great-isnt-the-plan-skip Wed, 09 Sep 2026 08:49:27 GMT Leadership Lighthouse Photo by Mark König on Unsplash 30 years ago, I walked into my college weight room on a testing day. It was the off-season, and we were deep into our strength training. About 100 of us were there, and the day’s test was… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/most-leaders-cant-answer-this-one-capacity-question e6d2c7b7-21a3-47d3-be74-185ad849e274 Mon, 07 Sep 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast There's a squeeze on right now, and it's landing hardest on middle managers and senior leaders. Do more with less. Do more with the same. Lead the team and ship the code. The player-coach role used to be a startup… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/dont-spend-40-minutes-trying-prove https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/dont-spend-40-minutes-trying-prove Wed, 02 Sep 2026 04:48:32 GMT Leadership Lighthouse For a long stretch of my career, I did good work and kept it to myself. Not deliberately. My teams were always improving something. Cutting a deploy from an hour down to 10 minutes. Killing a manual step that ate… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/expectation-inflation-is-stronger-than-ever 6b35a362-d2a6-42e2-86d0-7c44927726a8 Mon, 31 Aug 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Bob and Josh take on expectation inflation, the widening gap between what executives believe AI can do and what your team can actually deliver. Bob tells the bourbon and cigar story about a date he was committed to… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/SVP-of-People--Kalkomey--60-Of-Your-Applicants-Arent-Real-People-e3nu95v c1536ebc-832b-4eac-a69d-ea4a136e1775 Thu, 27 Aug 2026 14:00:00 GMT Tech Teams Today Every resume looks great now. That's the problem. Sam Baber runs people operations at a 100-person distributed company, and somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of the applications hitting his team's inbox are… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/just-ask https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/just-ask Wed, 26 Aug 2026 06:32:14 GMT Leadership Lighthouse Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash Years ago I went to Bob Galen and told him I needed help. I was doing “fine” on paper. Teams shipped, numbers landed, customers were happy, and nobody was worried about me. But I KNEW I… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/just-ask-us-for-help 2a4f860c-ade4-4361-9370-3c2f3fb87ac6 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Somebody finally sent Josh a message asking for help, and it turned into an episode. Bob and Josh break down every reason people talk themselves out of reaching out, what separates a good mentee from a one-reply… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/most-hills-are-just-furniture https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/most-hills-are-just-furniture Wed, 19 Aug 2026 05:53:40 GMT Leadership Lighthouse I was standing in the corner of our large, open office watching my team push their own desks across the floor, and I could see it landing on them one at a time. We were growing fast. I’d built out the space myself, and… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/when-being-stubborn-is-leadership-and-when-its-ego bb261491-2306-4914-8a33-c26a67a40ed6 Mon, 17 Aug 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Bob sings The Gambler and turns it into a leadership question. He quit a job after 4 days when he learned he'd been hired as the ax man. Josh called off an office redesign mid-move. A million-dollar pod experiment… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/my-number-one-rule-for-1-on-1s https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/my-number-one-rule-for-1-on-1s Wed, 12 Aug 2026 05:26:32 GMT Leadership Lighthouse Long before I managed anybody, I could have told you EXACTLY where I stood with every boss I ever had. Nobody explained it to me. I just knew, the way everybody knows. The evidence was on the calendar. Photo by airfocus… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/10-leadership-habits-most-managers-skip 57fdb560-d0ff-45f5-83eb-18775e157d9a Mon, 10 Aug 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Football's back. And on the first day of the 2026 preseason, Josh and Bob take one of the oldest lines in coaching and point it straight at leadership. Good teams don't win on trick plays. They win because they run the… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/Chief-Data-Officer--Surescripts--You-Can-Predict-It--Should-You--Data-Ethics-At-Scale-e3mvrn8 89d6a0c0-ae7a-4af1-a7f7-10561859a4cc Thu, 06 Aug 2026 14:00:00 GMT Tech Teams Today Lynne Nowak practiced internal medicine for nearly 15 years before an unexpected reorg handed her a team of data scientists and PhD researchers. Her first reaction: why would you give the data team to someone who isn't… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/somebody-has-to-be-the-end-of-the https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/somebody-has-to-be-the-end-of-the Wed, 05 Aug 2026 08:41:21 GMT Leadership Lighthouse I coach people to only ever complain “up”. It’s one of the first things I say to a new leader who’s frustrated with their boss, their peer org, the roadmap, whatever it is that week. If you complain down, or sometimes… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/bob-and-josh-finally-disagree-about-something-transparency aaa48053-87e7-4751-a1c9-120b03e7002a Mon, 03 Aug 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Bob opens with a metaphor about window blinds. Truth isn't a switch, he says, it's a set of slats you're constantly adjusting. Closed all the way, open all the way, and every shade of dim in between. He argues we're all… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/Sr-VP--Dynamic-Aviation--From-F-22-Flight-Tests-to-Leading-Tech-Teams-e3mk9u5 1f84ed0a-531d-447f-8190-cb6447bcb743 Thu, 30 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT Tech Teams Today Molly Mae Potter's path to tech leadership started with a 4-year-old's plan to become an astronaut. It ran through Embry-Riddle, a NASA internship, and testing F-22s as an Air Force flight test engineer before a Dell… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/celebrate-it-or-complain-about-it https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/celebrate-it-or-complain-about-it Wed, 29 Jul 2026 09:52:10 GMT Leadership Lighthouse I lost another engineer to a company that could pay more, and I walked into my boss’s office to complain about it. This was early in my career, at an insurance company that had decided it was becoming a technology… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/everything-wed-tell-a-new-leader 7c9b9bdd-28b8-42b4-94b4-2016f08a7984 Mon, 27 Jul 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Bob and Josh each bring a list for the person thinking about stepping into leadership for the first time. Your why, the loneliness, the burdens you can't share, why most leaders are bad at hiring, and how to keep from… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/One-Engineer-and-a-Swarm-of-Agents--3-VPs-on-What-Actually-Breaks-e3mdrfa 1b627b5e-a2c2-4e9e-bf9a-3333043d1f70 Thu, 23 Jul 2026 14:00:00 GMT Tech Teams Today What happens to an engineering team when one person can run a swarm of agents? David Shen, Devin Goodsell, and Francisco Trindade came into the studio to pressure-test that idea, and they don't fully agree on the how or… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/my-best-idea-last-week-cost-me-zero https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/my-best-idea-last-week-cost-me-zero Thu, 23 Jul 2026 13:45:32 GMT Leadership Lighthouse Last week I was sitting in a Google Meet, waiting for someone who was running late. I had 5 minutes with nothing to do. I was already in the meeting, so I couldn’t really start anything else, and there was a problem… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/ai-answers-everything-so-whos-having-the-ideas f91ac543-59a2-43b3-a8b0-e5c578c59cd8 Tue, 21 Jul 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast AI can hand you an answer to almost anything in seconds. Bob and Josh spend this episode asking what that convenience is quietly costing us. It starts with an IEEE Spectrum article showing that researchers who use AI… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/Everything-Is-Changing--Great-Leadership-Isnt-e3m4qq3 09a311f5-0f1b-4d85-8f96-bd9d69fe99b1 Thu, 16 Jul 2026 14:30:00 GMT Tech Teams Today What actually makes a great engineering leader hasn't changed. The pressure around it has. Josh sits down with Radha Ranganathan and Stacey Moore to dig into the leadership fundamentals that survive every wave of… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/your-open-door-policy-is-theater https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/your-open-door-policy-is-theater Wed, 15 Jul 2026 08:34:12 GMT Leadership Lighthouse I’ve said the words “my door is always open” to more than one team over the years, and I meant