Ediz Najim on Systems Thinking for Agentic AI

In this episode of the Leanpub Podcast, host Len Epp sits down with Ediz Najim, a software architect and technical leader based in Istanbul, to discuss his book Systems Thinking for Agentic AI: A Software Architect’s Guide to Building Reliable LLM and Agent Systems.

Background and Career

Ediz was born in Baghdad, where he completed his university education before moving to Istanbul to begin his professional career. His first project was a challenging Java codebase at a large company, and the experience of taking on additional responsibilities early on gave him the confidence to pursue startup work, where he had the freedom to choose technologies and frameworks. His long-term goal was always to become a software architect, and that ambition drove him to read, write, and experiment continuously.

Asked whether he would recommend university to someone starting out today, Ediz gave a clear “yes”—academic foundations matter—but he emphasised that universities should go beyond basics and give students far more hands-on, real-world software-building experience, not just brief company placements.

Why an LLM Is Not a System

The central premise of the book is that a large language model is only one component of an agentic AI system, not the system itself. Ediz uses the analogy of the human brain: a brain can think and decide, but it needs eyes, hands, and other organs to act in the world. Similarly, an LLM needs prompts, retrieval, tools, memory, orchestration, guardrails, and observability working together to form a production-ready system.

Reliability in Practice

Ediz stresses that reliability becomes critical the moment an AI system touches consequential actions—processing payments, controlling accounts, or making decisions with real-world consequences. Because LLMs are non-deterministic, every input and output must be validated by surrounding components. The system must also record every step in a traceable pipeline so that, when something goes wrong, engineers can reconstruct exactly what happened.

Evaluation

Evaluating an agentic AI system is fundamentally different from testing a deterministic one. Unit tests alone are insufficient when a component can produce anything from a perfectly relevant answer to a completely unrelated one. Ediz argues that teams must define clear input validation rules and explicit evidence criteria that determine whether an output is acceptable—before they build, not after.

The Controlled Agent Loop

Ediz offers a crisp definition of an agent: “a system that uses a model inside a controlled loop to pursue a task through actions, observations and state until a stopping condition is reached.” The loop handles user input, validates it, passes it to the LLM, manages tool execution requests from the model, and continues iterating until the LLM signals a final result. Crucially, the loop must never be infinite—engineers should set hard limits such as a maximum number of iterations or a token budget.

Tool Registries and MCP

To manage the tools an agent can call, Ediz recommends an explicit registry—implemented through the Model Context Protocol (MCP)—that declares what each tool does, what input schema it accepts, and what back-end operation it maps to. This lets the LLM simply request an action (“get the weather in Istanbul”) without needing to know the underlying URL, database query, or caching layer.

The Future of the Software Architect

Looking five years ahead, Ediz believes AI will be used everywhere in software, but cautions that the current maturity of AI systems is not yet sufficient to hand over full autonomy. The role of the architect will evolve, but human oversight and systems thinking will remain essential until AI demonstrates the reliability needed to be fully trusted.

Writing Process and STAAI

Ediz writes continuously—articles, LinkedIn posts, and drafts—without a fixed schedule, treating daily writing as a creative habit. The book grew out of accumulated notes and posts. He is also developing the STAAI architecture model, a framework of standards and principles for building agentic AI systems, more details of which can be found at STAAI.com.

The episode closes with Ediz thanking his parents for their encouragement, and with a listener request for Leanpub to offer print book services directly on the platform.

This interview was recorded on July 31, 2026.

The full audio for the interview is here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/leanpub_podcasts/FM338-Ediz-Najim-2.00.mp3. The Leanpub Podcast is available on our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/leanpub, in Apple Podcasts here https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/Leanpub/id517117137, and almost everywhere else people listen to podcasts.

Leanpub Podcast: Max Guernsey III on Serial Fiction, Automation, and Self-Publishing

In this wide-ranging episode, Len Epp sits down with repeat guest Max Guernsey III — software engineer, consultant, and Leanpub author — to talk about his multiple book projects, his creative use of the Leanpub API, and his pragmatic take on AI in writing and software development.

Automating a Serial Novel with GitHub Actions

Max is currently publishing No Direction: The Severed World, Book One, a fantasy novel set in 1022 AD, as a weekly serial. Because his writing output varies week to week, he built a GitHub Actions workflow that checks for scheduled chapter files and automatically pushes releases via the Leanpub API — including release emails. As a result, he thinks not in terms of what is published, but what is queued in the hopper. Each chapter aims to contain one small narrative arc that advances the larger story, typically running around 12 pages, with the book itself being the first installment in a planned four-part series.

