Not Brothers

Mark Hughes, Ryan Hughes

No Nonsense Business and Tech Talk. Just two business partners who’ve survived nearly two decades of client deadlines, all-nighters, stealing each other’s fries, and somehow still speaking at family events. In 2009 they co-founded Oodle – a digital marketing agency that started with two laptops, zero clients, and an unhealthy amount of confidence. Sixteen years later it’s one of the sharpest independent shops in the country. Along the way they’ve launched other companies, products, and ideas together. Every week they pull a couple of chairs up to a mic and rip open the exact stuff most podcasts polish to death: Which new AI and technology tools are actually shipping vs. which ones are just vaporwareThe creative calls that made fortunes and the ones that almost ended themThe unsexy business decisions that separate “cool startup” from “company that pays its bills”Real-time, zero-filter debates, because when you’ve argued over cap tables with your actual family, you stop pretending to agree Not Brothers. Just two co-founders who’ve been mistaken for siblings so often they made it the title.

  1. 1 day ago

    Episode 22 - I tried Omarchy for the first time (unrehearsed)

    What happens when a lifelong Mac and Windows user tries Omarchy for the first time? In Episode 22 of Not Brothers, Mark Hughes installs the Try Omarchy experience on his Mac while Ryan Hughes walks him through the operating system, its keyboard-first workflow, and its tiling window manager. Nothing was rehearsed, so the ARM64 installation gaps and setup surprises stay in the episode. Once Omarchy is running, Mark learns how to move between workspaces, rearrange windows, launch apps, pin a window across desktops, and use the searchable keybinding menu when he gets lost. Then the experiment gets more interesting. Mark asks Claude Code to build a custom switcher that combines applications and browser tabs into a Windows-style Alt+Tab experience. Claude inspects Omarchy’s plugin system, builds the plugin, tests it, and updates the live keybinding. Mark gets a working feature without writing the code himself. Ryan also explains T3 Code and T3 Connect, how he gives AI agents their own development machine, why Omarchy treats the operating system as something users should be able to reshape, and how community plugins are expanding what the system can do. Try Omarchy: https://omarchy.org/ Omarchy plugins: https://plugins.omarchy.org/ Learn Omarchy: https://learnomarchy.com/ Oodle: https://heyoodle.com/ Chapters are below. Subscribe for direct conversations about technology, AI, business, and the systems behind the work. Chapters00:00 — A Mac user tries Omarchy 02:33 — Starting the Try Omarchy installation 05:40 — Launching the virtual machine 06:52 — Finishing the Omarchy installer 08:48 — First look at Omarchy and searchable keybindings 10:24 — The Omarchy launcher and installing T3 Code 11:43 — Updating Omarchy before installing apps 13:31 — The ARM64 compatibility gap 14:22 — How Omarchy installs AI tools on demand 15:29 — Signing into Claude Code and 1Password 17:58 — Learning tiling window management 21:02 — Omarchy Quattro’s plugin architecture 22:07 — Asking Claude to build a browser-tab switcher 24:12 — How an agent reverse-engineered a mouse plugin 27:07 — T3 Code, T3 Connect, and remote agent sessions 32:04 — Can the plugin access every browser tab? 35:38 — Workspaces, screen sharing, and a live crash 37:24 — Resuming the Claude Code session 39:50 — The first custom plugin works 40:50 — Why Omarchy is more than Arch and dotfiles 43:41 — Browsing and installing community plugins 46:11 — Combining browser tabs and applications 49:05 — Replacing Omarchy’s default Alt+Tab behavior 49:58 — Making computers fun and personal again 52:41 — How easy is it to try Omarchy? 53:05 — Learn Omarchy and interactive onboarding 57:36 — Custom keybindings and the learning curve 59:53 — Floating, resizing, and pinning windows 1:01:22 — Final verdict on Try Omarchy

