A knowledge base assembles information from a wide variety of sources into a central platform.

The most popular knowledge base is Wikipedia, which covers a wide variety of concepts through a system that attempts to remain authoritative and impartial. Other open knowledge platforms include Stack Overflow, which focuses on programming concepts, and Quora, which adds a social element to the process of information accumulation.

Golden.com is a knowledge base that indexes, categorizes, and surfaces information. Golden has information about software, genetics, world history, social media, sports, and all kinds of other subjects. The company monetizes with a paid knowledge base product for enterprises, which allows for easy easy querying of the open knowledge base and a private knowledge base for internal information.

Jude Gomila is the founder of Golden, and joins the show to discuss the process of building a universal knowledge base, and the engineering problems that he is working on to improve Golden.

A knowledge base assembles information from a wide variety of sources into a central platform.

The most popular knowledge base is Wikipedia, which covers a wide variety of concepts through a system that attempts to remain authoritative and impartial. Other open knowledge platforms include Stack Overflow, which focuses on programming concepts, and Quora, which adds a social element to the process of information accumulation.

Golden.com is a knowledge base that indexes, categorizes, and surfaces information. Golden has information about software, genetics, world history, social media, sports, and all kinds of other subjects. The company monetizes with a paid knowledge base product for enterprises, which allows for easy easy querying of the open knowledge base and a private knowledge base for internal information.

Jude Gomila is the founder of Golden, and joins the show to discuss the process of building a universal knowledge base, and the engineering problems that he is working on to improve Golden.

Coding bootcamps allow anyone to become a programmer at a faster pace than the traditional computer science education system. In the last five years, coding bootcamps have grown rapidly in popularity, with thousands of people gaining the necessary skills to work as a software engineer.

Career Karma is a platform that allows individuals to find the best coding bootcamp. There are many coding bootcamps, and they are not all the same. Much like different schools have different cultures and focus on different disciplines, coding bootcamps vary widely in their teaching styles and acceptance path.

Reuben Harris and Artur Meyster are co-founders of Career Karma, and they join the show to discuss the changing nature of software engineering education and the frictions that new programmers encounter as they navigate the world of coding bootcamps. They also describe their journey to entrepreneurship and their own personal experience with coding bootcamps.

A hackathon is an organized event where participants work together to build a product or tool. Hackathons are about creativity, learning, and exploration. A developer that is participating in a hackathon is often working on something that is outside of their normal day-to-day focus. 

Hackathons can provide significant value to the participants. Hackathons have led to friendships, new companies, and newly developed confidence that can be critical to a developer who feels uncertain in their ability to launch their own projects.

Jonathan Gottfried is a co-founder of Major League Hacking, an official student hackathon league that powers invention competitions. Major League Hacking is a B corporation that is focused on improving the education and community of technology leaders, entrepreneurs, and young hackers.

Jon joins the show to discuss hackathons–and how he has built and scaled an organization that is devoted to creating systematically successful hackathon experiences.

A hackathon is an organized event where participants work together to build a product or tool. Hackathons are about creativity, learning, and exploration. A developer that is participating in a hackathon is often working on something that is outside of their normal day-to-day focus. 

Hackathons can provide significant value to the participants. Hackathons have led to friendships, new companies, and newly developed confidence that can be critical to a developer who feels uncertain in their ability to launch their own projects.

Jonathan Gottfried is a co-founder of Major League Hacking, an official student hackathon league that powers invention competitions. Major League Hacking is a B corporation that is focused on improving the education and community of technology leaders, entrepreneurs, and young hackers.

Jon joins the show to discuss hackathons–and how he has built and scaled an organization that is devoted to creating systematically successful hackathon experiences.

Videos play a key role in the continuing education of a software engineer. Video can capture many different types of content that is useful for engineers: conference talks, tutorial videos, and podcast-style interviews are all popular formats of online video.

YouTube has become the predominant source for video content about software engineering. The open nature of YouTube’s format allows for a tremendous range of content. No matter what your preference is for how you like to learn and be entertained, YouTube has something for you.

TechPrimers is a media channel that is dedicated to sharing technical knowledge in the form of videos, GitHub repositories, and a thriving community. TechPrimers has over 300 videos on YouTube, and more than 48,000 subscribers who regularly watch content about subjects like AWS, Spring, and Kubernetes.

