Nerding Out With Viktor (audio only)

In this episode of Nerding Out with Viktor, host Viktor Petersson sits down with Peter Damm, co-founder of Granite, a European company building infrastructure for sovereign AI, to unpack why the next phase of AI may be decided by infrastructure as much as by models. The UK pays offshore wind operators around three billion a year to switch their turbines off, while AI companies struggle to find power for the GPUs they have already bought.

Peter explains why agentic workloads need a different kind of cloud, one that balances GPUs, CPUs, memory and storage, and why the hardware ratio is flipping from eight GPUs per CPU toward eight CPUs per GPU. Granite builds modular, container-sized data centers that go where the stranded energy is, deploying in about four months rather than the five to seven years it takes to bring a traditional data center online.

The episode reframes sovereignty as a question of control rather than regulation. Closed models can be switched off or repriced overnight, while open models like Kimi now match frontier quality and can be audited and run on your own hardware. Viktor and Peter also cover unpredictable agent costs, the YOLO era of agent permissions, AI-driven security threats, and whether OpenAI and Anthropic will survive the revolution they helped start. For founders and engineering teams building on AI, it is a practical look at keeping models, data and costs under their own control.

In this episode of Nerding Out with Viktor, host Viktor Petersson sits down with Ed Ley, a leadership coach, author, former gym owner, and two-time TEDx speaker, to unpack why capable leaders get stuck even when they already know what they should be doing. Most leadership advice assumes the problem is information, but the gap between knowing and doing rarely closes by being told the right thing again.

Ed's route into this work started in fitness, where results are hard to hide, and moved through neuroscience, habit change, and years spent around both high-performance sport and business. The conversation traces how he came to treat behavior as a recipe that can be mapped rather than a plan that can be prescribed, and why the brain is better understood as a survival machine reacting to threat and uncertainty than as a rational one waiting for a destination.

The episode reframes burnout as a design problem rather than a workload one. Viktor and Ed cover the bungee cord effect of becoming the source of certainty for everyone around you, the predictions that sit underneath micromanagement, temporal discounting and the cost of inaction, and why bottlenecks in a company are solved by changing the architecture rather than asking the bottleneck to work harder.

In this episode of Nerding Out with Viktor, host Viktor Petersson sits down with David Pollak, founder of Spice Labs and creator of the Lift web framework, to unpack post-quantum cryptography and why the migration window is shorter than most teams realize. Google now estimates elliptic curve encryption could be breakable by quantum computers in 2029, putting the trust layer behind every bank transaction, signed document, software update, and Bitcoin wallet on a fixed timeline.

David draws on a career that spans writing software for FEMA at 14, beating Lotus in the NeXT spreadsheet market, diagnosing Twitter's original Fail Whale, and years at Cisco's firewall group. The conversation moves from the mechanics of Shor's algorithm and lattice-based replacements to the harder problem underneath: discovering where cryptography actually lives across millions of microservices, legacy mainframes, and post-build artifacts that no SBOM tool can see.

The episode reframes the post-quantum transition as a discovery and prioritization problem before it is a remediation one. Viktor and David cover crypto agility, the hardware root-of-trust gap in TPMs and HSMs, why the forgery threat is bigger than harvest-now-decrypt-later, and what engineering teams should be doing in the next three years.

In this episode of Nerding Out with Viktor, host Viktor Petersson sits down with Alex Zenla, Founder and CTO of Edera, to unpack why container security has been built on a flawed assumption from the start.

The conversation traces Alex's journey from working in deeply insecure IoT and industrial systems to building Edera, a company focused on rethinking isolation at the runtime level. Along the way, they explore how containers became the default abstraction, despite relying on shared kernel state and weak isolation guarantees. The discussion covers the technical trade-offs behind namespaces, virtualization, and hypervisor-based approaches, as well as the real-world challenges of securing modern workloads.

As AI agents and autonomous systems push infrastructure in new directions, the limits of today's container security runtime are becoming harder to ignore. This episode offers a grounded look at what needs to change and why a different approach to isolation may be necessary for the next generation of systems.

In this episode of Nerding Out with Viktor, host Viktor Petersson sits down with Olle Johansson and Anthony Harrison to explore the intersection of Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs) and the EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). Together, they unpack what CRA compliance looks like in practice and why SBOMs are becoming a critical piece of the regulatory puzzle.

Olle and Anthony share their hands-on experience navigating SBOM tooling, formats like CycloneDX and SPDX, and the operational challenges teams face when integrating these workflows into real-world development pipelines. The conversation covers how organizations can move beyond checkbox compliance toward meaningful transparency in their software supply chains.

They also discuss the timeline and enforcement realities of the CRA, how it interacts with existing standards, and what engineering teams should be doing now to prepare. For anyone building, shipping, or securing software in the EU market, this episode offers a grounded, practical guide to the compliance landscape ahead.

In this episode of "Nerding Out with Viktor," host Viktor Petersson sits down with Marcelo Garcia, a telecom infrastructure veteran turned extreme biohacker, to explore what biohacking looks like when approached through systems thinking and data.

Marcelo recently completed a 50-day water-only fast while hiking nearly 1,000 kilometers, tracking everything from DEXA scans and VO2 max to HRV and metabolic panels. The conversation moves from the mechanics of prolonged fasting and fat oxidation to muscle preservation under sustained load, immune adaptation, and the role of movement as a metabolic signal.

