Software Snack Bites Shomik Ghosh of boldstart ventures

This episode is a great balance of the high level impact of AI & Cloud on enterprise use cases and detailed tech deep dives behind how they’re powered. Whether you’re a CIO, Founder, or IC, there’s stuff in here for everyone.
James Barney is Director of Cloud Platform Engineering at Ally Financial. He previously was a data engineer at Accenture and Lowe’s. In this episode, we cover how Ally as a digital bank builds and utilizes cloud technology to deliver a great experience to customers. We talk about migrating through modern tech transitions, centralizing data for internal teams’ efficiency, and of course the impact of AI. James discusses where he sees the impact of AI on enterprise workflows in the future and how to manage the challenges around using LLMs.
Where to Find James:
·       LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-barney/
Where to Find Shomik:
·       Twitter: https://twitter.com/shomikghosh21
·       LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shomik-ghosh-a5a71319/
·       Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube.
In this episode, we cover:
(01:50) – Migrating to Hadoop & Centralizing Data at Lowe’s
(07:31) – Ally’s Early Cloud Journey
(10:50) – How Ally Innovates Using Modern Technology
(15:46) – Managing Downtime in Systems
(18:58) – Building a Cloud Workload, Security & FinOps Internal Developer Platform
(26:04) – Utilizing GenAI for Platform Eng Use Cases
(30:02) – How Good Are LLMs at Text to SQL
(34:50) - AI’s Impact of Access to Knowledge Across the Org
(38:08) - What’s Slowing Down Potential Enterprise Adoption of GenAI
(42:27) - Wrap Up
Show Notes:
* PII Masking Module for Langchain
* Early Efforts into Generative AI
* Ally Tech Blog
How to Subscribe:
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shomik.substack.com

The most important trend powering AI is semiconductors and that trend is not slowing down anytime soon. We need to understand what is happening at the semiconductor level to be able to project forward what we think will occur in AI. This episode is the best way to learn what’s ahead of semis.
Doug O’Laughlin is the first 2nd time guest on Software Snack Bites! He is the Founder of Fabricated Knowledge which is one of the fastest growing and highest grossing newsletters out there. The reason for that is because each of his write-ups is packed with insights that even a layperson can understand. We did this podcast right before Nvidia GTC so you’ll have to read Fabricated Knowledge to get Doug’s takes on the new announcements. In this podcast we talk about the inference specific chips (Groq & Cerebras), why HBM (high bandwidth memory) is so important to the future semi story, Nvidia’s current dominant strategy and why they are well positioned to continue winning, where ASICs and Broadcom fit in, and some other trends outside of semis Doug is watching.
If you had listened to Doug’s episode last year, you would be up 250% on Nvidia. If you had read his writing, you would be up even more. Additionally, if you read his writing on Intel, you would have had a 65% gain in Of course, this is not investment advice, do your own research, but Doug’s knowledge will at least help you figure out where to start your diligence. There are multiple links below with terminology discussed and Doug’s free articles on certain topics. The best way to support him is to subscribe to Fabricated Knowledge.
Where to Find Doug:
* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougolaughlin/
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/FoolAllTheTime
* Semiconductor Publication: https://www.fabricatedknowledge.com
Where to Find Shomik:
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/shomikghosh21
* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shomik-ghosh-a5a71319/
* Software Snack Bites Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google.
In this episode, we cover:
(02:06) – Why GPUs & CUDA are So Important to LLMs
(03:58) – Why GPUs Are More Specialized Than We Think
(06:47) – The Incentive for AI Teams to Stay with Nvidia
(08:07) – Why the Market is Excited About Groq
(09:17) – SRAM not Scaling and Why That Matters
(12:44) – Why HBM is So Important to Scaling
(15:05) – Why Massive Chips with SRAM Have Constraints (Cerebras, Groq)
(17:55) – The Challenge with Inference Specific Chips (Cerebras, Groq)
(19:27) – What is Infiniband and How Nvidia is Embracing Ethernet
(22:18) – Why Google is the Best Bet to Be Able to Take on Nvidia
(24:00) – AMD’s Challenges vs Nvidia’s Tick-Tock Cadence
(25:37) – Nvidia’s Strategy Around GPU Clouds
(27:44) – Why TSMC Isn’t As Big of a Bottleneck as You Might Think
(31:14) – 14 Nanometer Chips vs Leading Edge as a Strategy
(33:00) – VLIW Challenges to Work With Various Models (Cerebras, Groq)
(36:57) – Why SemiCap Companies May Not Be Overdone in Markets
(42:35) – Broadcom’s Place in This World Given ASICs
(47:15) – What is Under Hyped in Semis Still
(49:55) – Doug’s Call On Intel Outperforming in 2023 (Backside Power Delivery)
(53:10) – Why Yield is the Challenge in Building New Chips
(53:50) – Calling Our Shot on Google in March 2024
(55:34) – Other Trends That Doug is Watching Outside of Semis
Show Notes:
Datacenter is the New Compute Unit (Why Nvidia Will Continue to Dominate)
Why HBM is the Hottest Thing in Memory (and Semis)
Detailed Nvidia GTC Analysis
Is This The Intel Inflection (June 2023)
Terminology:
Backside Power Delivery
Hybrid Bonding
High Bandwidth Memory
Static Random Access Memory
Very Long Instruction Word Architecture
Nvidia SpectrumX Ethernet Networking


