Software development is changing fast. With Cursor, Anysphere is building an AI-forward IDE that fuses human creativity with machine intelligence. At the heart of this transformation is data streaming—making it possible to train models responsibly, deliver lightning-fast Tab completions, and scale telemetry without breaking engineering velocity.

In this episode, engineer Alex Haugland shares how WarpStream gives Cursor sovereignty over user data, how telemetry and accounting pipelines strengthen product decisions, and why “coding is really just a bug” in how we interact with computers. 

You’ll learn:

• Why data sovereignty and trust are critical for AI-powered products
• How WarpStream abstracts complexity while preserving control over data
• Where telemetry and accounting data streaming improve both user experience and business outcomes
• How to right-size your data stack and avoid mismatched scale

For senior leaders evaluating AI and streaming strategies, Cursor offers a blueprint for balancing innovation, cost, and trust.

About the Guest:
Alex Haugland is an engineer at Anysphere working on Cursor. He is a massive scale distributed systems performance engineer enthusiastic about understanding complex technical systems, organizational systems, and mentoring junior engineers.

Guest Highlight: 
“Our business is built on top of data, and a lot of it is data that people have been really generous to allow us to use… WarpStream lets us do that in a way where the data sits entirely inside stuff that we control and have access to. Being able to say, ‘All this stuff is locked down on S3; we have control of it,’ is really, really important to us.”

Episode Timestamps: 
*(00:45) -    Anysphere, Cursor, and Data Streaming Strategy
*(04:05) - Data Streaming Goodness
*(21:30) -  Beyond the Stream
*(32:00) - Quick Bytes
*(34:45) - Joseph’s Top 3 Takeaways

Dive Deeper into Data Streaming:

• EP1—Stream On: Unleashing Innovation with Data Streaming | Life Is But A Stream
• EP2—Processing Without Pause: Continuous Stream Processing and Apache Flink® | Life Is But A Stream
• EP3—The Connective Tissue: Shift Left to turn Data Chaos to Clarity | Life Is But A Stream

Links & Resources:

• Connect with Joseph: @thedatagiant
• WarpStream: @WarpStreamLabs
• Cursor: @cursor_ai
• Joseph’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thedatagiant
• Alex’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alex-haugland-4ba8893b
• Learn more at Confluent.io
• Register now for Current NOLA 2025: https://current.confluent.io/new-orleans?utm_source=simplecast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=tm.content_life-is-but-a-stream

Our Sponsor:  
Your data shouldn’t be a problem to manage. It should be your superpower. The Confluent data streaming platform transforms organizations with trustworthy, real-time data that seamlessly spans your entire environment and powers innovation across every use case. Create smarter, deploy faster, and maximize efficiency with a true data streaming platform from the pioneers in data streaming. Learn more at confluent.io.

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