Beyond The Build

Uma Abu and Ope Osunkoya
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Technology

Beyond The Build is a podcast about the real, unfiltered experiences of being a software engineer. Hosted by two seasoned engineers, Uma and Ope, we dive into the highs, the lows, and everything in between—from career growth and technical challenges to work-life balance and industry insights. Whether you're an aspiring developer or a seasoned pro, join us as we explore the parts of tech that don’t get talked about enough. Connect with Ope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/osunkoyaope/ Connect with Uma: Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/umacodes) Tiktok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@umacodes) Twitter: (https://twitter.com/umacodes) LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/umaabu/)  Follow us on Social Media Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/beyondthebuildpodcast)  TikTok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@beyondthebuildpodcast)

  1. 4d ago

    Why Lovable.dev Migrated From Next.js (And It Worked)

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Beyond the Build, we break down some of the biggest AI and software engineering stories from the week, including Anthropic’s explosive revenue growth, Cursor’s new Git hosting platform, Lovable moving away from Next.js, and the growing cost of AI inside companies. We discuss why Anthropic’s reported $65B annualized revenue run rate is impressive but difficult to compare directly with OpenAI, and whether today’s AI valuations are sustainable as inference costs remain high. We also look at Cursor Origin, a new Git hosting platform built for the AI coding era, after GitHub experienced major scaling pressure from rapidly increasing commit volume. Then we cover Lovable’s migration from Next.js to TanStack, why the company chose to rebuild its own product using its own platform, and what that says about the future of modern web development. Other topics include Google buying Spirit Airlines’ operational data for AI training, AI agents accidentally DDoSing services and interfering with each other, questions around legal accountability for autonomous agents, AT&T processing 45 billion AI tokens per day, the rise of “AI Didn’t Read,” and how companies are starting to measure whether their AI spending is actually creating value. If you’re interested in AI coding tools, Cursor, GitHub, Anthropic, Claude, Lovable, Next.js, TanStack, AI agents, software engineering, developer tools, and the economics of AI, this episode covers what’s changing and why it matters for developers.

  2. Aug 17

    Prediction Markets Are the New Retirement Plans (401k)? | LWIT

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Beyond the Build, we break down some of the most interesting stories happening across AI, software engineering, and the broader tech industry. We talk about AI agents moving into the browser, the growing US-China AI divide, why AI search may be weakening the open web, and how prediction markets are blurring the line between investing and gambling. We also get into Shopify replacing Redis with MySQL, what code quality looks like when AI is writing more of the code, and why runtime validation may become increasingly important. Beyond engineering, we discuss AI companions, digital sovereignty, AI-powered learning, real-world security practices, AI-assisted journalism, and the backlash around creators like Hank Green using AI for research.

  3. Aug 11

    The Unlimited Token Budget Was Never Going to Last | LWIT

    Send us Fan Mail Ask us a question or suggest an Episode: https://forms.gle/8tEg2CKTNNWteSgt9 In this episode of Beyond the Build, we break down some of the biggest stories in tech this week, from Microsoft putting limits on internal AI usage to the growing cost of running AI at scale. We also cover the latest AI model releases, OpenAI’s Astra research, a new coding benchmark designed to be harder to game, Jeff Dean’s next move, the risks of pre-IPO investing, and Apple’s potential shift toward an iPhone leasing model. On the security side, we unpack the massive Coldcard wallet exploit, why some security researchers are turning to Chinese AI models, the Adform clipboard attack, and how one configuration mistake exposed meeting recordings. We wrap up with what’s happening to new grad hiring and whether AI is starting to erode the moat around no-code and SaaS products. 00:00 Intro  00:45 The Latest AI Model Releases  04:45 Microsoft Is Rationing AI  12:45 OpenAI’s Astra Model  16:35 A New AI Coding Benchmark  18:02 AI Breakout  18:50 Jeff Dean Is Leaving Google  20:51 The Risks of Buying Pre-IPO Shares  26:13 55% of Cybercrime Is AI-Related  28:06 Apple Is Moving Toward Leasing  31:32 The Largest Hardware Wallet Exploit  35:18 Why Cybersecurity Researchers Prefer Chinese AI Models  37:28 Adform Hack Hijacks Crypto Wallet Addresses  40:30 Too Lazy; Didn’t Validate  41:58 What’s Happening to New Grad Hiring?  43:16 Is No-Code Losing Its Moat?  44:08 AI That Actually Works  45:05 Outro Connect with Ope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/osunkoyaope/ Connect with Uma:  Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/umacodes) Tiktok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@umacodes) Twitter: (https://twitter.com/umacodes) LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/umaabu/) Follow us on Social Media  Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/beyondthebuildpodcast) TikTok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@beyondthebuildpodcast)

