When the supply chain crunch catches up with you, sometimes a tiny resistor the size of a fleck of pepper is the difference between a world-class computer and... e-waste. Members of the Oxide operations and electrical engineering teams join Bryan and Adam to discuss how close we came to stopping production, for want of a resistor. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , speakers include

We've been hosting a live show weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour, and recording them all; here is the recording . How do you test configurations you haven't built yet? Steve, Andrew, and Rain join Bryan and Adam to talk about the transformative power of the Oxide emulation environment, VOXEL, and how it has accelerated development in many domains. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Lev

More and more, people are relying on AI to do their writing for them. Is this the new normal, or the intellectual equivalent of claiming take-out is your own home cooking? Max Spero, founder and CEO of Pangram, joined Bryan and Adam to discuss how they distinguish AI and human authorship. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , our special guest was Max Spero . Previously, on Oxide and

Oxide returns to the chamber... of EMC compliance to earn FCC approval to sell our next generation rack. Did it go smoothly? If it had, would there be a podcast episode? Oxide teammates Robert, Dan, and Stu join Bryan and Adam to discuss the trials and triumph! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , speakers included Robert "RFK" Keith , Dan Chirpich, and Stu Donnan. Previously, on Oxi

Simon Willison joined Bryan and Adam to discuss a wild couple of weeks in AI. First, we have a high-profile, AI-induced, AI-diagnosed security incident. Next we have the rise of frontier-class open-weights models. Who's for or against open weights? Do they make for a more or less secure future? Exciting times! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , our special guest was Simon Willison

Ramy Katrib has been at the forefront of digital storytelling for over 25 years, with his post-production company, DigitalFilm Tree, earning a reputation as one of Hollywood's most technically adventurous post-production houses. He joined Bryan and Adam to explore the past, present, and future of digital storytelling. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , our special guest was Ramy Ka

Recently, Oxide rolled out an eye-popping 3D rack explorer at explorer.oxide.computer. Oxide's designer extraordinaire, Ben Leonard, joined Bryan and Adam to describe the process of turning CAD drawings into an interactive site. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , our special guest was Oxide colleague, Ben Leonard . Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: The Ex

We love Rust for how much the compiler helps enforce safety. But sometimes it's up to us to uphold the complex--and often unclear--expectations of what constitutes safety on our own. Oxide colleague, Rain, joins Bryan and Adam to talk about the technical details of what it takes to impose safety on the hardest type of unsafe Rust. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined b

Bryan and Adam discuss the process of restoring a software project--BattleTris--untouched and unbuilt in over 20 years! How did LLMs help restore code Bryan started in the mid-1990s and what does that teach us about developing and maintaining software in the future? Your hosts were Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal . Previously on Oxide and Friends OxF s03e24 - Fork in the road for Terraform? OxF

Two years ago we introduced listeners to the Oakland Ballers, the startup returning baseball to the city of Oakland. Bryan and Adam were joined again by Paul Freedman and Bryan Carmel to discuss the Ballers first two--highly successful--seasons, and to announce some exciting new collaborations between the Ballers and Oxide! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , speakers included Paul

Oxide ships a rack scale system--how to test the manufacturing of the backplane and switches? Previously we've been using a collection of sacrificial servers, but this was unwieldy, expensive, and unscalable--all big problems as we ramp up manufacturing to 100s a month! Enter "Reverso", an extremely simple test fixture, that uncovered an extremely complex bug. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Ada

AI is an existential topic for all aspects of education--for none more so than Computer Science. Bryan and Adam were joined by Kathi Fisler and Shriram Krishnamurthi, professors of Computer Science at Brown, to discuss their experimental introductory course that strongly incorporates agentic programming. What do students take away from their "smoke the whole pack" approach? In addition to Bryan Ca

Bryan and Adam were joined by members of the Oxide mechanical engineering team to talk the mechanical challenges of building a rack-scale computer, and--in particular--of scaling manufacturing from just a few racks to hundreds. NOTE: Keep an eye on the chapter art for the pictures under discussion. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined by Oxide Colleagues Elliott Donlon

Brogrammer Garry Tan has been boasting about "writing" tens of thousands of lines of code each day as the paragon of productivity. Is this really the right way to think about building systems? Bryan and Adam were joined by Polish software engineer, Gregorein, who took a closer look into what Tan was generating to discuss what was found. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , our guest

The Oxide rack contains within it a distributed system that needs to trust itself. But how is this trust built? Bryan and Adam were joined by colleagues Andrew and Finch to explore how Trust Quorum was designed, built, and verified. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined by Oxide colleagues, Andrew Stone, and Finch Foner. Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s06e02 - En

Bryan and Adam were joined by members of the Oxide team to describe the multi-year search for a mysterious source of hardware failures. All related to an ultra-reliable--and yet still not reliable enough--component. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined by members of the Oxide team: Nathanael Huffman , Alan Hanson, Cliff Biffle , Eric Aasen , Robert "RFK" Keith , and Jo

Oxide raised a truckload of capital a few weeks ago to fund the business for the foreseeable future. Bryan and Steve describe the raise, and Adam poses the best the best (and worst) questions scraped from Hacker News. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined by Oxide CEO, Steve Tuck . Previously on Oxide and Friends: OxF s01e25 - Tales from the Bringup Lab OxF s04e30 - Int

Evan Ratliff, journalist and podcaster, joined Bryan and Adam to talk about his extraordinary podcast, Shell Game, in which he started a company staffed exclusively by agentic AI. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , our special guest was Evan Ratliff . Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Shell Game Evan on This American Life MIT Review: Moltbook was peak AI

Bryan and Adam were joined by Grady Booch, software engineering pioneer and living legend, to speak about the past present and future of software engineering. History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined by special guest, Grady Booch . Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them (some LLM assistance): SAGE as fo

What do LLMs mean for the future of software engineering? Will vibe-coded AI slop be the norm? Will software engineers simply be less in-demand? Rain and David join Bryan and Adam to discuss how rigorous use of LLMs can make for much more robust systems. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , we were joined by Rain Paharia , and David Crespo . Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s03e