The Leadership Exchange

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This is The Leadership Exchange, where we sit down with accomplished leaders and uncover the secrets of their success. Join us as we delve into their career journeys, discuss the challenges they faced, and explore the solutions they discovered along the way. Whether you're an aspiring leader or looking to enhance your leadership skills, this podcast offers valuable insights and inspiration from those who have navigated the path to success.

  1. 11/26/2025

    Prisma Is Ditching Rust for TypeScript & Going All-In on AI-Native Dev

    Tracy Lee sits down with Søren Bramer Schmidt and Will Madden from Prisma to unpack what’s changed with the launch of Prisma 7 and where they’re headed next. They talk about why Prisma is intentionally moving away from Rust and doubling down on TypeScript, how that simplifies the ORM’s architecture, speeds up community contributions, and makes features like better Cloudflare support and Prisma Postgres possible. The conversation also covers agentic software development, what an “agent-friendly” ORM should look like for Prisma 8, and how LLMs are already reshaping developer productivity, documentation, and education. They also dig into what this means for junior developers, CS fundamentals, and the future role of engineers as architects and “agent managers” instead of just coders.What you will learn in this episode:- Why Prisma 7 is a turning point: simplifying a complex Rust/TS architecture so Prisma can finally ship faster and respond to community feedback.- The big bet to move away from Rust and fully into TypeScript, and why that actually makes more sense for a database ORM and open source contributors.- How Prisma is redesigning itself for AI agents and agentic workflows, better error messages, docs, MCP servers, and fast feedback loops that work for both humans and agents.- What Prisma is building around Prisma Postgres + local WASM Postgres to create a super low-friction “from local dev to hosted” database experience.- How AI is changing developer roles, hiring, and education, from junior devs being replaced by agents to a bigger emphasis on architecture and patterns over raw coding.Tracy Lee on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyslee/Søren Bramer Schmidt on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sorenbs/Will Madden on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/willmadden/This Dot Labs Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotLabsThis Dot Media Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotMediaThis Dot Labs Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisdotlabs/This Dot Labs Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisdot/This Dot Labs Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thisdotlabs.bsky.socialSponsored by This Dot: https://ai.thisdot.co/

    35 min

  2. 11/03/2025

    Leading Software Teams in a Zero Downtime Organization

    Southwest Airlines Managing Director of Technology Priya Narayan joins Tracy Lee to unpack what it takes to lead engineering in a highly regulated, zero downtime environment. Priya traces her path from engineer to leader, balancing safety, union timelines, and customer experience while shipping change at scale. She breaks down mobile first product strategy for pilots and flight attendants, how Southwest runs Scaled Agile with innovation sprints, and the tactics for building high performing, cross functional teams that mix deep domain experts with fresh technical talent. If you lead engineers or aspire to, this is a pragmatic playbook for quality under pressure, communication growth for introverts, and making innovation a priority when deadlines will not move.What You’ll Learn:• Moving from individual contributor to leader through mentoring and business context• Leading in regulated and union environments without hurting customer or employee experience• Structuring Scaled Agile with an innovation sprint that actually ships• Building high performing teams by mixing domain experts and strong technologists• Using crew alpha and beta testing to harden quality before wide rollout• Designing mobile first tools for crews who work on the move• Communication habits that help introverted leaders be heard Chapters: 0:00 Balancing innovation in regulated settings 1:32 Priya’s path to MD at Southwest 10:03 What regulation means for airlines 14:01 Building high performing crew tech teams 17:28 Scaled Agile and innovation sprints 21:56 Cross functional roles and testing with crew 27:49 Mobile first design for crew and closingTracy Lee on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyslee/Priya Narayan on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/priyanarayantechseniorleader/This Dot Labs Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotLabsThis Dot Media Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotMediaThis Dot Labs Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisdotlabs/This Dot Labs Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisdot/This Dot Labs Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thisdotlabs.bsky.socialSponsored by This Dot Labs: ai.thisdot.co