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shomik.substack.com

We hear about hackers all the time but very rarely get a glimpse into the world of what they actually do when exploiting applications. Douglas Day is a top grossing hacker on the HackerOne platform and a Senior Security Engineer at Elastic. In this episode, we dive into all things bug bounties and ethical hacking. How does Douglas find entry points, differences between defensive and offensive security, and escalating user permissions to find deep vulnerabilities are all covered. We also talk about common attack patterns for Douglas and other hackers and why WAFs are more annoying then useful.
Where to Find Douglas:
·       Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArchAngelDDay
·       LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglas-day-39baa8108/
Where to Find Shomik:
·       Twitter: https://twitter.com/shomikghosh21
·       LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shomik-ghosh-a5a71319/
·       Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube.
In this episode, we cover:
(00:40) – Douglas’ Journey into Ethical Hacking
(05:11) – Winning Most Value Hacker at HackerOne Event
(08:03) – Bug Bounties vs Pen-testing
(11:08) – Utilizing Hacking Exploits for Defensive Security
(12:34) – Proliferation of Open Source Attacking Tools
(14:44) – Flipping from Offensive to Defensive Security
(15:27) – Working with a Team of Hackers
(18:02) – Finding a Vulnerable Entry Point to an Application
(21:16) – Utilizing User Permissions to Hack an App
(25:48) – How Does Multi-Factor Auth Help Be More Secure
(27:45) – Leveraging an Entry Point into Escalations
(29:20) – Phishing As An Attack Vector (Red Teaming vs Bug Bounties)
(31:15) – A Hacker’s Spidey Sense for Common Vulnerabilities
(34:15) – Random Number Generators for Security
(36:07) – APIs as an Attack Vector
(37:32) – Why Exposed Secrets are a Common Entry Point
(41:20) – Why Web Application Firewalls are Not That Effective for Stopping Hackers
(43:30) – How Hackers are Using LLMs in Their Attack Workflows
(45:48) – Utilizing AI Agents in Hacking
(46:30) – Why Ethical Hackers are Assets to Security Teams
(50:30) – Wrap Up
How to Subscribe:
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shomik.substack.com

Scaling companies is incredibly difficult but at each stage the building blocks need to be set in place properly. Charles Zedlewski has been COO, GM, and a product leader at companies like Temporal, Cloudera, and SAP. In this episode, we cover what the COO & GM roles do, stories from early Cloudera days especially around figuring out what products to sell and pricing and packaging. We cover hiring Player/Coaches, nailing positioning, and talk about countless anecdotes from both Temporal and Cloudera to learn how to build and scale a great org.
Where to Find Charles:
·       Twitter: https://twitter.com/zedlewski
·       LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charleszedlewski/
Where to Find Shomik:
·       Twitter: https://twitter.com/shomikghosh21
·       LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shomik-ghosh-a5a71319/
·       Newsletter: https://www.shomik.substack.com
·       Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube.
In this episode, we cover:
(01:02) – Joining Cloudera Early from SAP
(04:14) – Fighting Company Politics in Culture
(07:38) – Figuring Out Commercial Products to Sell At Cloudera
(14:58) – How Customers Weight Support & Services Differently Over Time
(16:42) – Closing Early Customers at Cloudera
(19:14) – Embracing the GM Role at Cloudera
(23:41) – Reasons Cloudera Wasn’t Able to Realize Full Potential
(31:00) – Moving from Cloudera to Temporal
(34:34) – Differences Between COO and GM Roles
(38:29) – What a COO Does in the First Few Months
(44:02) – Nailing Positioning & Product Messaging
(50:00) – When’s the Right Time to Hire a COO
(54:35) – Hiring Player / Coaches
(59:27) – Common Failure Paths of Startups
How to Subscribe:
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shomik.substack.com