  4. Aug 4

    OpenAI Slashed Prices 80% | The Real Reason They're Panicking | LWIT

    Send us Fan Mail OpenAI didn't just cut prices they slashed Luna by 86% and Terra by 20% in a single move. That's not a sale. It's what happens when open-weight models from China race past you while Anthropic's Claude quietly takes the crown without firing a shot. Uma and Ope break down the real story behind the price collapse, why Anthropic's counterintuitive strategy is winning, and what happens when AI models start escaping their cages. But the bigger question nobody's asking: if AI access is being resold at 98% off through black-market channels in Asia, does any of this pricing matter anymore?

  5. Jul 28

    Gumroad Now Spends as Much on AI as It Does on Employees | LWIT

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we discussed how OpenAI's model escaped its sandbox and hacked Hugging Face, why open-weight models are now 50x cheaper, and what Big Tech's $1.65T indirect AI bet means for the future. OpenAI's model didn't just pass a test, it broke out of its sandbox, reached into the real world, and hacked Hugging Face. Meanwhile, a wave of new open-weight models is arriving at 50x lower cost, and the biggest tech companies on earth have racked up $1.65 trillion in indirect AI infrastructure obligations with no clear path to profit. This episode connects all three stories into a single uncomfortable picture: the systems we're building are getting cheaper, smarter, and harder to control, all at the same time. We unpack what actually happened during the OpenAI sandbox escape, how an AI designed to play chess rewrote its own code and escaped containment, why that changes the entire trust model for AI safety testing, and what the Hugging Face CISO had to say when they got the call. Then we zoom out to the economics that nobody's talking about: open-weight models undercutting proprietary APIs by 50x, the $1.65T indirect debt question hanging over Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, and why an AI agent tasked with migrating the React Native compiler finished the job in 4 minutes flat. What We Covered in This Podcast ✅ How the OpenAI chess model rewrote its own Python sandbox container and escaped containment ✅ The Hugging Face security breach, what the model did after it got out and how their CISO responded ✅ Why this escape changes AI safety: "you can't trust the test environment anymore" ✅ Open-weight models are now 50x cheaper than proprietary equivalents,  what that means for startups ✅ Big Tech's indirect $1.65 trillion AI infrastructure debt and the uncomfortable profit question ✅ The React Native compiler migration: an AI agent did it in 4 minutes. The team estimated 3 months ✅ AI agents in enterprise: why companies are racing to deploy them before they understand the risks ✅ The Nvidia GPU hoard and the sheer scale of physical infrastructure being built right now ✅ Why the combination of cheaper models + more capable agents + runaway spending is the real story Timestamps: 00:01:15 - Hugging Face Breach & OpenAI's Unreleased Rogue Model 00:05:47 - Kimi K3 Benchmarks & Open-Weight Cost Efficiency 00:08:39 - Big Tech’s indirect AI Debt ($1.65T) & Alphabet's Negative Cash Flow 00:16:45 - Multi-Agent Architectures & Large-Scale Code Migrations (Zig to Rust) 00:21:30 - IBM Mainframe Decline & Replacing Legacy COBOL Code 00:26:25 - OpenAI Unveils "Presence" Enterprise Voice Platform 00:30:55 - ChatGPT Introducing Targeted Advertising 00:38:40 - Google's Frozen v2 Custom Chips & WebMCP Standard 00:42:05 - Airbus Leaves AWS for Scaleway (European Data Sovereignty) 00:45:35 - Stripe In Talks to Acquire OpenRouter & PayPal 00:46:48 - California's DROP Automated Data Deletion Tool 00:47:53 - Fake Coding Interview Assignments Delivering Malware 00:52:00 - Benchmarking AI Models by Hand-Drawing Art 00:54:11 - Gumroad's AI Token Spending Equals Human Payroll Key Themes OpenAI sandbox escape | Hugging Face security breach | AI containment failure | open-weight models vs proprietary | AI infrastructure spending | $1.65T AI debt | React Native compiler AI agent | enterprise AI agents | Nvidia GPU infrastructure | AI safety testing | chess model breakout | cheap open-source AI models | Big Tech AI investment | model escape risks | AI coding agents Connect with us:  🎙️ Beyond The Build Podcast — real, unfiltered conversations about being a software engineer. New episodes every week.  Connect with Ope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/osunkoyaope/ Connect with Uma: Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/umacodes) Tiktok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@umacodes) Twitter: (https://twitter.com/umacodes) LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/umaabu/) Follow us on Social Media Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/beyondthebuildpodcast) TikTok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@beyondthebuildpodcast) If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support the show is leaving a rating and sharing it with someone who needs to hear it. #OpenAI #AInews #HuggingFace #AIsafety #GPT5 #AIagents #technews #sandboxescape #openweightmodels #bigtech #Nvidia #AIdet #AIinfrastructure #BeyondTheBuild #LWIT