them every time. We all have. I know you have too… Photo by Lan Gao on Unsplash This week on the Meta-Cast, Bob and I went… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/6-leadership-characteristics-we-admire-after-20-years-of-working-together a64175e8-0916-49b9-bd5b-3e7589207f55 Mon, 13 Jul 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Bob and Josh go round robin, naming the leadership characteristics they admire in each other after 2 decades of working together: generosity, genuineness, the courage to evolve, openness to crazy ideas, and speaking… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/what-900000-lines-of-ai-built-code https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/what-900000-lines-of-ai-built-code Thu, 09 Jul 2026 15:38:53 GMT Leadership Lighthouse A few months ago, GitHub CoPilot reviewed one of my pull requests and came back with zero comments. Not “looks good with minor suggestions.” ZERO . Photo by Jeremy Perkins on Unsplash My first reaction was suspicion. I… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/life-balance-for-leaders-on-a-hard-sprint 0ee4aae7-0967-48fd-bc3d-b9f9be6cb576 Mon, 06 Jul 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast A CEO's LinkedIn vacation post sparks one of our most personal episodes yet. Bob shares the real cost of putting the company first, Josh shares the question from his kids that changed everything, and together we cover… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/Dir-of-Eng--Mosaic--Over-90-of-Their-Code-Is-AI-Generated-e3lij1k 6c4e46e3-2b41-48cc-a17e-fb2e1dfe33da Thu, 02 Jul 2026 15:32:00 GMT Tech Teams Today What does engineering leadership look like when more than 90% of your team's code is written by AI? Adrian Chang, Director of Engineering at Mosaic, joins Josh to talk through what that actually means day-to-day: how… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/your-best-hires-have-always-been https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/your-best-hires-have-always-been Wed, 01 Jul 2026 17:35:51 GMT Leadership Lighthouse My inbox keeps telling me how to build teams now. So does my YouTube feed, my LinkedIn, and just about every conference lineup that’s crossed my desk this year. Build your AI-native team. Rethink talent for the agentic… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/the-pull-is-strongest-when-the-work https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/the-pull-is-strongest-when-the-work Wed, 24 Jun 2026 10:10:29 GMT Leadership Lighthouse Last week I went on vacation. The trip itself was the easy part. Getting myself ready to leave took weeks, because I knew exactly what I was up against. The first half of this year has been the most alive my work has… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/Sr-Dir--OpenGov--How-To-Cut-AI-Signal-From-Noise-e3kngs2 ce1a6003-65ff-4399-9355-329cacf7b938 Thu, 18 Jun 2026 14:45:00 GMT Tech Teams Today Coding got fast. Gianluca Biccari's point is that almost nothing else did. In this episode, Gianluca, Senior Director of Engineering at OpenGov, walks through what actually changes when your team can generate code at… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/you-cant-script-an-unscripted-moment https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/you-cant-script-an-unscripted-moment Wed, 17 Jun 2026 08:02:56 GMT Leadership Lighthouse A decade ago, one of the best developers I’ve ever worked with caught me right after a meeting and told me, straight to my face, that I was making a huge mistake. He was furious about a promotion I hadn’t given. It was… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/can-ai-make-you-a-great-leader 2b5617cd-a610-42d1-91d3-1f09b44cd1c4 Mon, 15 Jun 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Can AI make you a great leader? Josh says no, Bob agrees, and they spend this one drawing the line between the tactical work AI can absorb and the human work it can't. They get into Meta's 50-to-1 manager experiment… https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/the-closed-door-that-taught-me-to https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/the-closed-door-that-taught-me-to Wed, 10 Jun 2026 10:44:55 GMT Leadership Lighthouse We had just walked out of a big room. Forty or fifty people, a transformation kicking off, a Waterfall shop trying to find its footing in Agile. This was my third or fourth client after I’d started my consulting… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/the-60-second-habit-that-builds-better-leadership-instincts 