TechPrimers was founded by Ajay Kumar, a software engineer and vice president at JP Morgan. Ajay has been in the software industry for fifteen years, and has been working in enterprise banking systems for seven years. He has deep experience in modern technologies and engineering practices.

Ajay joins the show to discuss the modern world of software engineering, and his experience building a media platform. He also talks about the technology culture of India. Ajay is based in Bengalaru, and it was exciting to learn how much our different societies have in common thanks to technology. Ajay also had me on his YouTube channel for an interview, which was a lot of fun.

“Internet of Things” is a term used to describe the increasing connectivity and intelligence of physical objects within our lives. 

IoT has manifested within enterprises under the term “Industrial IoT,” as wireless connectivity and machine learning have started to improve devices such as centrifuges, conveyor belts, and factory robotics. In the consumer space, IoT has moved slower than many people expected, and it remains to be seen when we will have widespread computation within consumer devices such as microwaves, washing machines, and lightswitches.

IoT computers have different constraints than general purpose computers. Security, reliability, battery life, power consumption, and cost structures are very different in IoT devices than in your laptop or smartphone. One technology that could solve some of the problems within IoT is WebAssembly, a newer binary instruction format for executable programs.

Jonathan Beri is a software engineer and the organizer of the San Francisco WebAssembly Meetup. He has significant experience in the IoT industry, and joins the show to discuss the state of WebAssembly, the surrounding technologies, and their impact on IoT.

“Internet of Things” is a term used to describe the increasing connectivity and intelligence of physical objects within our lives. 

IoT has manifested within enterprises under the term “Industrial IoT,” as wireless connectivity and machine learning have started to improve devices such as centrifuges, conveyor belts, and factory robotics. In the consumer space, IoT has moved slower than many people expected, and it remains to be seen when we will have widespread computation within consumer devices such as microwaves, washing machines, and lightswitches.

IoT computers have different constraints than general purpose computers. Security, reliability, battery life, power consumption, and cost structures are very different in IoT devices than in your laptop or smartphone. One technology that could solve some of the problems within IoT is WebAssembly, a newer binary instruction format for executable programs.

Jonathan Beri is a software engineer and the organizer of the San Francisco WebAssembly Meetup. He has significant experience in the IoT industry, and joins the show to discuss the state of WebAssembly, the surrounding technologies, and their impact on IoT.

Data engineering involves numerous tools–a data lake, databases, data warehouses, numerous APIs, streaming systems, and microservices. There is no shortage of ways to interact with data and manage data, but many companies are struggling to figure out design patterns and best practices for how to manage data and build data infrastructure.

Zhamak Dehgani is a principal consultant and portfolio director with ThoughtWorks, where she works with enterprises to improve their software systems and workflows. She is the author of an article called How to Move Beyond a Monolithic Data Lake to a Distributed Data Mesh and she joins the show to discuss her perspective on data infrastructure, as well as the “data mesh” concept that she has coined.

Data mesh represents the movement away from having a centralized data lake that all teams interact with, and towards having different data products and individual data management systems for individual domain teams.

Software companies such as Slack, Zoom, and Uber have recently gone public.

When a company goes public, they issue a document called an S-1. Within the S-1, there is a wealth of information about the company, providing a detailed story about the company’s business model, economics, and future prospects. The S-1 describes the operating model and the philosophy of a newly public company.

Going public serves several purposes. Being public allows a company to gain access to the public capital markets. It allows previous investors to have a liquidity event, by selling the shares that they purchased from the company in private markets. Being public also puts some constraints and visibility on a company, which can be useful for a company that is trying to develop internal discipline.

In the software industry, it is useful for most people to understand the dynamics of going public. A technology worker who is earning equity at a private company needs to understand the roadmap to their company going public, or potentially getting acquired. Anyone who invests in public technology stocks is evaluating the different available options for investment, and considering the best software companies to place a bet on.

Tom Tunguz is a venture investor at Redpoint, and the author of a popular blog at tomasztonguz.com. In a recent series of posts, Tom has evaluated the S-1s and compared the growth dynamics between a variety of newer public software companies. Tom joins today’s show to discuss his writing, and offer reflections on what can be learned about company building from the recent series of IPOs and direct listings.