The Tech Trek

00:25:32

AI Is Changing How Engineers Actually Work

The Tech Trek ·

2026/05/18

AI coding tools are not just changing how software gets written. They are changing how teams work, how engineers are evaluated, and where bottlenecks show up.Scott Breitenother, CEO and cofounder of Kilo, joins The Tech Trek to talk about what engineering looks like when developers are managing multiple agents, work continues overnight, and the real constraint is no longer typing code, but judgment, ownership, and process design.Scott shares how Kilo uses Kilo to build its own product, why AI only

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00:24:43

AI Can Handle the Tax Code. What Still Needs a Human?

The Tech Trek ·

2026/05/15

Tax is one of the hardest places to earn trust with AI. The work is complex, the stakes are personal, and being mostly right is not good enough.In this episode of The Tech Trek, David Kang, founder and CEO of Keeper, explains how his team is applying AI to tax workflows without pretending humans disappear from the process. He breaks down why tax is such a strong fit for language models, where AI can reduce manual review, how Keeper decides when a case needs human escalation, and why the best

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00:29:09

He Built a Public Company. Now He Is Starting Over

The Tech Trek ·

2026/05/13

What happens after you build a public company, spend nearly three decades at the helm, and then find yourself starting over?Rob Locascio, CEO and founder of Uare.ai, joins The Tech Trek to talk about that exact journey. Rob previously founded LivePerson, helped create web chat for customer service, took the company public, and later scaled it into a major conversational AI business. Now he is back in founder mode, building a new company around individual AI, personal knowledge, and human control

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00:23:08

Why Fintech Products Get Stuck Before Launch

The Tech Trek ·

2026/05/11

Snigdha Kumar, CEO and co founder at Bricco, joins The Tech Trek to talk about a part of fintech most people never see, state by state licensing.For any financial company trying to launch in the United States, licensing can be slow, expensive, and operationally painful. Snigdha explains why that barrier limits experimentation, how Bricco is trying to automate the process, and why better compliance infrastructure could help more useful financial products reach the market.Practical takeaways•

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00:27:18

Coding Isn’t the Hard Part Anymore

The Tech Trek ·

2026/05/08

Adam Kirk, CTO and cofounder of Jump, joins The Tech Trek to talk about what it really takes to build AI native products for people who do not want to think like technologists.Jump serves financial advisors, a market where ease of use, trust, workflow fit, and domain context matter as much as the model itself. Adam shares how his team validates product ideas, uses coding agents across engineering, and is rethinking how technical teams build, review, and hire in the AI era.What You’ll Take Away• AI

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00:29:13

How AI Is Changing the Way Engineering Teams Work

The Tech Trek ·

2026/05/06

Krishna Sai, CTO at SolarWinds, joins The Tech Trek to talk about one of the biggest shifts happening inside IT and engineering teams: AI is moving people from operators to orchestrators.The conversation goes beyond faster code and automation. Krishna explains why AI is changing how teams think about systems, governance, validation, observability, and the skills technical leaders will need as work moves from manual execution to higher level oversight.Key Takeaways• AI is raising the level of

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00:37:06

Why AI Still Needs Human Judgment

The Tech Trek ·

2026/05/04

Dan Wald, cofounder and chief AI officer at Sciemo, joins The Tech Trek for a sharp conversation about what AI can and cannot do inside real business workflows.The big question: can AI move beyond quick answers and actually support the messy, context heavy work that still lives in Excel, data teams, and functional expertise?Dan breaks down why consumer style AI has trained people to expect instant answers, why that creates risk inside companies, and why the next wave of AI products needs more than a

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00:22:51

Why AI Will Not Fix Broken Data Teams

The Tech Trek ·

2026/05/01

Most data teams do not have an AI problem yet. They have an operating model problem.Mike Doll, VP of Data at Guitar Center, joins The Tech Trek to talk about why analytics teams often become reactive ticket factories, and what it takes to turn data into a true business partnership.As companies push harder into AI, automation, and faster decision making, the foundation matters more than ever. If the data team is buried in scattered requests, unclear priorities, and dashboard maintenance, AI will not

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00:27:54

AI Is Changing Cybersecurity Faster Than Teams Can...

The Tech Trek ·

2026/04/29

Cybersecurity is no longer just about keeping attackers out. It is about what happens when they get in.Andrew Rubin, CEO and founder of Illumio, joins The Tech Trek to talk about the speed of modern attacks, why AI changes the security equation, and how companies should think about breach containment, micro segmentation, and guardrails for agentic AI.This conversation gets into a practical shift every technology leader needs to understand. As companies move faster with AI, security teams are being

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00:27:31

Why Data Teams Need Software Engineering Discipline

The Tech Trek ·

2026/04/27

Kenneth Schwartz, VP of Global Data and Governance at Genmab, joins The Tech Trek to talk about what happens when data teams start applying software engineering discipline to modern data work.As AI raises expectations across the business, the challenge is no longer just building more dashboards or models. It is building data products, governance systems, and engineering cultures that can move from experiment to production in a repeatable way.In this episode, Kenneth shares how data teams can reduce

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00:25:02

AI Is Rebuilding Mortgage From the Inside Out

The Tech Trek ·

2026/04/24

Mortgage is often the largest financial transaction in a person’s life, yet much of the process still runs on outdated workflows, long waits, and paperwork heavy systems.Diane Yu, cofounder and CEO of TidalWave, explains how her team is rethinking mortgage technology with a twenty four seven AI loan assistant built for real work, not just demos. She shares why agentic software in financial services needs auditability, domain knowledge, and a different mindset around human oversight.This episode is a

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00:26:04

AI Won’t Replace Accountants, It Will Change Where...