5e651f56-e7cf-4c47-9d41-21feffb78d85 Mon, 08 Jun 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast The smartest leadership tool you've got isn't in any AI model. It's your gut. Bob and Josh dig into why intuition still wins the hard calls, the ones data alone can't make for you. Bob owns up to the hires he botched by… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/Sr-Dir--Twilio--AI--Judgment--and-Engineering-at-Massive-Scale-e3kb3gr f7aae848-14a1-4ed5-a27d-42a22aafe084 Thu, 04 Jun 2026 14:30:00 GMT Tech Teams Today Bhavin Surela leads large-scale messaging engineering at Twilio, where his teams handle WhatsApp, RCS, and OTT channels at a scale of billions of interactions a day. Some of those messages are OTP flows, ambulance… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/why-great-leaders-get-comfortable-being-wrong 202792f0-212b-4e52-a324-386b0485aabe Mon, 01 Jun 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Every leader gets it wrong eventually. The question is what you do next. Josh and Bob dig into one of the hardest things any leader faces: admitting a mistake out loud. Not waffling, not deflecting, not the classic move… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/CKIO-Fisher-Phillips--How-a-Law-Firm-Wins-Business-with-Custom-AI-e3k14fu a43c53d3-4141-4785-bc8f-4612ce64a94c Thu, 28 May 2026 14:29:42 GMT Tech Teams Today Most engineering leaders know the build vs. buy vs. partner question. Evan Shenkman is living the answer, and it's all three at once. Evan leads knowledge management and innovation at Fisher Phillips, a large labor and… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/lean-into-the-ambiguity-before-the-ambiguity-leans-into-you 9e0c4dd4-f38f-41f5-8cb5-f16335dd9d58 Tue, 26 May 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Bob and Josh sit with a hard truth this week. The change rolling through software and leadership isn't optional anymore. It's not Agile in 2007, where you could adopt it or sit it out. AI is rewriting what application… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/CTO-Cube--Coding-Got-Easier--Engineering-Didnt-e3jl5jq 4f0c0ccd-ca5b-4a53-bc45-b3587ea8b777 Thu, 21 May 2026 14:30:00 GMT Tech Teams Today Every engineering leader is being told AI changed everything. But what actually changed? Josh Anderson sits down with Josh Holat, CTO of Cube, to draw a line between two things that have quietly gotten conflated: coding… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/the-courage-gap-in-tech-leadership 59825da6-0d2c-4496-b8e8-8aba14755e9d Mon, 18 May 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Josh and Bob dig into the courage problem that runs through every layer of tech leadership right now. The courage to push back on your team. The courage to be honest with peers. And the hardest one, the courage to tell… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/AVP-GM-Financial--Why-This-Engineering-Leader-Isnt-Worried-About-AI-e3jc5ic 71c80360-e948-41b7-be46-4f4148c83d1d Thu, 14 May 2026 14:30:00 GMT Tech Teams Today Most conversations about AI right now sound like either the world's ending or it's just beginning. Seng Lin Shee has a different read: we've been here before. In this episode, Seng Lin makes the case that multi-agent… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/agile-isnt-dead-the-free-ride-is 67dbbe1d-e358-41de-9038-363cb4cb55e0 Mon, 11 May 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Bob's back from Agile Coach Camp Cologne, and the room was heavy with "agile is dead" energy. Josh and Bob aren't buying it. What's actually dead is the free ride. The coaches still talking in burndown charts and… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/VP-at-Yahoo--Your-Bench-Is-Your-Ceiling-Leadership-in-the-AI-Era-e3iuamq f3b68358-295b-4d0b-8738-c68c970866cd Thu, 07 May 2026 14:45:00 GMT Tech Teams Today Josh sits down with Siva Jagadeesan, VP of Product, Engineering, and Optimization at Yahoo, where he leads the monetization group behind advertising across all Yahoo properties. Siva still writes code because he loves… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/when-your-words-sound-smooth-but-mean-nothing a6b71cfc-76a7-41e1-b91f-7f0c223f33a5 Mon, 04 May 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Bob Galen and Josh Anderson dig into one of the most quietly destructive habits in leadership communication. You know the feeling. You sit through a thirty minute all hands, and when it ends, you cannot answer the… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/VP-at-Zinnia--When-Does-AI-Actually-Earn-Trust-in-a-Data-Org-e3in7ev 