The most influential voices in CAD are not always the ones who wrote the software. Sometimes they are the people who used it, often found it lacking, and documented it all. When CAD publishers honored CAD companies, Steve called them out. 

That’s why I wanted Steve Wolfe on the History of CAD podcast. Steve built The CAD Report, a paid CAD newsletter that was dreaded by CAD vendors and indispensable to CAD shoppers. 

Steve’s engineering education began at Northwestern and  continued at MIT. It's not all about CAD: a master’s thesis experiment on sea ice and what happens when oil gets trapped underneath. Then there are 9 years as an engineer with Electric Boat. After that came the newsletter.

We touch the early commercial CAD landscape, the rise of Autodesk and AutoCAD, and how proprietary CAD data formats can hold an industry hostage for decades. 

We also get practical and current: why CAD user interface design still struggles compared to fast sketching and design exploration on paper, why 2D thinking never went away, and how 3D modeling plus CAM and CNC can make parts fit the first time. Finally, we look at AI in CAD and AI for everything else... Like all the paper issues of the CAD report. 

If you want to go deep into the Wild West of CAD in the late 70s and 80s, and you appreciate strong opinions, you'll want to share this episode.

AI can spit out thousands of “optimized” airfoils in seconds, but what happens when the objective is wrong, the mission changes, or the aircraft has to be certified and insured? We talk with Patrick Hanley, founder of Hanley Aerospace and author of Aerodynamics in Plain English, about why real aerodynamics is still built on fundamentals, not AI, not vibe coding. 

Patrick shares his story from St. Kitts and Nevis, tiny islands in the Caribbean, to MIT, and how a deep love of math turned into a lifelong habit of writing software to solve aerodynamic problems  —  in his spare time. We dig into how his CFD products evolved as the market shifted from paid tools to free alternatives, and why he kept climbing toward higher-fidelity capability. He explains the practical engineering choices behind accuracy, including why grid strategy matters so much, what validation really means, and how a focused tool like Stallion 3D can carve out a global niche even while giant multiphysics platforms dominate mindshare.

We also go beyond CFD theory into the real aerospace work: Terrafugia and the flying car program, the mission logic behind eVTOL air taxis, and the overlooked constraint that shapes urban flight more than range does: noise. 

Finally, we take a hard look at AI in engineering design, from automated shape generation to liability, and why prototypes and testing still catch the failures no simulator can predict.

If you’ve ever looked at a “simple” filtration problem and then watched it explode into slurry chemistry, media selection, power constraints, and environmental risk, you’ll feel right at home here. I’m joined by Steve Benisi, CEO and founder of FM Technologies, an inventor with so many patents, he has lost count. "It's roughly 35 to 40 patents," he says. He has decades of experience building industrial filtration systems that have to perform under real mine-site conditions. 

We start with Steve’s origin story, including the pressure filtration technology he developed in 1989 and later sold as a major acquisition, and why he moved from pressure filters into next-generation vacuum filtration. 

From there we get into the engineering of Steve’s Universal Vacuum Filter (UVF): what “solids-liquid separation” really means in practice, how filtration rate, cake dryness, and filtrate clarity get measured, and why continuous operation matters when downtime is expensive. Steve explains the hands-on grind behind advanced filter media development and the design choices that aim to reduce water use, cut vacuum and compressed air power, and shrink the equipment footprint compared to conventional vacuum disc filters and filter presses. If you care about mining tailings filtration, dewatering, minerals processing, or reducing operating costs while improving performance, this one is loaded with specifics. 

We also talk candidly about mining realities, including remote operations, the knowledge gap between corporate layers and on-the-ground testing, and the consequences when tailings management fails. To close, Steve lays out a practical roadmap for engineers who want to patent their work: provisional applications, utility patents, why rejection is normal, and when confidentiality agreements can protect you before you spend big. 

Michael "Fino" Finocchiaro unpacks a massive market map of engineering and manufacturing software startups, some of them real products. We debate where AI is truly moving the needle in CAD, PLM, and factory software and what an “OpenAI moment” in engineering could actually look like. 

• Building a 200-300 startup database from founder interviews and repeated data scans 
• Defining categories like design intelligence and cognitive thread to fit modern engineering software 
• Turning research into Threadmoat with interactive filters and advanced startup analytics 
• Using financial heat maps to reason about burn rate and capital efficiency 
• Mapping customers and investors to expose adoption patterns and hidden clusters 
• Tracking funding spikes since 2022 and asking what drives investment in engineering AI 
• Learning from “Prove It” model where vendors must run on virtual factories 
• Debating text-to-CAD versus AI as a new CAD engine that preserves parametric history 
• Arguing for leaner PLM plus a semantic layer and agent-ready integration over customization 
• Sketching a startup-first conference model with hyperscaler and VC sponsorship 