  2. 9 Sept

    Episode 21 - Omarchy, AI Agents, and the New Security Reality

    Omarchy is moving fast—and AI is changing both what the project can build and what its security team can find. In Episode 21 of Not Brothers, Ryan Hughes and Mark Hughes cover Omarchy’s new website, new infrastructure backing, global meetups, and the people now working full time on the operating system and its open-source foundations. Ryan also breaks down his experience with GPT-6 Astra, Claude Fable 5.1, Meta’s Muse Spark 1.3, and computer-use agents that can navigate a real machine. That power comes with a catch: an agent with access to your computer may use that access in ways you never expected. The conversation moves from frontier models to a more practical question: when should a fast, inexpensive specialist model do the work instead? Ryan shares examples where smaller models matched—or beat—larger models for narrow tasks at a fraction of the cost. Then they get into local AI, HIPAA and data privacy, the rise in reported software vulnerabilities, and why fixing more security issues can be a sign of better visibility rather than worse engineering. Explore Omarchy: https://omarchy.org/ Omarchy news: https://omarchy.org/news/ Omacom Foundation: https://omarchy.org/foundation/ Cua computer-use agents: https://cua.ai/ Chapters are below. Subscribe for more direct conversations about technology, business, AI, and the systems behind the work. 00:00 — Omarchy, AI, and security 00:43 — Omarchy’s new website and a huge week of growth 04:32 — The global Omarchy meetup community 06:06 — GPT-6 Astra vs. Claude Fable 5.1 07:17 — Giving AI agents their own computer 09:59 — The agent that found an API key and kept spending 11:58 — Is this actually AGI? 13:15 — Why agent harnesses and memory matter 15:03 — Using AI to resume complex work 16:37 — Meta Muse Spark 1.3 and a 22-cent site migration 18:57 — Orchestrator models and cheaper executors 20:13 — Why the biggest model is not always the best model 23:06 — Why local AI could break through in 2027 24:30 — Specialist models vs. giant generalists 26:24 — Local models, HIPAA, and data privacy 28:01 — Security is everywhere—and imperfect everywhere 29:35 — A bizarre USB-drive vulnerability 30:50 — Why more security fixes can be a good sign 33:11 — Open-source transparency vs. security through obscurity 35:46 — The coming security boom 36:05 — Closing

  3. 1 Sept

    Episode 20 - The Untitled Pod

    No agenda. No single topic. Somehow, still a theme. In Episode 20 of Not Brothers, Mark Hughes and Ryan Hughes start with the latest work around Omarchy, including security tradeoffs, a broader user base, and the Omacom Foundation’s growing investment in desktop Linux. Then the conversation moves into AI-generated music, whether prompting still counts as creativity, and what changes when AI agents can communicate and delegate work to one another. Ryan shares a practical multi-agent security experiment that exposed how easily an authorized agent can become a relay for an unauthorized request. From there, Mark and Ryan look at agent-driven shopping and advertising: how brands may influence AI recommendations, why manipulative source content could become the next black-hat marketing tactic, and whether influencer marketing could eventually shape what models treat as common knowledge. They also get into the FTC and states’ allegations against Amazon’s advertising auctions, Meta’s youth-addiction settlement, corporate penalties that become a cost of doing business, device tracking, cookie banners, and why interruptive advertising still deserves to die. It is a little AI, a little advertising, a little Big Tech, a little conspiracy theory, and exactly enough politics to make sure the episode could not stay untitled forever. Not Brothers is business and tech talk with no nonsense from Mark and Ryan Hughes—Oodle operators, family members, and definitely not brothers. Chapters 00:00 — The episode with no title 01:05 — Omarchy funding, security, and a broader audience 06:27 — AI-generated music and who gets to define art 10:16 — Rogue AI agents and the Hugging Face incident 13:29 — When agents talk to other agents 17:37 — Agent-driven shopping and advertising 19:24 — Can brands manipulate AI recommendations? 21:46 — Influencer marketing as model training data 22:47 — The Black Mirror version of agentic advertising 24:24 — Why interruptive advertising deserves to die 25:52 — Amazon’s alleged ad-auction manipulation 27:59 — Meta, youth addiction, and Big Tech incentives 28:43 — When fines become a cost of doing business 33:21 — Are our devices still listening? 35:20 — Responsible tracking and broken audience cohorts 37:47 — Demographics, geographics, and creepy psychographics 38:33 — Cookie banners and a universal privacy control 40:24 — A spam-reporting model for predatory ads 41:12 — Somehow, they solved advertising