414a56dd-3f4a-4d3b-ad0c-5ae27a0822f7 Thu, 30 Apr 2026 17:24:08 GMT Tech Teams Today What does it take to scale a data science and engineering team from 5 to 20 people in a single year — while also navigating the chaos of AI adoption in a space where the data has to be perfect every single time? Dustin… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/the-hidden-glue-that-creates-resilient-organizations 6e36e91a-8c6a-469f-a629-f85d07bee2f9 Mon, 27 Apr 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Bob and Josh dig into a recent HBR article on the leadership case for friendship-based culture. Not the toxic "we're a family" version, but something real, where leaders model and encourage genuine relationships, invest… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/how-great-leaders-handle-the-pressure-of-ai-hype 4262989e-9b43-4db0-9808-de868c4e0805 Mon, 20 Apr 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast The AI hype cycle is testing leaders everywhere, and Josh and Bob are here to cut through the noise. Bob opens with a sharp observation. Everyone became an AI zen master overnight, coining terms and jumping on… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/CTOCOO--KOHO--When-Your-Developers-10x--You-Hire-More--Not-Fewer-e3htrs0 5378bc96-1d74-4881-aa8a-9eea7683e671 Thu, 16 Apr 2026 14:30:00 GMT Tech Teams Today Jonathan Klein is the CTO and COO at KOHO, a Canadian fintech company, which means shipping AI slop into production is simply not an option. He's also someone who grew an engineering org from 20 to 600 people at… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/when-ai-makes-your-pipeline-faster-but-your-product-worse 45ba74e5-76f0-4e54-9cfa-7c318f7162db Mon, 13 Apr 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Bob Galen and Josh Anderson dig into the two ends of the AI-accelerated pipeline: the upstream product strategy crisis, where AI amplifies leadership indecision, and the downstream delivery chaos when customers and… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/Co-founderCTO-Mavely--AI-Amplifies-Your-Culture--Good-or-Bad-e3hkj6l 16140bf8-9ac9-436e-9789-f8134a95be29 Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:00:00 GMT Tech Teams Today Sean O'Brien, Co-founder/CTO Mavely, has been a believer in remote-first engineering since before COVID made it mainstream. He's also built a personal OS — a Sean.config file — that feeds his prompt patterns into a… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/ai-output-without-organizational-readiness-is-just-expensive-chaos 4a1cd0c3-6bbb-4984-8cbe-3344934cce78 Mon, 06 Apr 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast The central question in this episode lands hard and fast: does AI-enabled speed actually produce better outcomes? Josh opens by framing the problem plainly. The capability to generate more code, more features, and more… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/the-meta-management-gamble-and-why-were-worried-every-other-company-will-copy-it f7ee3481-7500-4671-aaf4-7943961b14ea Mon, 30 Mar 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Meta just announced a 1:50 manager-to-employee ratio for their new AI engineering team, and Bob and Josh have opinions. They debate what management is actually for, whether AI can substitute for real leadership, and why… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/SVP-at-Solera--How-AI-Is-Reshaping-Engineering-Orgs-e3gs4dc faeb28b7-40d7-4e6d-a589-70eccabfd75a Tue, 24 Mar 2026 14:30:00 GMT Tech Teams Today Alicia Davis is the SVP of Engineering and Development Operations at Solera — a global enterprise operating at scale in vehicle lifecycle management — and she has takes that you won't hear from most engineering leaders… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/AVP-Kennedy-Krieger-Institute--How-a-Healthcare-Nonprofit-Is-Getting-AI-Right-e3gl6am b4cc589e-23a4-4bf8-a70d-2c1420ac8128 Thu, 19 Mar 2026 14:00:00 GMT Tech Teams Today What does it take to lead a 30-person digital transformation team inside one of America's most respected pediatric health nonprofits — and do it almost entirely remotely? Tara Eckert, Assistant Vice President of Digital… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/why-technical-leaders-undersell-themselves-and-how-to-stop 6e2cf693-c9b8-4be8-9703-389b38a1a92a Mon, 16 Mar 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Most leaders will tell you they hate bragging — and they mean it. But somewhere between "I don't want to be that person" and never talking about what you've done, a lot