Software Engineering Daily

Suddenly, automation is changing our world faster than anyone anticipated. For technologists, the world is becoming convenient and high-leverage. For non-technologists, the job market is evaporating.

Haseeb Qureshi and Quincy Larson join me for a roundtable discussion on automation, jobs, and artificial intelligence. Haseeb and I have had numerous discussions about this topic before, and Quincy is the founder of Free Code Camp, which teaches people to learn programming for free. If there is one upside of all these jobs being automated away, its that it will lead to massive user growth for Free Code Camp.

I enjoyed talking to Quincy and Haseeb as always.

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CRISPR is a technique for altering the human genome. It might be the most powerful tool for biological modification that we have ever discovered. In this episode, we explore CRISPR: how it works, why it exists in the natural world, and the implications for being able to modify DNA so easily.

Geoff Ralston is a partner at Y-Combinator. He wrote an article entitled Hacking DNA: The Story of CRISPR, Ken Thompson, and the Gene Drive. Since Geoff is not a biologist, he is the perfect person to explain CRISPR to an audience of non-biologists.

Since he is an investor, he is also great at explaining the pace at which CRISPR might make it to market, and how it might converge with some of the other futuristic trends we are seeing so regularly today.

If you are interested in hosting a show for Software Engineering Daily, we are looking for engineers, journalists, and hackers who want to work with us on content. It is a paid opportunity. Go to softwareengineeringdaily.com/host to find out more.

The Software Engineering Daily store is now open if you want to buy a Software Engineering Daily branded t-shirt, hoodie, or mug and support the show. Go to softwareengineeringdaily.com/store.

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The Washington Post was acquired by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in 2013. Since then, the newspaper has started thinking more like a software company, opting to build new software rather than buy off-the-shelf third party solutions.

Arc Publishing is a CMS built by The Washington Post to produce and display content. When you visit washingtonpost.com, you are viewing a site built with Arc Publishing. The Washington Post has also brought its advertising technology in-house.

Jarrod Dicker is the head of commercial product and technology at The Washington Post. He joins the show to discuss the transformation that has occurred since Bezos purchased the company. We also explore the problems in digital advertising that have been covered in recent episodes of Software Engineering Daily.

Thanks to listener Mani Gandham for introducing me to Jarrod, and if you have a suggestion for a guest you want to hear, please send me an email.

If you are interested in hosting a show for Software Engineering Daily, we are looking for engineers, journalists, and hackers who want to work with us on content. It is a paid opportunity. Go to softwareengineeringdaily.com/host to find out more.

The Software Engineering Daily store is now open if you want to buy a Software Engineering Daily branded t-shirt, hoodie, or mug and support the show. Let’s get on with the show. Go to softwareengineeringdaily.com/store.

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Software Engineering Daily examines the world through the lens of software engineering. In most episodes, an expert in a particular topic joins the show as a guest, and we go into deep technical detail. Occasionally we like to do episodes where we survey a collection of topics.

In today’s topic roundtable, Caleb Meredith and Courtland Allen join me for a discussion of several questions: would it make sense for Facebook to build an operating system? Does online advertising work? How can you work productively on an engineering company with your brother as a co-founder?

Courtland is the founder of IndieHackers.com, which was recently acquired by Stripe. Caleb Meredith is the lead JavaScript correspondent of Software Engineering Daily. It was a blast talking to both of them, and we plan to do more round table episodes in the future.

We would love to get your feedback on Software Engineering Daily. Please fill out the listener survey, available on softwareengineeringdaily.com/survey. Also–Software Engineering Daily is having our third Meetup, Wednesday May 3rd at Galvanize in San Francisco. The theme of this Meetup is Fraud and Risk in Software. We will have great food, engaging speakers, and a friendly, intellectual atmosphere. To find out more, go to softwareengineeringdaily.com/meetup.

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Most people in Africa never had a desktop computer. The first computer they owned was a smart phone. This is why Africa is referred to as a “leap frog” place with regard to computers–Africa leapfrogged the desktop to the smart phone.

The banking system in Africa also followed a trajectory that is different than the West. Westerners are used to banking on their desktop computers. African e-commerce has developed around the smartphone as the computer for banking. As a result, Africa is in a technological development phase with tremendous opportunities in the financial sector and beyond.

Mymookh.com is a Kenyan end-to-end payment platform that allows small- to medium-sized businesses to easily set up online stores and sell to consumers directly from their social media pages. It is one of the many startups across Africa leveraging the accessibility of mobile payments to meet the particular needs of merchants and consumers there. Africa’s development and use of mobile payment systems is expected to grow as more countries on the continent create and adopt this technology.

In this episode, George Gachui, co-founder of Mymookh, talks to Carl Mungazi about how Kenya became a leading player in the mobile payment space with its m-pesa system. He explains how it has revolutionized the way Kenyans approach commerce and payment technology and discusses the challenges of creating a unified platform system that transcends borders and currencies.

Software Engineering Daily is having our third Meetup, Wednesday May 3rd at Galvanize in San Francisco. The theme of this Meetup is Fraud and Risk in Software. We will have great food, engaging speakers, and a friendly, intellectual atmosphere. To find out more, go to softwareengineeringdaily.com/meetup.

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