Brian Douglas, co-founder of The Paper Compute Company and once GitHub's first developer advocate, joins Megashift to talk about the messy, exciting reality of AI agents in 2025.

Brian breaks down what agents actually are (beyond the buzzwords), why giving them unchecked access to your systems is like handing a toddler a Sharpie, and what his team is building to make agents safer and more manageable. His products Tapes (open source telemetry for agents) and Stereos (an operating system for agents) aim to give platform teams the control and visibility they need as AI takes on more autonomous work.

The conversation also covers Brian's journey from career switcher to GitHub developer advocate to open source founder (acquired by the Linux Foundation), and how he's using Claude and AI tools in his own workflow, from generating requests for comments to skilling up on distributed systems. Brian shares practical advice for developers feeling overwhelmed by the pace of AI: develop taste by reading code, build things to learn (not just to sell), and don't let the hype drown out the fundamentals.

Topics covered:

> What AI agents really are and why they need guardrails

> The Paper Compute Company's approach to agent infrastructure

> How developer workflows are shifting with AI-assisted coding

> Brian's path from Netlify to GitHub to founding OpenSauced (acquired by Linux Foundation)

> Why "if you're a bad engineer, AI's gonna make you a worse engineer"

> The case for reading algorithms books and building side projects to learn

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