  4. 26 Aug

    Episode 19 - How Omarchy Went From a Side Project to a $10 Million Foundation

    Omarchy began as David Heinemeier Hansson’s opinionated Arch Linux setup. Barely more than a year later, it has grown into a distinct Linux distribution, a fast-moving open-source ecosystem, and the centerpiece of the $10 million Omacom Foundation. In Episode 19 of the Not Brothers Podcast, Ryan Hughes explains how he went from building his own Arch-based setup to contributing directly to Omarchy alongside DHH. He walks through the project’s evolution from configuration files into a complete operating-system experience with its own installer, package repositories, mirrors, stable release channel, plugins, and hardware support. Mark approaches the conversation as a Windows and macOS user who has never lived in Linux. Ryan makes the case for Omarchy through tiling window management, keyboard-driven workflows, fast installation, strong defaults, and the idea of a “malleable computer” that people can shape around the way they actually work. They also dig into Omarchy Quattro, the rapid growth of the plugin ecosystem, and the effort to make AI agents first-class parts of the operating system. That includes crash diagnosis, a built-in agent interface, and automated review processes for a community that submitted more than 1,000 plugins in a week. Ryan shares the hard lessons too: package updates that broke systems overnight, bootloader changes that forced emergency fixes, and the need to balance Arch Linux’s bleeding edge with a stable experience for people trying Linux for the first time. The conversation closes with what this work brings back to Oodle: deeper technical judgment, real-world experience operating at scale, and the confidence to solve problems that do not fit neatly inside an existing tool. Explore Omarchy: https://omarchy.org/ Meet the Omacom Foundation patrons: https://omarchy.org/patrons/ Read the $10 million funding announcement: https://omarchy.org/news/2026/08/omacom-foundation-funding-hits-10m/ Subscribe for candid conversations about technology, business, AI, and the work behind building things that actually hold up. Chapters 00:00 — Omarchy Quattro and the Omacom Foundation 02:23 — How Ryan joined the Omarchy project 07:11 — Selling Omarchy to a Windows and macOS user 12:15 — Speed, installation, and everyday performance 18:04 — From side project to a $10 million foundation 22:55 — Building an agentic AI operating system 26:26 — What scaling open source taught Ryan 33:29 — Release-day failures and the stable channel 40:35 — How Omarchy strengthens Oodle’s client work 45:24 — Ryan’s idea of a relaxing weekend

  5. 29 Jul

    Episode 18 - Your Website is NEVER Done

    Websites have changed dramatically—from dial-up pages and separate mobile sites to headless CMS platforms, static site generators, personalization, and AI-managed publishing workflows. In Episode 18, Ryan and Mark look back on nearly two decades of building websites and unpack what actually matters now: choosing the right platform, designing around real user behavior, making content easy to manage, and treating accessibility and performance as core requirements instead of optional extras. They break down the tradeoffs between Wix, Webflow, WordPress, enterprise platforms, headless CMS tools, and emerging “no CMS” or AI CMS approaches. They also explain why the best technical solution can still create a bad experience—and why familiar patterns often outperform clever interfaces. The biggest takeaway: your website is the only place your brand truly owns online, and launching it is the beginning of the work—not the end. The strongest sites are measured, maintained, and improved continuously instead of left to decay until the next rebuild. If you build, manage, market, or approve websites, this episode is a practical tour through the choices that shape performance, usability, content operations, and long-term value. CHAPTERS 00:00 — Ryan’s first website and the dial-up era 02:49 — How mobile changed web design 06:14 — Mobile traffic, accessibility, and knowing your audience 10:56 — Navigation trends and the myth of the page fold 12:05 — Homepage myths, popups, and gated-content friction 15:57 — The evolution of content management systems 18:07 — Why headless CMS changes the architecture 20:36 — Performance, maintenance, and AI-friendly websites 21:24 — No CMS and AI-managed publishing workflows 23:17 — Wix, Webflow, metadata, and the human review layer 26:23 — A CMS as a central content source 27:51 — Choosing a platform by need and maturity 29:36 — Enterprise CMS, personalization, and security 31:47 — The three success criteria for a website 33:04 — Your website is the only place you own online 35:26 — Website redesign cautionary tales 36:31 — Technically correct versus usable 38:17 — Why familiar UX patterns win 41:21 — Final takeaways and future website episodes