The Leanpub Progress Badge and Chapter Ornaments

Max had previously suggested that Leanpub add a visible writing-progress indicator to book landing pages, and Len confirms that feature is now live. The conversation also touches on chapter ornaments — decorative images at the start of each chapter — which Max requested and a Leanpub co-op student subsequently built into the platform’s Markdown and visual editor.

Marketing Nonfiction to Hard-to-Reach Executives

For his nonfiction title Fixing Software Delivery, Max’s biggest challenge is getting in front of executive readers. Len offers several concrete tactics: building coupon campaigns timed around industry conferences (using Leanpub’s new leanpub.com/coupon entry page, which allows human-readable coupon codes), speaking at conferences with a QR code on the final slide, mailing physical print copies to senior leaders, and cultivating relationships with journalists by sending them genuinely novel insights related to their published articles.

YouTube, Pinterest, and Marketing Fiction Without Spoilers

For The Other Half of Coding, Max has found YouTube — clipped with tools like Opus Clip — and, surprisingly, Pinterest to be his most effective marketing channels. For No Direction, the challenge is different: how do you promote a slow-burn, drip-reveal fantasy world without giving the story away? Max has been experimenting on X (Twitter) with theme-based posts and community building, and is exploring a dedicated YouTube channel for the series. He is also considering video readings of individual chapters, drawing a parallel to the reading tours of Mark Twain and Charles Dickens, even though the idea has met skepticism from others.

A particularly inventive asset-reuse strategy emerged from Max’s world-building work: he built a program to generate glyphs for the constructed language and script of No Direction, and was advised to post those visual assets to Pinterest — where they have generated significant daily impressions and driven traffic to the book.

AI: Useful for Research and Editing, Not for Writing or Coding

Max uses AI selectively. He values it for research — describing it as a sophisticated curve-fitting machine well suited to finding patterns — and as an editing and chapter-review aid that catches errors and occasionally surfaces a better turn of phrase. He does not use it to generate prose or code, arguing that the genuinely hard part of both is the thinking, not the typing. He also raises economic concerns, suggesting that current AI pricing is heavily subsidised and that a significant price increase is likely once investment capital recedes — making generative use cases much harder to justify financially, while research use cases may still hold value.

This interview was recorded on July 29, 2026.

The full audio for the interview is here: [episode-audio-url]. The Leanpub Podcast is available on our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/leanpub, in Apple Podcasts here https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/Leanpub/id517117137, and almost everywhere else people listen to podcasts.

Gareth Holebrook on Ishi: The Discipline of Determined Intent

In this episode of the Leanpub Podcast, Len Epp speaks with Gareth Holebrook, author of Ishi: The Discipline of Determined Intent. Based in Auckland, Gareth brings together a remarkable set of experiences — Royal Navy weapons engineer, agile transformation specialist, Visa practice leader, partner to L. David Marquet on Intent-Based Leadership, and veteran of over 30 ultra-endurance events - to address a structural problem he sees destroying careers and organisations: the absence of a mechanism to distinguish endurance from self-harm while choice still matters.

From Manchester to the Royal Navy to New Zealand

Gareth grew up in Manchester and joined the Royal Navy at 18 as an engineering apprentice, specialising in electronic warfare and communications. He served in the Adriatic during the Yugoslav wars, where daily maintenance evolutions - stripping and re-greasing weapons systems, fire drills, watchkeeping - embedded the principle that muscle memory built in practice is what holds when conditions become dangerous. After leaving the Navy following redundancies in 1994, he worked in manufacturing at Sony, studied with the Open University while working full-time, moved to New Zealand in 2000, and joined GPS navigation startup Navman before founding his own altitude-training tech startup. When that business failed after the 2008 global financial crisis, he transitioned into agile coaching, eventually becoming Agile Practice Leader at Visa and connecting with former US submarine commander L. David Marquet.

The Collapse at Kona

The book opens with Gareth’s account of collapsing at kilometre 35 of the Ironman World Championships marathon in Hawaii in 2022. After 18 years of qualification attempts and a year of meticulous preparation - ceramic jockey wheels, a top-tier coach, a detailed nutrition spreadsheet - a single overlooked detail proved critical: sodium intake. In the crosswind on the bike leg he had repeatedly missed his salt tablets, and by the run he was severely hyponatraemic. He lay unconscious on the course for 40 minutes with 7 kilometres remaining. A sponsor gave him an electrolyte solution, he recovered, and he finished in 13 hours 16 minutes — two hours slower than planned.