of genuinely talented people quietly disappear… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/caring-is-leading-eight-lessons-from-the-hardest-job-youll-ever-have a4df4a91-68d3-4fea-9a65-f6b1f3b6b36f Mon, 09 Mar 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Bob Galen and Josh Anderson connect two worlds most people keep separate: caregiving and elite organizational leadership. Using 8 skills that dementia caregivers build every day — from rapid decision-making and… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/why-great-leaders-use-ai-to-hire-more-people-not-fire-them 518e8200-c904-4afc-b8dd-ea4c79fbe1e3 Mon, 02 Mar 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast AI-driven layoffs are reshaping the tech industry — but is cutting 40% of your workforce bold leadership or lazy leadership? Josh and Bob don't hold back as they break down the Block layoffs, the accountability gap at… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/how-to-step-down-from-leadership-gracefully c233a194-7907-4882-9259-8fd8532a142b Mon, 23 Feb 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast What happens when a leader decides they're done leading? In this episode, Bob and Josh tackle one of the most uncomfortable topics in technical leadership: stepping down from a leadership role. Whether you're the one… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/CTO-at-Big-Brothers-Big-Sisters-of-America-Why-Your-Fastest-Coder-Isnt-Your-Best-Engineer-e3fam1h ba45a967-12ac-4af7-9c83-3005f553451f Thu, 19 Feb 2026 16:01:05 GMT Tech Teams Today What happens when a CTO brings Silicon Valley-level engineering leadership to one of America's most iconic nonprofits? Travis Gibson, CTO at Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, leads a team of 35 across internal staff… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/take-part-in-your-own-rescue-instead-of-blaming-leadership ac91a8ea-24ad-42b8-82fb-fc1833185e4b Mon, 16 Feb 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast In this provocative episode, Bob and Josh flip the script on their usual leadership-focused content. Instead of critiquing leaders, they're calling out team members who constantly blame their bosses for everything… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/CTO-at-Synpulse-The-Engineering-Culture-Principle-Nobody-Talks-About-e3etvr2 28a4dd43-486a-41c3-b537-f9638df952f9 Thu, 12 Feb 2026 15:54:46 GMT Tech Teams Today Most engineering leaders talk about AI changing how we build software. Jieke Pan, CTO at Synpulse, is more concerned about what we’re losing in the process. In this episode, he breaks down why the fundamentals of… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/the-proven-hiring-framework-two-leaders-discovered-independently 3be1d2a7-aa59-465e-8839-970424ca7652 Mon, 09 Feb 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Two veteran engineering leaders reveal the proven hiring principles they independently discovered through building world-class teams. Learn why diversity across all dimensions matters more than rock star resumes, how… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/control-vs-innovation-the-two-forces-behind-every-rto-decision ba30e412-506e-487d-b028-a5f567c8d9f2 Mon, 02 Feb 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast The return-to-office debate has been hijacked by the wrong conversation. In this episode, Josh and Bob cut through the noise to reveal what's really driving RTO mandates—and it's not what most leaders will admit. There… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/are-you-too-nice-to-be-an-effective-leader 2d24c3e7-456d-4a07-a5e6-4420ffcc464f Mon, 26 Jan 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Are you a nice leader or a kind leader? It might sound like the same thing, but Bob and Josh break down why the difference could be holding you back from becoming the leader your team actually needs. Using a Venn… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/how-leaders-generate-energy-when-theyre-running-on-empty e3d7727b-c7ee-4dec-9575-9e9f902bbb50 Mon, 19 Jan 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Leaders don't have anyone to pick them up when they fall—so how do you generate energy when you've got nothing left? Josh and Bob share real talk about the mental battles of leadership, building your emergency support… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/great-leaders-are-great-followers-first 5ed7c066-7b30-4b7f-8443-b69eefc869d1 Mon, 12 Jan 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Great leaders aren't born—they're