  6. 14 Jul

    Episode 17 - AI FOMO Is Making Us Work More

    AI was supposed to save time. So why does it feel like it is making us work more? In Episode 17 of Not Brothers, Mark and Ryan unpack the AI efficiency paradox: the strange pressure to keep agents running around the clock, maximize every subscription, and constantly wonder whether someone else has built a better workflow that is leaving you behind. Ryan talks about the practical bottleneck created when AI agents move faster than humans can review their work. Code, tasks, and deliverables can stack up in parallel—but somebody still has to verify that the output is correct, useful, and worth keeping. More production does not automatically mean more progress. They connect AI FOMO to the older workplace obsession with being busy. If the goal is meaningful impact, then free time, strategic thinking, and the ability to step away may be better signs of success than a dashboard full of running agents. The conversation also gets into token leaderboards, lines-of-code metrics, false productivity, AI-generated rework, and why companies will struggle to measure the economics of AI usage. Mark and Ryan argue that AI works best as an augmentation layer: remove repetitive work, improve the quality of the outcome, and free humans to do the thinking that actually matters. The bottom line: use AI where it produces real value. Stop using it just because it is available—and do not be afraid to shut the agents down and walk away. Chapters: 00:00 — The AI efficiency paradox 00:34 — Why faster AI can make us work longer 01:25 — AI FOMO and the pressure to run agents 24/7 02:18 — When agent output outruns human review 03:07 — Letting agents work while you step away 03:49 — AI and the new work-life integration problem 05:23 — Being busy is not the achievement 06:31 — Downtime, tinkering, and technology burnout 07:38 — Why technologists fantasize about going off-grid 09:18 — Token usage is not productivity 10:50 — Broken metrics: lines of code and AI leaderboards 13:08 — The coming economics of token efficiency 13:57 — When using AI takes longer than doing it yourself 14:46 — AI FOMO and fear of being replaced 15:46 — AI should remove busywork, not people 17:12 — A practical AI win: website content migration 18:19 — What clients actually want from agency AI use 20:25 — The cost-cutting trap and losing human expertise 21:54 — Most people are not running 15-agent companies 22:58 — Experimenting without worshipping the workflow 24:20 — Know when to stop the loop and walk away 25:11 — Wrap-up

  7. 6 Jul

    Episode 16 - AI Loops...This is the way

    AI loops are changing how people get real work done with agents. In Episode 16 of Not Brothers, Mark and Ryan break down what “loops” actually mean in practice — not as vague AI hype, but as a better way to structure work: define the goal, write the success criteria, pair the builder with a reviewer, and let the system iterate until the work meets the bar. Ryan shares an example of a development task that ran for hours with a builder agent and review agent working together. Instead of babysitting every step, he gave the system clear win conditions and let it loop through implementation, critique, and revision. They also talk about why this is not really new. Good AI workflows are starting to look a lot like good human workflows: clear requirements, tight scope, explicit assumptions, and a shared definition of done. The episode moves beyond software development into creative and marketing work — including social content, clips, transcripts, visual QA, and repeatable production workflows. The big idea: loops work best when they are simple, scoped, and reviewed. Chapters: 00:00 — What are AI loops? 00:27 — Why loops are not exactly new 01:10 — From prompt-by-prompt work back to real requirements 02:58 — OpenClaw, cron jobs, and early agent loops 03:35 — GPT-5.5 and goal-oriented prompting 04:55 — A four-hour builder/reviewer agent loop 06:03 — Chunking work versus letting loops run 06:44 — Good AI workflows look like good human workflows 08:34 — Why nuance and hidden requirements still matter 09:53 — The review agent is the critical piece 10:40 — Win conditions tell the loop when to stop 12:29 — The value shifts from typing to thinking 14:01 — Solving the wrong architecture before code exists 14:54 — Why knowledge work is undervalued 15:59 — The boiler repairman and the value of experience 17:13 — Value-based billing and technology leverage 19:18 — The dopamine trap of instant AI iteration 19:43 — Prototyping first, then turning reactions into requirements 20:11 — AI can help write specs, but you still have to read them 21:50 — Applying loops to creative and social content 23:34 — Getting to 90% before humans review 24:35 — Using transcripts as requirements for content loops 25:28 — Stop staring at the harness and start defining the contract 26:26 — Start with small loops, not a 50-agent circus 27:21 — Simple workflow loops like standups, notes, and PR rebases 27:53 — Wrap-up