For years Gareth framed this as a story of unstoppable persistence. Writing the book forced a different reading: a lifelong pattern of goal fixation, of becoming so blinkered that awareness switched off while effort continued. That pattern, he argues, is not a character flaw but a structural failure - the absence of a governing mechanism that could have caught the drift before collapse made correction impossible.

The Ishi Spiral

The book presents the Ishi Spiral, a four-phase discipline drawing on Japanese concepts: Decide (Ishi 意志), Forge (Shugyo 修行), Persist (Gaman 我慢), and Reflect (Hansei 反省). Gareth describes the spiral - rather than a closed loop — using the Zen calligraphic form of the Enso circle: when you return to the beginning you are not in the same place; you have grown, the environment has changed, and you have learned. The phases are not sequential stages to complete but interconnected practices active throughout any sustained endeavour.

A central tool is the Ishi card: a written governance artefact on which the practitioner records their intent, their first move, their strategies for persisting when discomfort arrives, their exit triggers, and the questions their future self will ask about the decision quality - not the outcome. Gareth draws on Annie Duke’s work on resulting and on L. David Marquet’s book Distancing (co-authored with Professor Mike Gillespie) to explain why psychological distance from one’s own ego is essential to both the Decide and Reflect phases.

Organisational Case Studies

The book’s fourth section applies the spiral to real organisational failures: American Apparel’s CEO burnout, Kodak’s failure to reflect and redirect, Bonser Aviation’s collapse from insufficient deliberate practice, the 1971 sinking of HMS Artemis in Gosport through accumulated small lapses, and the 2023 grounding and sinking of HMNZS Manawanui in Samoa, whose bridge transcripts reveal crew members unpractised in procedures they were expected to execute under pressure. Each case, Gareth argues, shows the absence of one or more phases of the Ishi Spiral - not individual moral failure but systemic drift that had been accumulating long before the visible collapse.

Writing the Book on Leanpub

Gareth signed up to Leanpub in early 2020, drawn by its incremental, iterative publishing model. The book itself became an Ishi - a declared intent, governed over several years through deliberate daily writing practice (a thousand words a day at one stage, then a daily Kaizen post on LinkedIn), persistence through COVID disruptions, a dropped client, and a week writing in a camper van at the Sydney Ironman World Championships in October 2024. He launched Ishi: The Discipline of Determined Intent on 6 January 2026 - deliberately chosen as Quitter’s Day, the second Friday of January - alongside a companion Ishi Guide and a separate book of 100 Kaizens, all published on Leanpub.

This interview was recorded on July 6, 2026.

The full audio for the interview is here: [episode-audio-url]. The Leanpub Podcast is available on our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/leanpub, in Apple Podcasts here https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/Leanpub/id517117137, and almost everywhere else people listen to podcasts.

In this episode of the Leanpub Podcast, Len Epp interviews Jay LaCroix, creator of Learn Linux TV and author of Switching to Linux: A Practical Guide for Windows and Mac Users. Jay shares the story of how he discovered Linux, built one of YouTube’s largest Linux education communities, and wrote a practical guide to help newcomers make the transition from Windows or macOS with confidence. Drawing on more than two decades of professional Linux experience, he explains why Linux has never been more accessible and practical for everyday users.

The conversation explores how to choose the right Linux distribution, what new users should expect during the transition, hardware compatibility, gaming on Linux, the role of the terminal, and the misconceptions that often discourage people from making the switch. Len and Jay also discuss AI, open source software, content creation, and why learning Linux remains a valuable skill for developers, IT professionals, and curious computer users alike.

Whether you’re considering Linux for the first time or looking to deepen your understanding of the open source ecosystem, this episode offers practical advice, encouraging stories, and a realistic look at what modern Linux has to offer.

This interview was recorded on July 2, 2026.

The full audio for the interview is here: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/leanpub_podcasts/335-Jay+LaCroix-2026-07-02.mp3. The Leanpub Podcast is available on our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/leanpub, in Apple Podcasts here https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/Leanpub/id517117137, and almost everywhere else people listen to podcasts.

