The Peterman Pod

In this episode, I asked Ethan Evans (ex-Amazon VP) questions about common situations in corporate politics but they get increasingly darker.

• My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: https://read.compose.llc/
• The Kickstarter page for it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-simple-ergonomics-beautifully-done

Podcast links:
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhjhRRz3VJw
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835
• Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/e068-ethan-evans

Thank you to this episode's sponsor for supporting my work:
• WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at https://workos.com/

Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:42) How to receive credit for your work
(19:18) Ways for quiet people to get visibility
(21:32) How to be trusted for top projects
(29:52) How to defend from others taking your project
(36:13) How to reject bad projects
(44:10) How to be first for promo
(55:35) How to handle managers that dislike career growth talk
(01:06:30) What if your manager is in the way
(01:15:43) Did he ever have overly political reports
(01:28:06) How to fire a bad manager
(01:35:16) What gives you leverage
(01:43:41) How to defend against peers undermining you
(01:50:24) What if everyone is good at politics
(01:55:11) How Jeff Bezos burned him for empire building
(02:03:27) How to retain your headcount
(02:07:31) Career recommendations for the current landscape
(02:15:11) How to avoid negative layoff optics
(02:18:39) How to develop executive presence
(02:29:25) How to network in a natural way
(02:33:30) How to network with powerful people
(02:41:01) How to learn hidden incentives
(02:44:43) What happens behind the scenes with HR
(02:50:13) Did he burn people to get ahead
(02:53:24) What he says to people who hate politics
(02:59:03) Top book recommendations on power dynamics
(03:00:45) How he would speedrun career growth today
(03:06:56) Outro

Where to find Ethan:
• Personal website: https://www.ethanevans.com/
• Newsletter: https://levelupwithethanevans.substack.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EthanEvansVP
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/EthanEvansVP
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ethanevansvp

Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

Referenced in this episode:
• Never Split the Difference: https://www.blackswanltd.com/never-split-the-difference
• Leadership and Self-Deception: https://arbinger.com/bookstore/leadership-and-self-deception
• The 48 Laws of Power: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/330912/the-48-laws-of-power-by-robert-greene/

Philip Su grew quickly to a Distinguished Engineer at Facebook and OpenAI. We talked about the psychology behind peaking in a tech career and the pressure at the highest levels.

• My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: https://read.compose.llc/
• The Kickstarter page for it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-simple-ergonomics-beautifully-done

Podcast links:

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMo04pSSiao
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835
• Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/openai-and-meta-distinguished-eng

Thank you to this episode's sponsors for supporting my work:

• WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at https://workos.com/
• Jira by Atlassian: Get more work done with your favorite agents and models all in one place, check them out at https://jira.dev/

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(00:37) Growth past IC9
(05:39) Motivation changes over his career
(11:36) Asking to not be promoted
(17:33) What made it hard to sustain IC9 performance
(22:22) What motivated him outside of promos
(26:21) Is career advice useless
(29:34) Motivation after you've hit FIRE
(36:08) Meaning and fulfillment
(38:17) Top book recommendation
(40:14) What he would change
(43:24) Outro

Where to find Philip:

• Substack newsletter: https://molochinations.substack.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suphilip/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/philipsu

Where to find Ryan:

• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

Referenced in this episode:

• Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374715243/fourthousandweeks/

Casey Muratori is a video game developer and programming creator also known for his talks about the history of software and computing. We talked about surprising parts he found while digging through computer history, where bad code comes from, and his career story.

• My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: https://read.compose.llc/
• The Kickstarter page for it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-simple-ergonomics-beautifully-done

Podcast links:

• YouTube: https://youtu.be/jHLbL1Eg4gM
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835
• Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/casey-muratori-surprises-in-computer

Thank you to this episode's sponsors for supporting my work:

• Jira by Atlassian: Get more work done with your favorite agents and models all in one place, check them out at https://jira.dev/
• WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at https://workos.com/

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(01:08) Digging into computer science history
(04:08) What shocked him
(16:23) Dijkstra was depressed
(26:17) The personal side of goto considered harmful
(35:09) The anatomy of a 35 year mistake
(50:12) Clean code horrible performance
(58:33) How to write high performance code
(01:01:18) Where bad code comes from
(01:06:37) Why design docs before code is a bad idea
(01:09:20) The only unbreakable law in software engineering
(01:15:57) How he got into programming
(01:21:16) Why he didnt work in big tech
(01:30:44) Should you work at a startup early on
(01:34:52) What video game engineering is like
(01:39:57) Why preventing recursion is reasonable
(01:43:24) Is vibe coding bad for the industry
(01:50:17) Technical reading recommendation
(01:54:27) Advice for his younger self
(01:56:54) Outro