  8. 23 Jun

    Episode 15 - Your Product Is Probably Ready Before You Think

    What happens when a digital agency starts building and launching its own software products? In Episode 15 of Not Brothers, Mark and Ryan talk about the lessons they’re learning from bringing Oodle-built products like Herald and Nebula to market. After years of helping clients promote finished products, they’re now dealing with the messier front end: product, price, placement, positioning, launch decisions, feature scope, and the temptation to keep polishing forever. They dig into why products are often ready before the builders think they are, how “done is better than perfect” applies to SaaS launches, and why overbuilding can make a product harder to sell instead of easier. They also talk about the product design trap of adding too many permissions, settings, toggles, and safeguards for problems that do not exist yet — plus why simple user experiences are much harder to create as products become more capable. Later, the conversation turns to AI: how hallucinated research can quietly poison go-to-market work, why teams need better verification habits, and how skills, agents, orchestration, and daily briefs can create real productivity gains when used with discipline. Chapters: 00:00 — No topic, so let’s talk about what we’re building 00:22 — Launching Herald as Oodle’s first product test bed 01:25 — Moving from promotion into product, price, and placement 03:11 — Nebula, feature creep, and products being ready before you think 05:44 — Shipping early enough to get real user feedback 07:05 — Done is better than perfect 08:35 — Day one starts when real users touch the thing 09:48 — Finding and removing features nobody actually uses 12:21 — Don’t add complication until it is necessary 13:03 — Permissions, theoretical problems, and soft safeguards 16:59 — Settings, toggles, and exposing complexity in the right place 18:24 — Why simple UX keeps getting harder 21:24 — Eating our own dog food while building products 22:18 — Using AI for market research without accepting bad data 24:10 — AI is not a Google search result 26:34 — Skills, repeatable workflows, and progressive disclosure 29:46 — Running multiple AI sessions without losing the plot 31:45 — Orchestrators, review agents, and long-running AI work 34:10 — Applying agent workflows beyond development 35:32 — Daily briefs, AI loops, and reclaiming focus

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About

No Nonsense Business and Tech Talk. Just two business partners who’ve survived nearly two decades of client deadlines, all-nighters, stealing each other’s fries, and somehow still speaking at family events. In 2009 they co-founded Oodle – a digital marketing agency that started with two laptops, zero clients, and an unhealthy amount of confidence. Sixteen years later it’s one of the sharpest independent shops in the country. Along the way they’ve launched other companies, products, and ideas together. Every week they pull a couple of chairs up to a mic and rip open the exact stuff most podcasts polish to death: Which new AI and technology tools are actually shipping vs. which ones are just vaporwareThe creative calls that made fortunes and the ones that almost ended themThe unsexy business decisions that separate “cool startup” from “company that pays its bills”Real-time, zero-filter debates, because when you’ve argued over cap tables with your actual family, you stop pretending to agree Not Brothers. Just two co-founders who’ve been mistaken for siblings so often they made it the title.

Information

  • Creator
    Mark Hughes, Ryan Hughes
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    22
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Mark Hughes, Ryan Hughes

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