For those interested in the future of autonomous software testing & code generation, this is the episode for you.
Itamar Friedman is Co-Founder & CEO of Codium AI. He previously was Head of AI at Alibaba Israel and a founder of multiple startups before that. In this episode, we cover why Prompt Engineering is shifting into Flow Engineering. We dive deep into the areas of software verification and testing. We talk about how to bring up a world of zero bugs in software development and what agent-assisted code generation, testing, & completion looks like. We also cover how future coding agents will function with Codium’s AlphaCodium which beat Deepmind and OpenAI in recent code competitions.
Where to Find Itamar:
·       Twitter: https://twitter.com/itamar_mar
·       LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itamarf/
Where to Find Shomik:
·       Twitter: https://twitter.com/shomikghosh21
·       LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shomik-ghosh-a5a71319/
·       Newsletter: https://www.shomik.substack.com
·       Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube.
In this episode, we cover:
(00:37) – What Codium AI is Building
(01:42) – Itamar’s Background
(04:21) – Evolution of Mobile Machine Vision & Learning
(06:55) – Alibaba’s Applied AI Use Cases
(10:45) – Why Software Verification is Important to Code Generation & Completion
(15:00) – Challenges with Agent-Assisted Software Verification
(19:05) – How AlphaCodium Won Against Deepmind and OpenAI in Competition
(26:04) – Building a “System 2” Brain for Code Generation
(33:54) – Multiple Agent-Assisted Developer Workflows
(36:45) – Design in AI Systems
(40:00) – Why Humans Will Continue to Write Code
(41:25) – Future Products for CodiumAI
Show Notes:
-       What is AlphaCodium
-       From Prompt Engineering to Flow Engineering
How to Subscribe:
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube.



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shomik.substack.com

For anyone interested in developer tooling, you won’t be able to find better analysis than the Redmonk team and this pod goes in depth into trends, analysis, and AI’s impact on coding.
James Governor and Kate Holterhoff are analysts at Redmonk, the developer focused analyst firm. They have been doing analysis of open source tooling and developer trends since 2002 when the firm was founded (20+ years ago). In this episode, we talk about analyzing what will persist in hype cycles, AI’s impact on coding practices & languages, and how not to extrapolate our biases in outcomes onto data. If you are a fan of dev tools and open source, you will love this conversation as you can’t find two people who spend more time thinking about this area than James and Kate along with the rest of the Redmonk team.
Where to Find Redmonk:
·       James’ Twitter: https://twitter.com/monkchips
·       Kate’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/KateHolterhoff
·       James’ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesgovernor/
·       Kate’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateholterhoff/
·       Redmonk’s Blog: https://redmonk.com/ 
·       Redmonk’s Podcast: https://redmonk.com/blog/2023/12/07/the-monkcast/ 
Where to Find Shomik:
·       Twitter: https://twitter.com/shomikghosh21
·       LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shomik-ghosh-a5a71319/
·       Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube.
In this episode, we cover:
(00:48) – Founding Redmonk Alongside the Rise of Open Source
(03:39) – How Redmonk Analyzes Products
(06:58) – Diagnosing What’s Real in Tech Hype Cycles
(15:56) – Is AI Having a Large Impact on Language Rankings?
(25:50) – Downstream Impact of Having AI Generate Majority of Code
(29:45) – Impact of Agents Managing Code Bases
(34:10) – Rise of Frontend Tooling (Again)
(40:09) – Thoughts on Open Source License Changes in Prominent Projects
(44:40) – New Analysis & Events Coming up for Redmonk
Show Notes:
-       Frontend Developers are the New Kingmakers
-       What’s Going on With Language Rankings
-       AI: The Difference Between Open and Open Source
How to Subscribe:
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shomik.substack.com