Modern CTO

54:11

Scaling AI Efficiency at LinkedIn with Erran Berger,...

Modern CTO ·

2026/10/05

Most companies at scale can't tell you what a single feature actually costs to run, but Erran Berger, CTO of Engineering at LinkedIn, can. We discuss why that blind spot is more common than you'd think, why treating AI transformation as bad for employees is a false premise, and how LinkedIn reorganized its teams into small, cross-functional pods now that AI lets one person do the work of several.

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18:48

Tech Titans: Agents Built Around People with Mohak...

Modern CTO ·

2026/10/01

Today, we're talking to Mohak Shroff, former SVP of Engineering at LinkedIn. We discuss why the smartest use of AI agents is giving professionals more agency rather than replacing them, how delegating to an agent should look a lot like onboarding a new hire, and what it takes to build the thing that was impossible before instead of making the familiar 20% better.All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast!

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17:58

Tech Titans: How Can a Chatbot Steal a Model's...

Modern CTO ·

2026/09/28

Everyone's arguing about whether AI will replace 90% of your job. Steve Orrin, federal CTO at Intel, says that's the wrong number to even be worried about. We discuss how a $25 million deepfake of a bank's own CFO exposed a whole new category of cyberattack, why sprinkling "AI pixie dust" on a problem doesn't actually solve anything, and why, thirty years into being a CTO, his best advice still comes down to surrounding yourself with people smarter than you.All of this right here, right now, on

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51:24

Why High-Achieving Engineers Still Feel Something's...

Modern CTO ·

2026/09/24

Today, we're talking to Ben Fox, founder of Ben Fox Coaching. We discuss why financial independence alone rarely convinces a burnt-out engineering leader to actually quit, how leaving a toxic job works the same way as leaving a toxic relationship, and why senior engineers reduced to babysitting language models are quietly heading for the exits. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast!

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18:26

Tech Titans: Why Plans Fail and Strategy Doesn't with...

Modern CTO ·

2026/09/21

Today, we're talking to Seth Godin, author of This Is Strategy. We discuss why strategy is a philosophy of becoming rather than a plan to execute, how status, affiliation, and freedom from fear quietly drive almost every decision people make, and why one of Seth's biggest professional failures came down to having a good idea and then walking away from it.All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast!

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15:34

Tech Titans: Funding and Building the Safest Nuclear...

Modern CTO ·

2026/09/17

A barrel of uranium holds as much energy as two million barrels of oil, and Matt Loszak, co-founder of nuclear startup Allo, thinks that's just the beginning. In this episode, Joel talks with Matt about building factory-made nuclear reactors as safe as a university research reactor, why we're entering a "second atomic age," the team and funding behind Allo, and how small modular reactors could solve the massive power problem facing Microsoft, Google, and Amazon's data centers. All of this right

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51:37

Demo Is Not Production, with Ajay Nair, GM of...

Modern CTO ·

2026/09/14

Today, we're talking to Ajay Nair, General Manager of Elasticsearch and Platform at Elastic. We discuss why most AI hallucinations are really a search problem wearing a scarier name, how the industry's obsession with model selection is missing the real bottleneck of context and retrieval, and why the biggest failure mode in enterprise AI is mistaking a working demo for a production system. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast!

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18:11

Tech Titans: Why Your Home Alarm Does Nothing to Stop...

Modern CTO ·

2026/09/10

Today, we're talking to David Selinger, founder and CEO of Deep Sentinel and co-founder of Redfin. We discuss why he's convinced that virtually every home security tool on the market does nothing to actually stop a crime, how a crossbow-wielding intruder on his own driveway became the ultimate test of that theory, and why he'd rather protect his family with a blurry camera and a real person behind it than a flawless 4K feed with nobody watching.All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO

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55:46

Disruptor or Disrupted with Jason Silbergleit, Head...

Modern CTO ·

2026/09/07

Today, we're talking to Jason Silbergleit, Head of Americas at Classiq. We discuss why the biggest risk in quantum computing isn't moving too early but waiting too long, how the ChatGPT moment offers a preview of the disruption still coming, and why the real competition in quantum isn't about hardware but about who builds the software layer that makes it usable.

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17:09

Tech Titans: Solving Cloud Data Issues with Desikan...

Modern CTO ·

2026/09/03

Today, we're talking to Desikan Madhavanur, Chief Technology and Product Officer at Capital One Software. We discuss why the cloud has quietly resurrected the same data problems companies thought they'd solved decades ago, why the average enterprise tool now survives just 12 to 18 months, and why understanding customer need will end up mattering more than any single technical skill.

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38:41

Turning AI Hype into Store Ops: Manda Miller & Mariya...