In this episode of the Leanpub Podcast, Len Epp interviews Russ Miles, author of The Sovereign Engineer: AI Literacy for Software Professionals, about what it means to build a successful software engineering career in the age of AI. Drawing on decades of experience in software architecture, distributed systems, and engineering leadership, Russ argues that AI is best understood as an amplifier: it rewards strong engineering practices while exposing weak ones. Rather than fearing AI, software professionals should develop AI literacy and cultivate the mindset of the “sovereign engineer” - someone who combines technical expertise, sound judgment, curiosity, and continuous learning to remain effective as the industry evolves.

The conversation explores topics including large language models, prompt engineering, AI agents, test-driven development (TDD), software architecture, feedback loops, and Russ’s concept of habitat engineering - designing environments that help both people and AI systems succeed. Len and Russ also discuss why human skills such as systems thinking, communication, and contextual decision-making become even more valuable as AI capabilities grow, and how engineers can use AI as a collaborative partner while retaining ownership of the problems they solve.

Whether you’re a software developer, engineering leader, architect, or simply curious about the future of programming, this episode offers practical guidance for embracing AI without losing sight of the craftsmanship, discipline, and critical thinking that define great engineering.

This interview was recorded on June 17, 2026.

The full audio for the interview is here: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/leanpub_podcasts/334-Russ-Miles-2026-06-17.mp3. The Leanpub Podcast is available on our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/leanpub, in Apple Podcasts here https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/Leanpub/id517117137, and almost everywhere else people listen to podcasts.

In this episode of the Leanpub Podcast, Len Epp interviews Denniz Dönmez, PhD, co-author of Micro Habits for Better Teamwork: Psychological Hacks with Great Impact. Denniz explains how small, intentional behavioral changes—micro habits—can dramatically improve collaboration, trust, and team performance without requiring sweeping organizational change. Drawing on psychology, organizational research, and years of practical experience, he discusses psychological safety, curiosity, compassion, transparency, effective meetings, decision-making, and the importance of creating enabling structures that help great teamwork become the natural default.

The conversation also explores how leaders can foster healthier team cultures through consistent, everyday actions rather than one-time initiatives, why habits often outperform policies, and how individuals at every level of an organization can make a meaningful difference. Whether you’re a software developer, engineering manager, team lead, or anyone working with others, this episode offers practical, research-backed advice for building stronger, happier, and more productive teams.

This interview was recorded on May 19, 2026.

The full audio for the interview is here: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/leanpub_podcasts/FM333-Denniz-Do%CC%88nmez-2026-05-19.mp3. The Leanpub Podcast is available on our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/leanpub, in Apple Podcasts here https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/Leanpub/id517117137, and almost everywhere else people listen to podcasts.

In this episode of the Leanpub Podcast, Len Epp speaks with Serena Martino, an executive and leadership coach based in Portugal with 20 years of experience helping professionals navigate the gap between outward success and inner alignment. Serena is the author of The Unwritten Job Description: How to Redesign Work and Life on Your Terms, currently being published chapter by chapter on Leanpub.

From Italy to Dublin to Coaching

Serena grew up in northern Italy and always felt a pull to move abroad. After studying economics and completing a master’s degree, she applied for a tech role in Ireland almost on a whim — and was starting the job two weeks later. That role turned out to be at Google in Dublin, where she worked from 2005 to 2010 during the company’s hyper-growth years. She describes an office of around 200 people, two semi-empty floors, and an environment full of young, ambitious professionals who pushed each other not out of hostility but out of a shared sense that they were doing something genuinely important. The culture rewarded people who went beyond their targets and drove innovation — a way of working that Serena observes many companies are only now beginning to adopt.

After Google, she moved into the travel and hospitality industry, working with major e-commerce players at a time when online booking was transforming the sector almost overnight. She recalls how, just before 2005, travel agencies were still receiving offers by fax and printing physical tickets — and within five years that entire world had changed. She remains passionate about the future of sustainable, experience-driven travel that benefits local communities as well as travellers.

The shift to coaching came after Serena met a coach, quickly recognised the value of the practice, and decided during the pandemic to pursue it full time. Six years on, she has coached more than 250 executives one-to-one.

Unwritten Rules and the Weight We Carry

The book’s first chapter explores what Serena calls the unwritten rules — the inherited scripts that shape how people think about work, success, money, and self-worth. These rules come from parents, schools, early workplaces, and peer groups. They are not inherently wrong, but most people have never examined them. Serena’s invitation is not to discard them wholesale but simply to question them and decide consciously which ones to keep.