Viktor and Marcelo also discuss biological age modeling and how AI can synthesize large sets of biomarkers into practical health span projections. For builders and technically inclined listeners, this episode reframes resilience as something measurable, testable, and intentionally designed.

In this episode of "Nerding Out with Viktor," host Viktor Petersson sits down with Sarah Fluchs, CTO and OT cybersecurity expert, to unpack the EU's Cyber Resilience Act and what it means for anyone building connected devices.

Sarah shares her journey from engineering into the world of OT security, and explains her involvement in the CRA expert group that's shaping how the regulation gets implemented. Together, they explore what CRA compliance looks like in practice—from the requirement to provide five years of vulnerability support, to the constraints around over-the-air updates, and the rising importance of Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs) in embedded systems.

The conversation dives into the practical challenges facing device manufacturers, including how to structure security workflows, manage firmware lifecycles, and prepare for regulatory scrutiny. Sarah offers clear, grounded insights into the timeline, scope, and enforcement mechanisms of the CRA, helping listeners understand what's required and what's still being defined.

Viktor and Sarah also discuss the broader implications of the CRA for the embedded and IoT ecosystem, exploring how the regulation intersects with existing standards and what it means for both large enterprises and smaller hardware teams. They examine common misconceptions about compliance and share strategies for teams looking to get ahead of the requirements.

Whether you're managing firmware, building security workflows, or navigating hardware compliance, this episode offers a practical guide to understanding the CRA and preparing your organization for what's ahead.

In this episode of "Nerding Out with Viktor," host Viktor Petersson sits down with James Baker, Policy and Campaigns Manager at Open Rights Group, to explore the real-world impact of the UK Online Safety Act and proposed Digital ID systems. Together, they unpack how the UK's approach to digital identity is raising concerns about centralization, privacy, and long-term control over personal data.

James shares his experience fighting the UK's original ID card proposal and why current models risk repeating the same mistakes—only with more data and less oversight. The conversation covers how enforcement is playing out across infrastructure, the role of companies like Palantir, and how surveillance tools like facial recognition and metadata scanning are already affecting users and platforms.

Viktor and James delve into the technical and policy implications of centralized identity systems, examining how seemingly convenient digital ID solutions can create unprecedented opportunities for surveillance and control. They discuss the challenges facing platforms trying to comply with age verification requirements while protecting user privacy, and why the current regulatory approach may be fundamentally incompatible with secure, decentralized systems.

The discussion also explores the broader implications for encryption, anonymity, and digital rights in an increasingly surveilled digital landscape. James provides insights into how civil liberties organizations are pushing back against overreaching legislation, and what individuals and organizations can do to protect privacy and freedom in the digital age.

This episode is especially relevant for anyone working on identity, encryption, or infrastructure. It offers a clear look at how policy and implementation intersect—and why design choices today matter more than ever for the future of digital rights and privacy.

In this episode of "Nerding Out with Viktor," host Viktor Petersson sits down with Nick Selby, a security leader and advocate for practical security culture, to explore the reality behind software security compliance and why so many teams treat it as a checkbox rather than a mindset.

The discussion unpacks how frameworks like SOC 2 and ISO 27001 often provide structure but not necessarily safety, and why real resilience depends on culture, not compliance. Viktor and Nick dig into the challenges of adopting AI tools faster than they can be secured, the limits of certification-driven trust, and how modern legislation such as the Cyber Resilience Act and SBOMs can reshape accountability across the software supply chain.

Nick shares insights from his extensive experience in security leadership, revealing the gap between compliance theater and genuine security practices. The conversation explores how organizations can build security cultures that make compliance a natural outcome rather than a forced exercise, and why understanding the "why" behind security measures is more valuable than simply following checklists.

The episode also delves into the practical challenges facing modern development teams as they navigate the rapid adoption of AI tools while maintaining security standards. Viktor and Nick examine how traditional compliance frameworks struggle to keep pace with emerging technologies, and what this means for organizations trying to balance innovation with risk management.

For founders, engineers, and leaders navigating the balance between innovation and security, this episode offers a grounded look at how to make compliance a natural outcome of good security practices, not its substitute.

In this episode of "Nerding Out with Viktor," host Viktor Petersson sits down with Patrick Walker, former YouTube and Facebook executive and now founder of the conscious tech platform Uptime, to explore the quiet discipline of digital minimalism.

Patrick shares his journey from building global video platforms to stepping away from Big Tech, reflecting on the ethical and personal tradeoffs of always-on technology. They discuss the design choices that shape user behavior, why screen time isn't just a personal problem, and how to raise screen-literate kids without going off the grid.

The conversation delves into the psychology of attention design, exploring how recommendation algorithms and notification systems are engineered to capture and hold user engagement. Patrick offers insights from his years inside major tech companies, revealing the tension between user wellbeing and business metrics that drive product decisions.

Viktor and Patrick examine practical strategies for reclaiming digital autonomy, from intentional device usage to creating boundaries that support deep work and meaningful relationships. They also discuss the challenges facing parents in an increasingly connected world, sharing approaches for teaching children healthy technology habits without resorting to complete digital abstinence.

Whether you're designing products, leading a team, or just trying to protect your own attention, this episode offers a clear-headed look at why digital minimalism matters—and how to make space for what truly counts in an age of infinite scroll.