Not Brothers

Mark Hughes, Ryan Hughes
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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. 1d ago

    Episode 24 - Everything is AI Slop! Or is it?

    Everything is “AI slop” now—or at least that is what the internet calls any AI-assisted work it does not like. But is AI actually the problem? In Episode 24 of Not Brothers, Mark Hughes and Ryan Hughes unpack what AI slop really is, why the person piloting the tool still owns the result, and how lazy review—not AI alone—turns fast output into bad work. They share a real example from Oodle’s early agent experiments, when an AI-assisted request led to an unnecessary Python server instead of a lightweight solution. The lesson was not to stop using AI. It was to build better guardrails, encode stronger standards, and create review systems that catch bad decisions before they ship. The conversation also explores why agentic workflows do not fit neatly into old sprint plans, how visual progress can hide weak architecture and poor mobile performance, and why compliance requirements such as GDPR, CCPA, COPPA, WCAG, and CAN-SPAM still demand experienced judgment. For agencies and clients, AI creates a new kind of collaboration. Business leaders can prototype ideas more clearly, teams can explore more directions without burning a week of labor, and experts can turn rough concepts into production-ready work. That does not make expertise less valuable—it changes where the value lives. Mark and Ryan also tackle the economics of AI-enabled services, the “good, fast, and cheap” tradeoff, and why the human side of professional services becomes more important as production accelerates. The takeaway: AI is a force multiplier. It can multiply garbage, or it can multiply great work. Either way, there is still a person piloting the ship. Oodle: https://heyoodle.com/ Chapters are below. Subscribe for direct conversations about technology, AI, business, and the systems behind the work. Chapters00:00 — What counts as AI slop? 01:44 — If you would not put your name on it, it is not finished 03:06 — The rogue Python server and why guardrails matter 04:41 — AI superpowers and “slop grenades” can both be real 05:50 — Defined outcomes, automated review, and responsible shipping 07:42 — When “AI slop” becomes a lazy insult 09:06 — AI did not invent bad process 10:15 — Why old sprint plans break in an agentic workflow 12:33 — Adversarial feedback and the limits of automated code review 14:25 — Fast prototypes can hide production problems 16:05 — Compliance risks an AI agent may never mention 18:04 — In-housing, expertise, and accountability 20:03 — AI as a richer collaboration tool for clients 23:21 — Exploring more ideas without burning the whole budget 25:25 — More value, less effort, and the agency margin question 29:15 — Good, fast, and cheap still has limits 31:08 — Why the human component matters more, not less 32:43 — AI multiplies whatever quality already exists 36:32 — Not everything is AI slop—and kindness still matters

  2. Oct 5

    Episode 23 - Open AI Dev Day, Rails World, Omarchy Meet Ups, & More

    Two weeks, three events, and one clear takeaway: the old way of building software is over. Ryan returns from Rails World, OpenAI DevDay, and an Omarchy meetup in San Francisco with a field report on where AI-assisted development is actually heading. He and Mark compare the conversations happening online with what builders are saying in the room. At Rails World, they unpack the changing role of programmers, why AI does not erase hard-earned technical judgment, and how agents make it easier to choose the right language for the job instead of staying trapped in one stack. Then the conversation moves to OpenAI DevDay: proactive assistants, connected agents, new model performance, and ultra-fast inference. If an agent can produce an hour of work in ten minutes, are you paying more—or buying time back? That leads to the next problem. When generation stops being the bottleneck, human review, browser use, APIs, research speed, infrastructure, and access to compute start taking its place. Finally, Ryan shares what it was like attending his first Omarchy meetup at Cloudflare’s San Francisco office, from veteran users to someone installing Omarchy for the first time at the event. Subscribe for long-form conversations about AI, software, business, operations, and building things in public. Not Brothers: https://heyoodle.com/not-brothers/ Oodle: https://heyoodle.com/ Chapters 00:00 — Ryan’s two-week developer event tour 01:43 — Rails World and the reaction to a changing paradigm 06:11 — “Look at all the things I’m not doing” 11:26 — Choosing the right language for the job 15:31 — Ryan’s biggest Rails World takeaway 18:09 — Why agents suddenly feel more capable 22:23 — Small, specialized models and private AI 27:04 — Inside OpenAI DevDay 28:18 — Proactive assistants and connected agents 32:23 — Faster models and ultra-fast inference 35:10 — Creating at the speed of thought 37:45 — Is buying back time worth the price? 39:29 — When the human becomes the bottleneck 44:56 — Compute demand, hardware prices, and supply 49:02 — Ryan’s first Omarchy meetup 50:46 — Final recap

  3. Sep 18

    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

  4. Sep 9

    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

  5. Sep 1

    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

  6. Aug 26

    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

  7. Jul 29

    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

  8. Jul 14

    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

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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
    24
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Mark Hughes, Ryan Hughes

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