The Tech Trek ·

2026/04/22

Accounting has a tech problem, and it is not what most people think. In this conversation, Cos Nicolaescu, Co-founder and CEO at Accrual, breaks down why accounting has lagged behind, where AI can actually create leverage, and why the future of the profession is likely more human, not less. This episode gets into the real constraints inside accounting workflows, the difference between deterministic work and judgment based work, and why trust, context, and client knowledge still matter more than most

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00:26:46

Healthcare Can’t Go Down, Cloud, AI, and Reliability

The Tech Trek ·

2026/04/20

What does it take to modernize healthcare infrastructure when uptime is not just an SLA, but a patient outcome?In this episode, Amir talks with Jeff Sponaugle, CTO of Surescripts, about building and operating mission critical healthcare systems, navigating the move from on premises infrastructure to the cloud, and figuring out where AI can create real value without compromising reliability. It is a sharp conversation on engineering judgment, modernization, workforce evolution, and why technical

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00:27:35

The Ethics of Offensive Security

The Tech Trek ·

2026/04/16

Farzan Karimi, Deputy CISO at Moderna, joins Amir Bormand for a sharp conversation on one of the most misunderstood areas in cybersecurity, the ethics of offensive security. From red team rules of engagement to nation state deception and the limits of AI in security testing, this episode gets into what happens when the job requires you to think like an attacker without crossing the line. This is a practical conversation for security leaders, engineers, and operators who want a clearer view into how

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00:32:59

Building Enterprise AI Agents, What Most Companies...

The Tech Trek ·

2026/04/15

Adi Kuruganti, Chief AI and Development Officer at Automation Anywhere, joins Amir to break down what it actually takes to build agents for the enterprise, not in theory, but in environments where complexity, governance, observability, and real business outcomes matter. This conversation gets into the part of enterprise AI that most people skip. Not just what agents can do, but what changes when you have to deploy them across regulated systems, measure performance in production, manage model drift,

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00:23:28

How AI Coding Agents Are Changing Software Engineering

The Tech Trek ·

2026/04/13

What happens when software engineers stop thinking like coders and start thinking like orchestrators?In this episode, Amir sits down with Scott Gale, CTO and Founder of Fluency, to unpack one of the biggest shifts happening in engineering right now: the move from writing code by hand to directing AI agents with context, judgment, and intent. Scott shares how his team is already using coding agents in production, what that means for hiring and team design, and why the engineers who adapt fastest will

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00:23:28

How AI Coding Agents Are Changing Software Engineering

The Tech Trek ·

2026/04/13

What happens when software engineers stop thinking like coders and start thinking like orchestrators?In this episode, Amir sits down with Scott Gale, CTO and Founder of Fluency, to unpack one of the biggest shifts happening in engineering right now: the move from writing code by hand to directing AI agents with context, judgment, and intent. Scott shares how his team is already using coding agents in production, what that means for hiring and team design, and why the engineers who adapt fastest will

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00:31:26

How AI Will Change Procurement and Knowledge Work

The Tech Trek ·

2026/03/26

Spencer Penn, Co founder and CEO of LightSource, joins The Tech Trek for a sharp conversation on AI native procurement, agentic workflows, and what actually happens to knowledge work as automation gets better. This episode is worth your time because it moves past lazy takes about AI replacing jobs and gets into something more useful, how work changes, where human value holds, and why procurement may be more strategic than most companies treat it.This conversation starts with procurement, but it

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00:28:18

How AI Is Reshaping the CISO Role and Modern Security...

The Tech Trek ·

2026/03/24

Michael Fanning, CISO at Splunk, joins The Tech Trek for a grounded conversation on how the security leader role is changing in the AI era. This episode gets into the real tension facing modern CISOs, balancing risk without slowing the business down, hiring for technical depth over narrow credentials, and defining success in a field where perfection is not a realistic metric.This is a practical conversation for security leaders, engineering leaders, founders, and operators trying to make sense of AI

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00:03:25

From Engineer to CEO | Tech Trek Brief

The Tech Trek ·

2026/03/23

What does it really take to go from engineer to CEO?In this Tech Trek Brief, Michael White, Co founder and CEO of Multiply, shares a few of the ideas that matter most from a broader conversation on founder growth, leadership, and the shift from building things to building a company.What stood out most is that this is not really a story about title progression. It is a story about learning to operate with more uncertainty, taking on bigger challenges before you feel ready, and realizing that

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