    34 min

  3. 10/28/2025

    Data and Product Roles are Changing with Generative AI

    In this episode of Leadership Exchange, Danny Thompson talks with Rossella Vital, VP of Engineering at Sprout Social. They map the shift from building single models to designing intelligent systems with agents, evaluation loops, and strong data governance. The conversation covers how roles are changing for data scientists, analysts, engineers, and product managers, what enablement looks like inside a company wide AI platform, and why leadership structures are adapting with the rise of the Chief AI Officer. You will also hear practical advice on prototyping for executive buy in and the skills that help teams stay relevant.What you will learn • Architecting intelligent systems with agents and evaluation • Judgment and validation to manage hallucinations • Data quality and governance as a prerequisite for agent workflows • How AI product managers operate and what they must own • Practical prototyping to clarify strategy for executives • Why leadership is evolving toward a Chief AI Officer Chapters 00:00 Intro 03:00 Role shifts for data scientists and engineers 06:08 Inflection point with LLMs and agents 08:31 Expertise, hallucinations, treat AI like a teammate 12:25 From single models to intelligent systems and evaluation 16:42 Enablement platforms to scale AI across teams 18:26 Agentic analysts plus data quality and governance 31:41 The Chief AI OfficerDanny Thompson on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dthompsondev/Rossella Blatt Vital on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rossellavital/This Dot Labs Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotLabsThis Dot Media Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotMediaThis Dot Labs Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisdotlabs/This Dot Labs Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisdot/This Dot Labs Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thisdotlabs.bsky.socialSponsored by This Dot Labs: https://ai.thisdot.co/

    36 min

  4. 10/15/2025

    React Wasn’t Supposed to Win. Here’s Why It Did.

    In this episode of Leadership Exchange, Tracy Lee welcomes Tom Occhino, Chief Product Officer at Vercel and former leader of the React team at Meta. Tom shares the story of React’s early days, how incremental adoption and escape hatches gave it an edge, and why simplifying concepts was always more important than adding new features. He reflects on building a culture of humility and openness in open source, as well as the strengths-based management approach he still applies at Vercel. The discussion explores how Vercel maintains speed through lightweight programs instead of heavy processes and how the team embraces mistakes as long as they bring new learning. Tom explains how he measures success by customer outcomes rather than vanity metrics and why his role is about empowering people who drive technology forward.Four key points from this episode- React’s success came from incremental adoption and escape hatches that made it easier to use than other frameworks.- Strengths-based leadership, humility, and giving more credit than you take shaped both the React org and Vercel’s culture.- Vercel ships fast by using lightweight “tell first, then ship” programs and treating novel incidents as learning opportunities.- The long-term vision is to keep the open web as the most important platform, with React, Next.js, and Vercel driving its future. Tom Occhino on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomocchino/Tracy Lee on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyslee/This Dot Labs Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotLabsThis Dot Media Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotMediaThis Dot Labs Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisdotlabs/This Dot Labs Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisdot/This Dot Labs Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thisdotlabs.bsky.socialSponsored by This Dot Labs: https://ai.thisdot.co

    40 min

  5. 09/09/2025

    AI Wrote His Code While He Ran the Company

    In this episode of the Leadership Exchange podcast, Tracy Lee sits down with Rich Walker, CEO of Quick, to explore the intersection of entrepreneurship, AI, and modern software development. Rich shares his unconventional journey from a finance graduate and self-taught coder to leading an enterprise SaaS company, highlighting how he leveraged AI agents like Claude to build a fully functional, enterprise-grade product in record time.They explore the mindset shift required to integrate AI into business, treating it as a collaborative expert rather than a junior assistant, and how this approach can transform productivity, coding efficiency, and innovation. Rich also discusses his philosophy as a product-oriented CEO who is not afraid to get hands-on, and how AI is enabling leaders and teams to rethink their roles and scale their impact. Rich also gives insights into his podcast Customer Wins, where he explores how business leaders create exceptional customer experiences.Keypoints from this episode:- Rich Walker, a non-traditional technologist, leveraged AI agents like Claude to build a fully functional, enterprise-grade web application, handling everything from databases to dashboards.- He treats AI as a collaborative expert rather than a junior developer, using iterative planning, unit-of-work breakdowns, and business-driven prompts to achieve high efficiency.- Integrating AI requires a mindset shift for leaders, focusing on orchestration, product vision, and problem-solving rather than hands-on coding, elevating both individual and team impact.- Clear and detailed business plans, implementation strategies, and structured prompts allow AI to understand requirements, optimize processes, and deliver results aligned with business goals.Rich Walker on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/quikformsceo/Tracy Lee on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyslee/This Dot Labs Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotLabsThis Dot Media Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotMediaThis Dot Labs Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisdotlabs/This Dot Labs Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisdot/This Dot Labs Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thisdotlabs.bsky.socialSponsored by This Dot Labs: https://ai.thisdot.co