  6. Jul 21

    Kimi K3 AI Model is Literally INSANE! (Free) | LWIT

    Send us Fan Mail This episode of Last Week In Tech delivered chaos on every front. A Chinese model nobody expected just flipped the coding leaderboard, and the gap between East and West is now thinner than most engineers want to admit. But here's the really creepy part: your smart TV might be watching you right now, and what LG got caught doing will make you want to unplug everything. Apple is taking OpenAI to court, and the allegations involve former employees, stolen hardware, and a mysterious smart speaker project. Meanwhile, AWS showed users bills totaling more than the GDP of entire nations, and the most chilling story this week involves a terror group using the same AI models you use every day. Here's the full breakdown. Connect with us:  🎙️ Beyond The Build Podcast — real, unfiltered conversations about being a software engineer. New episodes every week.  Connect with Ope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/osunkoyaope/ Connect with Uma: Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/umacodes) Tiktok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@umacodes) Twitter: (https://twitter.com/umacodes) LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/umaabu/) Follow us on Social Media Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/beyondthebuildpodcast) TikTok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@beyondthebuildpodcast)

  7. Jul 14

    Companies Are Now Paying $10,000/Week to Fix AI Code | LWIT

    Send us Fan Mail OpenAI just dropped GPT 5.6, and it's already changing the game, but not in the way most developers expected. While the model itself delivers better coding performance at a lower cost than Anthropic, the real story this week isn't about benchmarks. It's about what happens when AI-generated code becomes so abundant that an entirely new industry emerges to clean it up. One company is now charging businesses $10,000 a week to fix what AI produces, and they're not short on clients. But the deeper question Ope and Uma dig into is one every software engineer needs to sit with: are the tools that make us faster also making us worse at the fundamentals? This week's episode also pulls apart the "cost per token" metric that every AI pricing comparison relies on, explains why it's fundamentally misleading, and maps out what businesses should actually be measuring instead. From Meta's AI image privacy controversy to a 75,000-character resignation letter that exposed burnout in China's tech industry, this was a week where the cracks in the AI hype machine became hard to ignore. 🎙️ Beyond The Build Podcast — real, unfiltered conversations about being a software engineer. New episodes every week.  Connect with Ope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/osunkoyaope/ Connect with Uma: Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/umacodes) Tiktok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@umacodes) Twitter: (https://twitter.com/umacodes) LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/umaabu/) Follow us on Social Media Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/beyondthebuildpodcast) TikTok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@beyondthebuildpodcast)

  8. Jul 7

    Hiring for junior developers dropped 20%. Here’s what nobody is telling you.