Carrying rules that no longer fit creates what she calls an invisible weight — the cumulative drain of working inside a system that doesn’t work for you. This shows up as residual stress after hours, dread about certain colleagues or conversations, or a low-level numbness toward work that has long since stopped feeling meaningful. Removing that weight, she argues, is what creates the space to figure out what you actually want.

The New Contract and Taking Action

The book is structured around practical reflection rather than abstract inspiration. Each chapter addresses something professionals are typically taught to overlook — where their definition of success came from, how they actually spend their energy, what they genuinely stand for. The concept of a “new contract” marks the turning point between understanding what has been holding someone back and beginning to act differently. Crucially, Serena emphasises that the destination is not necessarily a new job or a radically different life — it may simply be the same role approached with greater intention and agency.

You can find the book at https://leanpub.com/theunwrittenjobdescription and follow Serena’s work at serenamartino.com.

This interview was recorded on May 13, 2026.

The full audio for the interview is here: [episode-audio-url]. The Leanpub Podcast is available on our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/leanpub, in Apple Podcasts here https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/Leanpub/id517117137, and almost everywhere else people listen to podcasts.

In this episode of the Leanpub Podcast, Len Epp interviews Dr. Danielle Boyce, author of Ten Habits of Great Data Analysts: Practical Tips from My Three Decades in the Field. Drawing on more than thirty years of experience in public health, biomedical informatics, data analytics, and leadership, Danielle shares the habits and mindsets that distinguish truly effective analysts from those who focus only on technical skills.

The conversation explores the importance of curiosity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and data storytelling, along with the practical realities of working with stakeholders, making decisions under uncertainty, and helping organizations turn data into action. Danielle discusses lessons learned throughout her career, the motivations behind writing her book, and why strong analytical work is ultimately about people as much as technology.

Len and Danielle also talk about the process of writing and publishing a technical book, the value of sharing hard-earned professional knowledge, and how aspiring analysts can build rewarding careers by developing both their technical capabilities and their human skills. The episode offers practical advice for data professionals at every stage of their careers, as well as insights into lifelong learning, leadership, and professional growth in an increasingly data-driven world.

This interview was recorded on April 29, 2026.

The full audio for the interview is here: [episode-audio-url]. The Leanpub Podcast is available on our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/leanpub, in Apple Podcasts here https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/Leanpub/id517117137, and almost everywhere else people listen to podcasts.

In this episode of the Leanpub Podcast, Len Epp interviews Alexey Krivitsky, co-creator of Org Topologies and co-author of 10X ORG – Powered by Org Topologies. They explore how organizations can dramatically improve performance by redesigning team structures, communication patterns, and leadership models in the age of AI.

Alexey shares lessons from decades of consulting experience helping companies become more adaptive and resilient through clearer organizational boundaries, improved collaboration, and smarter operating models. The conversation also covers the impact of AI on management, how leaders can avoid common organizational anti-patterns, and why modern companies must rethink traditional hierarchies to stay competitive.

The episode blends practical management insights with broader reflections on technology, innovation, and the future of work, offering valuable ideas for founders, executives, engineering leaders, and anyone interested in organizational design and business transformation.

This interview was recorded on April 29, 2026.

The full audio for the interview is here: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/leanpub_podcasts/FM330-Alexey-Krivitsky-2026-04-29.mp3. The Leanpub Podcast is available on our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/leanpub, in Apple Podcasts here https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/Leanpub/id517117137, and almost everywhere else people listen to podcasts.

In this episode of the Leanpub Podcast, Len Epp interviews Daniel Vaughan, author of Codex CLI: Agentic Engineering from First Principles. Dan shares his background and explains how “agentic AI” is transforming software engineering by enabling developers to collaborate with AI systems that can plan, execute, and iterate on complex tasks.

The conversation explores key ideas from the book, including prompting fundamentals, multi-agent orchestration, and integrating AI workflows into modern development pipelines like CI/CD. Dan discusses how tools like Codex CLI are reshaping developer productivity, shifting the role of engineers toward higher-level problem-solving and system design.

They also dive into the broader implications for the future of work, including how individuals and organizations can adapt to rapidly evolving AI capabilities. Dan emphasizes practical experimentation, continuous learning, and embracing new workflows to stay relevant in an AI-driven engineering landscape.