made through great followership. Bob and Josh explore why mastering the art of following is essential to leading, including Amazon's "disagree and commit" principle, how to support… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/what-we-loved-in-2025-tech-books-and-everything-between 7698b892-ae26-44b6-b636-5e1535db11ba Mon, 05 Jan 2026 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Bob and Josh share their favorite things from 2025—from fountain pens and Batman comics to Claude AI, Drizzle ORM, and the books that kept them turning pages. Plus honest talk about therapy, daily walks, and why… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/give-yourself-grace-because-2025-kicked-everyones-ass daeb9d7b-168f-48ad-885d-e4e8cf86e442 Mon, 29 Dec 2025 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Bob calls it the worst tech job market in 45 years. Josh has been grinding harder than ever with a slower pipeline. In this raw year-in-review episode, the hosts share what's actually helped them survive 2025—human… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/finding-your-leadership-weaknesses-when-nobody-will-tell-you 5d2d2e31-f644-4b0c-9dfe-da49ff7c41bd Mon, 22 Dec 2025 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast As leaders gain responsibility, honest feedback disappears. Bob and Josh explore why power dynamics silence your team, how to find truth tellers who will call you out, and why no criticism isn't good news—it's a warning… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/weaponized-curiosity-and-other-leadership-questioning-mistakes 84b39983-873d-4834-a842-375174939b73 Mon, 15 Dec 2025 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Are your questions undermining your leadership credibility? Bob Galen and Josh Anderson expose the hidden dangers of over-questioning, from "death by a thousand questions" to weaponized curiosity. Learn when to ask… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/CTO-at-Revenue-io--Hiring--Fraud--Remote-Teams--Developer-Velocity-e3c6cmf 439d58e9-05bb-44b3-a2ad-1b4954b07334 Thu, 11 Dec 2025 21:25:51 GMT Tech Teams Today What happens when AI changes not only how engineers work — but how they’re hired, evaluated, and led?In this episode, Derek Knudsen, Chief Delivery Officer and Head of Engineering at Revenue.io, shares a clear, grounded… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/should-leaders-ever-say-dont-bring-me-problems-bring-me-solutions 988dcda8-03a0-44b1-b953-41ffe877a5fc Mon, 08 Dec 2025 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Should leaders ever say "don't bring me problems, bring me solutions"? Bob Galen and Josh Anderson challenge binary thinking in leadership. Learn when this controversial phrase empowers developing leaders versus when it… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/VP-Eng-at-Gong--Hiring-A-Players-in-the-Age-of-AI-e3bs25l 21d1c65f-e0d7-4473-9c1c-b686185793fb Thu, 04 Dec 2025 07:39:43 GMT Tech Teams Today When you join a 10-person startup and stay long enough to see it grow into hundreds of engineers, you don’t just watch the change — you help shape it. In this episode, Gilad Matot, VP of R&D Sales Applications at Gong… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/if-leaving-your-team-hurts-then-you-probably-did-it-right 97303323-6147-412a-b667-9995a59d7e27 Mon, 01 Dec 2025 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast What happens when you've built an amazing team and then have to leave? Bob Galen and Josh Anderson explore the guilt, emotion, and complexity of leadership transitions. Learn why good leaders struggle most with leaving… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/from-stack-ranking-to-ai-hiring-detecting-and-fixing-toxic-workplaces cbc383a0-6661-474f-a8a4-b19f6263f8e1 Mon, 24 Nov 2025 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Bob Galen and Josh Anderson dissect toxic workplace culture and challenge leaders to take ownership. Learn why stack ranking exists (spoiler: because leaders aren't doing their jobs), why brutal AI-driven hiring… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/VP-Engineering-at-WOW--Shares-Playbook-Leading-through-MA--Culture-Clashes---Deadlines-e3b3v5h 33a3b590-1332-41f2-9a2d-2c1067cab8fc Tue, 18 Nov 2025 14:14:42 GMT Tech Teams Today When a company doubles overnight, leadership gets real.Ryan Mitchell, VP of Engineering at WOW! Internet, TV & Phone, shares the playbook for leading through mergers, culture clashes, and impossible deadlines—without… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/8-things-every-leader-needs-to-do-more-of-in-2026 