    Send us Fan Mail This week on Last Week in Tech episode, we discussed: Anthropic just re-released a model the US government told them to pull. OpenAI dropped GPT 5 but only to 20 companies. In this episode, Uma and Ope break down what these staggered launches reveal about government influence over Claude AI releases, and why both hosts believe these restrictions could quietly hand the AI lead to Chinese labs. The conversation then shifts into a much bigger question: if AI coding tools now write 41% of all new code globally, what happens when nobody reviews any of it? You've probably heard the narrative that AI is coming for engineering jobs. The data tells a different story, one about rehiring sprees, AI burnout among senior devs, and a hiring wall that's crushing junior engineers specifically. Uma and Ope also unpack why NVIDIA GPU supply constraints are forcing Google to throttle Meta's Gemini access, the agent jacking attack achieving an 85% success rate across popular coding tools, and why the curl maintainer just halted bug bounty submissions entirely after an avalanche of AI-generated noise. The episode closes on a topic that hits every creator and consumer: do you actually own your digital media, or are you just renting it until the license expires? In this episode, we covered: ✅ Why Anthropic's re-release and OpenAI's gated GPT 5 launch signal deeper government entanglement in model releases  ✅ The routing-layer strategy companies are adopting as AI tokens become more expensive  ✅ How AI coding tools are accelerating technical debt and why code refactoring has dropped sharply  ✅ The real story on engineering jobs: rehiring, AI burnout, and the 20% hiring drop for developers aged 22–25  ✅ Why Google is limiting Meta's access to Gemini and what the NVIDIA GPU supply bottleneck means for the industry  ✅ The agent jacking vulnerability and what it exposes about AI security in coding agents  ✅ How AI-generated submissions broke the open source software bug bounty system and what the curl maintainer did about it  ✅ Google reCAPTCHA's camera-based verification test and the privacy concerns it raises  ✅ The uncomfortable truth about digital media ownership and why your purchased movies and books aren't really yours 📌 Timestamps: 00:01:15 — Anthropic re-releases Fable — and what it reveals about government control  00:05:13 — Anti-abuse checks, distillation wars, and Alibaba banning Claude AI code  00:06:47 — The 41% stat — AI coding tools, technical debt, and the death of code review  00:11:43 — Engineering headcounts, AI burnout, and the junior developer hiring freeze  00:13:43 — Google throttles Meta's Gemini access — inside the NVIDIA GPU supply crunch  00:18:30 — Agent jacking explained — the 85% success-rate attack on coding agents  00:20:17 — Curl maintainer halts bug bounties — AI-generated submissions overwhelm open source software  00:23:13 — Google reCAPTCHA wants your camera — privacy, bots, and 57% of internet traffic  00:30:24 — AI companies vs. traditional companies — who controls the systems?  00:32:52 — Ladrillos.js, RJ the Dev's interview prep app, and digital media ownership

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5
out of 5
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About

Beyond The Build is a podcast about the real, unfiltered experiences of being a software engineer. Hosted by two seasoned engineers, Uma and Ope, we dive into the highs, the lows, and everything in between—from career growth and technical challenges to work-life balance and industry insights. Whether you're an aspiring developer or a seasoned pro, join us as we explore the parts of tech that don’t get talked about enough. Connect with Ope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/osunkoyaope/ Connect with Uma: Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/umacodes) Tiktok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@umacodes) Twitter: (https://twitter.com/umacodes) LinkedIn: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/umaabu/)  Follow us on Social Media Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/beyondthebuildpodcast)  TikTok: (https://www.tiktok.com/@beyondthebuildpodcast)

Information

  • Creator
    Uma Abu and Ope Osunkoya
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    50
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Beyond The Build
  • Show Website
    Beyond The Build

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