Modern CTO ·

2026/08/31

Today, we're talking to Manda Miller of Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions and Mariya Zorotovich of Intel, the two people quietly turning retail's AI hype into real store operations. We discuss why conversational AI chatbots are the most overhyped technology in retail, why "AI theater" is easy to stage in a trade show booth but brutal to prove out on a real P&L, and why the best leadership advice either of them ever got was to give trust before it's earned.All of this right here, right now, on the

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53:58

The CTO Extinction Event with Etienne de Bruin,...

Modern CTO ·

2026/08/27

Today, we're talking to Etienne, founder of Seven CTOs and author of the new book Refactor. We discuss why the CTOs who survive this next shift will be the ones who understand how LLMs actually work rather than the ones optimizing token spend, how the C-suite has quietly moved from sharing knowledge to enrolling people in a point of view, and why curiosity, not seniority, is the closest thing to real job security left.All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast!

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43:27

Stop Ripping Out Your Legacy Code with Alan...

Modern CTO ·

2026/08/24

Today, we're talking to Alan Williamson, professional CTO for private equity-backed companies and author of Think Like a CTO. We discuss why the industry's $20-a-month AI subscriptions can't possibly cover a trillion-dollar cost structure, how some companies are quietly deleting the word "AI" from their marketing to win customers back, and why the old playbook for modernizing legacy systems no longer applies now that AI can out-rebuild it.All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO

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75:02

The Red Queen Problem with Anthony Scriffignano, PhD,...

Modern CTO ·

2026/08/20

Today, we're talking to Anthony Scriffignano, PhD, a longtime chief data scientist now working on hyperspectral space intelligence and global AI policy. We discuss why AI has put technology leaders in what he calls a "Red Queen problem," where you have to run faster just to stay in place, how most people wildly overestimate how much of the internet an LLM can actually see, and why leading with the technology instead of the problem is one of the costliest mistakes in enterprise AI right now.All

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53:50

Why You Can't Trust AI Without Governing It, with...

Modern CTO ·

2026/08/17

Today, we're talking to Tony Davis and John Balsavage of A&I Solutions, the team behind Scout, their AI agent governance platform. We discuss why they built a literal terrain map to visualize what's happening inside an AI agent's mind, how two agents secretly colluded to overturn a vote in their own testing lab, and why every AI agent you build today will be obsolete within a year no matter how well you built it.To learn more about A&I Solutions, check out their website here

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17:03

Tech Titans: Hidden Rules of the Brain with Moran...

Modern CTO ·

2026/08/13

Today, we're talking to Moran Cerf, neuroscientist and professor who studies live human brains through implanted electrodes during surgery. We discuss why the person who sees reality clearly drives more change than the one with official authority, how ant colonies and corporate boardrooms follow the same hidden rules of swarm leadership, and why the smell in a room might quietly decide the outcome of your next negotiation.All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To learn

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45:40

The Real Reason Your Body Is a Business Card, with...

Modern CTO ·

2026/08/10

Today, we're talking to Mauro Stara, founder of Six Pack CEO. We discuss why working out less, not harder, was the real fix behind one of his most dramatic client transformations, how a health scare in his twenties pushed him out of banking and into coaching high-performing men, and why getting genuinely healthy often means letting go of the people and identity that made staying unhealthy feel comfortable.All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To learn more about Six Pack

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15:42

Tech Titans: Rethinking Career Five-Year Plans with...

Modern CTO ·

2026/08/06

Today, we're talking to Francisco Trindade, VP of Software Engineering at Braze. We discuss why code review, not code generation, has become the real bottleneck in AI-driven engineering, how the leap to a codebase run by thousands of autonomous agents could repeat the failed promise of microservices at ten times the scale, and why the best career advice only makes sense once you stop trying to plan five years ahead.All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast!

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19:44

Tech Titans: Designing for Intuition with Campbell...

Modern CTO ·

2026/08/03

Today, we're talking to Campbell Brown, CEO and co-founder of PredictHQ. We discuss why the world's smartest AI models are still blind to real-world context, how a single film festival can quietly drain a retailer's entire workforce, and why the best way to get customers to follow your rules is to stop making them read the instructions.All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To learn more about PredictHQ, check out their website here.

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28:35

Tech Titans: How to Ask for Help as a Leader with...

Modern CTO ·

2026/07/30

If you fear failure, you’re not going to get very far. Neither will your team.Today, we're talking to Arnie Katz, CPTO at GoFundMe. We discuss why asking for help is harder and less understood than giving it, how AI now writes fundraiser titles that outperform the ones people write themselves, and why the biggest lesson from his failed startup was that believing you're customer-obsessed is worthless if you won't look at the data that proves you wrong. All of this right here, right now, on the

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