Where to find Casey:

• Website: https://caseymuratori.com/
• Newsletter: https://www.computerenhance.com/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/cmuratori
• GitHub: https://github.com/cmuratori
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MollyRocket
• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/cmuratori.bsky.social
• Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/molly_rocket
• Handmade Network: https://handmade.network/m/cmuratori
• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_Muratori

Where to find Ryan:

• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

Referenced in this episode:

• The Root of the Root of All Evil: https://computerenhance.com/theroot
• The Big OOPS: Anatomy of a 35-Year Mistake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo84LFzx5nI
• Edsger Dijkstra's "Notes on Structured Programming": https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD02xx/EWD249/EWD249.html
• Donald Knuth's "Structured Programming with go to Statements": https://doi.org/10.1145/356635.356640
• Edsger Dijkstra's "Go To Statement Considered Harmful": https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD02xx/EWD215.html
• Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad thesis: https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-574.html
• Clean Code, Horrible Performance: https://www.computerenhance.com/p/clean-code-horrible-performance
• Where Does Bad Code Come From?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YpFGkG-u1w
• The Only Unbreakable Law: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IUj1EZwpJY
• Dijkstra letter's reference: https://medium.com/@acidflask/this-guys-arrogance-takes-your-breath-away-5b903624ca5f#.1rdj838x6

Thariq Shihipar is an engineer on Anthropic’s Claude Code team I asked him how Anthropic makes the most out of the models for engineering and how the industry will change soon.

• My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: https://read.compose.llc/
• The Kickstarter page for it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-simple-ergonomics-beautifully-done

Podcast links:

• YouTube: https://youtu.be/2Kch3tWMnw8
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835
• Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/how-anthropic-builds-and-how-engineering

Thank you to this episode's sponsor for supporting my work:

• WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at https://workos.com/

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(00:29) Onboarding at Anthropic
(02:53) Internal capabilities vs external perception
(06:16) Model vs Harness
(08:55) What percent of Anthropics changes are fully autonomous
(14:51) Computer use
(17:42) How to make the most out of your compute
(20:45) Loop engineering
(22:47) Where the industry will go soon
(26:02) Which model do Anthropic engineers use
(27:38) Is learning a particular model worth it
(30:56) Prompting tips for todays models
(35:04) How to get the models to do tasteful work
(39:00) How much of writing is done by AI at Anthropic
(45:36) Code ownership and maintenance at Anthropic
(52:04) How Anthropic prevents breakages
(55:24) Visibility and sharing your work
(58:42) Luck surface area example
(01:00:57) Should people still learn to code
(01:07:42) Advice for his younger self
(01:09:58) Outro

Where to find Thariq:

• X/Twitter: https://x.com/trq212
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thariqshihipar/
• Personal Website: https://www.thariq.io/

Where to find Ryan:

• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

Referenced in this episode:

• Anthropic's post on removing 80% of Claude Code's system prompt: https://claude.com/blog/the-new-rules-of-context-engineering-for-claude-5-generation-models

Martin Odersky is the creator of Scala and I interviewed him to compare different languages designs (Rust vs Zig vs Python vs Scala) and how AI will impact programming languages.

• My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: https://read.compose.llc/
• The Kickstarter page for it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-simple-ergonomics-beautifully-done

Podcast links:

• YouTube: https://youtu.be/LdN4sPWM-WY
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835
• Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/creator-of-scala-comparing-languages?r=n49ky

Thank you to this episode's sponsors for supporting my work:

• WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at https://workos.com/
• Jira by Atlassian: Get more work done with your favorite agents and models all in one place, check them out at https://jira.dev/

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(00:44) Why care about functional programming
(06:35) Why should people learn Scala
(09:26) Rust vs Scala
(12:42) Rust vs Zig
(15:45) Scala vs Python
(18:31) The programming languages that influenced him
(22:16) How running on the JVM works
(26:33) Why writing a compiler is hard
(29:19) Why Twitter adopted Scala early on
(31:00) How he believes AI will impact programming languages
(43:40) Will there be less engineers in ten years
(44:34) Top programming languages to learn to grow
(46:18) Top technical book recommendation
(46:51) Why he chose academia instead of industry
(48:28) Reflecting on Scala
(55:42) Advice for his younger self
(56:33) Outro

Where to find Martin:

• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Odersky
• Website: https://people.epfl.ch/martin.odersky
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/odersky
• GitHub: https://github.com/odersky

Where to find Ryan:

• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman

Referenced in this episode:

• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: https://web.mit.edu/6.001/6.037/sicp.pdf
• A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages (book): http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html