33195810-ebe0-489c-93a6-ced30e1a2abf Mon, 17 Nov 2025 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast Celebrate Episode 100 of The Meta-Cast's Leadership Focus as Bob Galen and Josh Anderson share 8 critical areas where leaders need to do MORE. Learn why hiring can't be outsourced to AI, how to be aggressively patient… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/CTO-of-Trusted-Housesitters--Remote-First-Scaling--Product-Centric-Hiring--AI-Guardrails-e3al61r 8f0640f7-6b56-47d2-8bc0-4220681baac6 Thu, 13 Nov 2025 15:29:00 GMT Tech Teams Today How do you scale a remote-first marketplace while AI reshapes every role on the team? In this episode, Will Ogden (CTO, TrustedHousesitters) breaks down how his org evolved from early “Spotify model” squads to three… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/CTO-of-Healthcare-IT-Leaders-Reliability-beats-Cutting-Edge-e3ardlg 35c302f1-3066-4957-81e7-ae916e981270 Wed, 12 Nov 2025 15:40:11 GMT Tech Teams Today Reliability Beats “Cutting Edge” — Scaling Healthcare Engineering w/ Paul Cannon, CTO @ Healthcare IT LeadersWhat does engineering leadership look like when uptime matters more than hype?In this episode, Paul Cannon… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/the-painfully-easy-leadership-traps-we-fall-into-and-how-to-escape-them bbc567de-b337-485c-b7e6-55a5a84887b2 Mon, 10 Nov 2025 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast This week, Josh and Bob tackle the hidden beliefs that hold leaders back — inspired by a recent Harvard Business Review article. From perfectionism and ego to the inability to say “no,” they unpack the mental traps that… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/CTO-of-Intercom-I-bet-the-company-on-AI--and-won-e3ais41 a448e550-9434-44b6-8892-bbd8c1ad11ab Fri, 07 Nov 2025 15:45:00 GMT Tech Teams Today Be sure to check out Fin, Intercom's AI agent for all of your customer service at fin.aiWhat happens when a product-led growth pioneer bets everything on AI?In this episode, Darragh Curran, CTO of Intercom, shares how… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/hard-conversations-you-need-to-have-with-yourself 49c3aa65-3ba8-4ba0-8e8b-3bd883dfcacf Mon, 03 Nov 2025 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast In this episode, Josh and Bob hold up the mirror — hard. This isn’t a pep talk; it’s a reality check for anyone frustrated with their career, the market, or leadership. They unpack the idea of being “Me First” — not in… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/why-networking-still-beats-any-career-hack 575875ee-c06c-4a8a-b6b8-f451b4790cb5 Mon, 27 Oct 2025 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast This episode dives into one of the most "avoided" skills in career growth — networking that actually matters. Josh and Bob pull back the curtain on how real connections, not polished résumés, shape opportunities… https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tech-teams-today/episodes/VP-of-Engineering-at-Checkatrade-How-AI-is-Changing-Engineering-Leadership-e39ve77 bca9aa25-2735-4e51-b20e-859f74295384 Fri, 24 Oct 2025 00:53:17 GMT Tech Teams Today Tech Teams Today: Rethinking Engineering Leadership in the AI Era w/ Susan Reilly (VP Eng, Checkatrade)AI isn't an arms race - it's a tool belt. In this episode, Susan Reilly shares how she's deploying AI across a… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/how-to-use-ai-without-losing-yourself d31f1ca9-9234-4af4-80bf-47da965f827f Mon, 20 Oct 2025 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast This episode isn’t another AI hype session — it’s a wake-up call. Josh and Bob dig into the growing trend of professionals outsourcing their craft to AI tools, whether it’s writing code, managing products, or even… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/anxiety-isnt-the-enemy-its-the-signal 0b0944b4-c175-47c1-9883-82d0a0abd805 Mon, 13 Oct 2025 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast This week, Josh and Bob take on one of leadership’s most under-discussed realities: anxiety . Leading is hard enough. Leading while anxious? That’s another level. In this raw and personal episode, they unpack what… https://www.meta-cast.com/episode/self-care-for-leaders-who-never-stop 0e7d203c-67cd-48d9-955e-aee2679ad770 Mon, 06 Oct 2025 10:00:00 GMT The Meta-Cast In this episode, Josh and Bob take a reflective detour from their usual leadership banter. They challenge each other with spontaneous “When was the last time…” questions—raw, unscripted, and deeply human. From…