We catch up with Richard Doyle, the “User Group Guy,” on how CAD communities get built, how they drift when marketing takes over, and why that shift changes what users feel they can trust. We also talk through his move to Las Vegas, poker discipline, career setbacks, and what it’s like to return to full-time mechanical design while still advocating for users.
• SolidWorks World memories and what long-running conferences signal about loyalty 
• Moving to Las Vegas and why poker sharpened his mindset 
• The origin of “User Group Guy” and what the label means 
• Why user group meetings should focus on learning and community, not selling 
• The pressure to promote 3DEXPERIENCE and the friction it created with desktop CAD users 
• How Autodesk University and other events evolved from user-first to vendor-led 
• Leadership stories and the impact of “kill SolidWorks” messaging 
• Layoffs, debt, ageism concerns, and rebuilding with a new design role 
• Staying current in CAD and what daily SolidWorks use reveals 
• Why Onshape stands out, especially mates in assemblies 
• Building Onshape user groups fast, then adapting during the pandemic 
• The limits of online meetings and why real connection still physical presence  — and beer

And now for something completely different. We hold our breath and go underwater with Tetsuo Hara, champion free diver. Tetsuo is a tech executive  by day and in his free time, an elite freediver. He set a Guinness World Record by reaching 100 meters in constant weight at age 58. He explains why deep dives are won with preparation, calm, and systems thinking, not bravado.
• Constant weight freediving basics and what 113 meters feels like under pressure 
• How an engineering mindset turns the body into a trainable system 
• The real drivers of performance like CO2 tolerance, equalization, relaxation, and lung flexibility 
• Training progression that builds confidence by going shallow first 
• Why the urge to breathe is mostly CO2 and how training delays the reflex 
• Close calls, abort decisions, and the safety logic that keeps divers alive 
• Ideal deep dive conditions including warmth, visibility, low current, and free fall 
• Pre-competition food and hydration choices plus why scuba holds no appeal 
• Lessons from the sport on consistency, community and facing yourself 

We sit down with Edson Gebo, mechanical designer and a veteran SOLIDWORKS power user, who was laid off from a metal additive startup and navigated three hard months of searching to land a new role. We discuss ATSs (applicant tracking systems) that are used almost universally by HR, ageism, networking that works, and the human-first tactics that beat the bots.

• Funding runway, pivot and layoff at a metal AM startup
• Three months of job hunting surprises and setbacks
• ATS filters, degree screens and resume tailoring
• Cost pressure, ageism and the “pliable” hire
• Why engineers must shape engineering software
• Consulting versus full-time tradeoffs and timing
• The short contract that bridged to a new offer
• LinkedIn warm intros and seven interviews won
• Advice for grads on internships and user groups
• Real networking over keyword gaming

“Join me as we talk to some of the most interesting people in the design and engineering software community.”

We sit down with Bernard Murphy to explore how a physicist became a trusted voice in semiconductors and why storytelling makes or breaks technical ideas. Along the way we unpack NVIDIA’s pivot, Apple’s chip strategy, on‑device AI, and the shifting media landscape in tech.

• Moving from Silicon Valley to the Sierra foothills
• Wildlife rescue as context and purpose
• Writing as a learnable craft through coaching
• Hero’s journey adapted for technical writing
• Problem-first narratives that beat feature lists
• NVIDIA’s matrix engines repurposed for AI
• Apple’s vertical integration and custom silicon
• On‑device AI vs cloud latency and privacy
• Energy costs, smaller models, and inference
• Paid, earned, and self‑published tech media
• Measuring impact beyond pageviews

We swap crash tales, altitude math, and plans for a 21,000‑foot trek while sharing how injury, MS, and early retirement reshaped our choices. Between Garmin alerts and book drafts, we weigh risk, recovery, and why some goals still feel worth the climb.

• Cycling crashes, concussions and a hip fracture
• Blackouts and memory gaps around impacts
• Trekking to Everest Base Camp and high passes
• Altitude, acclimatization and Diamox trade-offs
• Planning a 21,000‑foot trekking peak without oxygen
•MS diagnosis (wife) and early retirement
• Risk tolerance as we age and safer sport options
• Turning travel journals into a self-published book
• Testing Amazon’s publishing tools

We trade press releases for real stories with Kenneth Wong—writer, artist, photographer, and Burmese language instructor at UC Berkeley—exploring how tools, culture, and ethics shape the way we create. From tea leaf salad to Apple Pencil, from cloud CAD to AI, follow Kenneth's journey.

• Literary craft applied to B2B tech writing 
• Pragmatic uses of AI for summaries, transcripts, and creative prompts 
• Caffeine rituals, tea leaf salad, and cultural memory 
• Life in socialist Burma and communal norms vs American privacy 
• Drawing and photography on iPad, pressure sensitivity, and tactility 
• Why consumer-grade UX often outpaces enterprise CAD 
• Cloud adoption, subscription backlash, and industry inertia 
• AI for design intent vs button hunting, where it truly helps 
• Creative rights, style theft, face recognition, and ethics 
• Teaching Burmese: rules vs reflex and cognitive load 
• Travel to the Thailand–Burma border and personal risk 
• Robotaxis, rideshares, and enjoying small talk