    40 min

  6. 09/04/2025

    How to Scale Your Influence in an Engineering Organization

    On this episode of the Leadership Exchange, Rob Ocel talks with Ivan Burazin, co-founder and CEO of Daytona. Ivan shares how his company is building “computers for agents,” what he’s learned from years of developer tooling and event organizing, and why trust, context, and long-term relationships matter more than chasing star résumés. They also dig into cultural differences in engineering talent and what it really takes to grow a resilient team in the AI era. Key Points from this Episode: Daytona is building infrastructure that gives AI agents workspaces similar to how a MacBook serves a human.Strong teams form through trust, shared context, and long-term relationships rather than stacking résumés with big names.Eastern Europe has exceptional engineering talent but often lacks emphasis on sales, branding, and communication.Experience organizing developer conferences built a network that continues to fuel Daytona’s growth. Ivan Burazin on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanburazin/ Rob Ocel on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robocel/ Danny Thompson on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dthompsondev/ This Dot Labs Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotLabs This Dot Media Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotMedia This Dot Labs Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisdotlabs/ This Dot Labs Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisdot/ This Dot Labs Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thisdotlabs.bsky.social Sponsored by This Dot Labs: https://ai.thisdot.co

    38 min

  7. 08/27/2025

    The Engineering Team Leadership Mindset for AI Readiness

    In this episode of Leadership Exchange, host Rob Ocel speaks with Alfredo Lopez, VP of Engineering at Hearst, about what it really takes for leaders to guide their organizations through AI adoption. Alfredo shares insights from more than a decade at Hearst on how engineering leadership has evolved, from balancing startup urgency with long term stability to knowing when not to solve problems with code. Together they explore the cultural shifts needed for AI readiness: why context matters more than prompts, how process discipline separates hype from meaningful results, and why leaders must help teams break down work into smaller, repeatable tasks that AI can accelerate. Key points from this episode: - AI adoption is a cultural shift, not just a technical one, requiring leaders to focus on communication, context, and process discipline. - The quality of AI outputs depends more on context and documentation than on prompts alone. - AI is most effective when applied to small, structured tasks that build momentum rather than tackling complex features in one step. - Leaders play a critical role in setting the tone for sustainable AI transformation by modeling clarity, investing in documentation, and raising expectations for process discipline. Alfredo Lopez on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lfredo/ Rob Ocel on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robocel/ This Dot Labs Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotLabs This Dot Media Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotMedia This Dot Labs Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisdotlabs/ This Dot Labs Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisdot/ This Dot Labs Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thisdotlabs.bsky.social Sponsored by This Dot Labs: https://ai.thisdot.co/

    40 min

  8. 08/20/2025

    What Web Developers Can Bring to Artificial Intelligence at their Organizations

    In this episode of The Leadership Exchange, Tracy Lee sits down with Sam Bhagwat, co-founder of GatsbyJS and now co-founder and CEO of Mastra AI. Sam shares his journey from building one of the most popular React frameworks to leading an open-source TypeScript framework for AI agents. The conversation explores lessons learned from scaling Gatsby, why intuition and pattern recognition matter in leadership, and how trust, feedback, and collaboration shape strong teams. Sam also talks about the shift of web developers moving into AI, the importance of usability in developer tools, and his book Principles of Building AI Agents. Key points from this episode: - Sam reflects on his journey from co-founding GatsbyJS to building Mastra, highlighting how past lessons in developer experience and scaling shape his current approach. - The conversation explores how web developers moving into AI are carrying over a culture of usability and accessibility, making it easier for more people to adopt AI tools. - Tracy and Sam discuss the role of intuition in leadership, including how to know when to pivot, when to trust your instincts, and how to calibrate confidence. - They dive into the importance of collaboration, feedback, and trust in building strong teams that can weather both successes and setbacks together. Chapters 00:00 – Intro 01:04 – Gatsby Journey 01:38 – Founding Mastra.ai 02:37 – From Web to AI 03:47 – Building Mastra & YC 06:17 – Web Devs Entering AI 08:08 – Lessons from Gatsby 11:20 – Trust and Leadership 13:37 – Mistakes and Course Correction 17:20 – When to Pivot 20:14 – Culture of Feedback 23:28 – Resilience Through Challenges 25:30 – The Role of Intuition 29:09 – Book: Principles of Building AI Agents 30:21 – Closing Reflections Follow Tracy Lee on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyslee/ Follow Sam Bhagwat on Linkeidn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sambhagwat/ This Dot Labs Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotLabs This Dot Media Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotMedia This Dot Labs Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisdotlabs/ This Dot Labs Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisdot/ This Dot Labs Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thisdotlabs.bsky.social Sponsored by This Dot: https://ai.thisdot.co/

    32 min
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About

This is The Leadership Exchange, where we sit down with accomplished leaders and uncover the secrets of their success. Join us as we delve into their career journeys, discuss the challenges they faced, and explore the solutions they discovered along the way. Whether you're an aspiring leader or looking to enhance your leadership skills, this podcast offers valuable insights and inspiration from those who have navigated the path to success.

Information

  • Creator
    This Dot Labs
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2025
  • Episodes
    97
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © This Dot Labs
  • Show Website
    The Leadership Exchange