Oxide and Friends

After raising $200M in February... we raised another $445M in July! Your favorite computer company is capitalized to the gills--enough to weather the supply chain upheaval even! Come for co-founders Steve and Bryan describing the raise; stay for tax, debt, and credit talk with Scott Orn. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our special guests were Steve Tuck and Scott Orn. Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s06e05 - Oxide's $200M Series C OxF s05e24 - Oxide's $100M Series B Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Oxide blog: Our $445M Series D Hacker News: Our $445M Series D Hacker News: Oxide Computer raises $445M (SEC Form D) If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Wicked problems defy simple solutions. Even as we describe the problem, we may be presupposing particular solutions and narrowing scope. Our greatest, most persistent societal problems fit this model. Wicked problems may not be solvable, but progress can be made. Noah Harlan joins us to describe his technical entrepreneurship battling wicked problems. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our special guest was Noah Harlan. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Rittel and Webber, Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning (1973) Wikipedia: Cynefin framework HOPICS Kiip Noah Harlan: "Why We Started Kiip" Findhelp: "Transforming CBO Case Management with Kiip" AlleyCorp findhelp.org MTS: "AI Doomsday Predictions Lack Real-World Reality" with Bryan Cantrill Eric Ries, Incorruptible If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or…

When the supply chain crunch catches up with you, sometimes a tiny resistor the size of a fleck of pepper is the difference between a world-class computer and... e-waste. Members of the Oxide operations and electrical engineering teams join Bryan and Adam to discuss how close we came to stopping production, for want of a resistor. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Robert "RFK" Keith, Eric Aasen, Scott Tagwerker, and Steve Tuck. Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s06e12 - Rooting for the Home Team with Paul Freedman and Bryan Carmel OxF s06e06 - When Nine Nines Isn't Enough OxF s02e12 - More Tales from the Bringup Lab Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Bryan's blog: The Contagion of Fear PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join…

We've been hosting a live show weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour, and recording them all; here is the recording. How do you test configurations you haven't built yet? Steve, Andrew, and Rain join Bryan and Adam to talk about the transformative power of the Oxide emulation environment, VOXEL, and how it has accelerated development in many domains. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Steve Karam, Andrew Stone, and Rain Paharia. Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s03e06 - Rack-scale Networking (P4 and DDM with Ry Goodfellow) OxF s01e26 - The Pragmatism of Hubris (with Cliff Biffle) OxF s03e09 - Get You a State Machine for Great Good (Wicket with Andrew Stone) OxF s01e25 - Tales from the Bringup Lab OxF s01e18 - Dijkstra's Tweetstorm OxF s03e31 - Hiring Processes with Gergely Orosz Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: voxel -- Virtual OXide Emulation Lab: emulated rack deployments on one Helios host (omicron on Falcon/propolis VMs, SoftNPU…

More and more, people are relying on AI to do their writing for them. Is this the new normal, or the intellectual equivalent of claiming take-out is your own home cooking? Max Spero, founder and CEO of Pangram, joined Bryan and Adam to discuss how they distinguish AI and human authorship. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our special guest was Max Spero. Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF: Hiring Processes with Gergely Orosz OxF: Shell Game with Evan Ratliff OxF: Predictions 2026!! Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Pangram Brandon Sovran: "I Tried to Trick Pangram. I Lost." Stanley Druckenmiller: "Let the Bond Market Speak" Pangram 4 Technical Report Goodfire: understand and debug your AI model If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love…

Oxide returns to the chamber... of EMC compliance to earn FCC approval to sell our next generation rack. Did it go smoothly? If it had, would there be a podcast episode? Oxide teammates Robert, Dan, and Stu join Bryan and Adam to discuss the trials and triumph! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Robert "RFK" Keith, Dan Chirpich, and Stu Donnan. Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s03e04 - Oxide and the Chamber of Mysteries Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: IEEE EMC+SIPI 2026: International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Signal & Power Integrity PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Simon Willison joined Bryan and Adam to discuss a wild couple of weeks in AI. First, we have a high-profile, AI-induced, AI-diagnosed security incident. Next we have the rise of frontier-class open-weights models. Who's for or against open weights? Do they make for a more or less secure future? Exciting times! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our special guest was Simon Willison. Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF: Shell Game with Evan Ratliff OxF: Discovering the XZ Backdoor with Andres Freund OxF: Predictions 2025 OxF: Predictions 2026!! OxF: Bookclub: How Life Works by Philip Ball OxF: OpenAI's Boardroom Brawl Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Gerald the turkey terrorizes Oakland's rose garden ABC7: Gerald the turkey and the Morcom Rose Garden APD cautions residents after aggressive wild turkey attacks elderly Alamedan Hawking radiation DHH's racist complaints Grok's "MechaHitler" antisemitic spree Simon on Grok aka "MechaHitler" Hugging Face security…

Ramy Katrib has been at the forefront of digital storytelling for over 25 years, with his post-production company, DigitalFilm Tree, earning a reputation as one of Hollywood's most technically adventurous post-production houses. He joined Bryan and Adam to explore the past, present, and future of digital storytelling. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our special guest was Ramy Katrib. If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Recently, Oxide rolled out an eye-popping 3D rack explorer at explorer.oxide.computer. Oxide's designer extraordinaire, Ben Leonard, joined Bryan and Adam to describe the process of turning CAD drawings into an interactive site. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our special guest was Oxide colleague, Ben Leonard. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: The Explorer its repo Pierre Lamond oral history PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

We love Rust for how much the compiler helps enforce safety. But sometimes it's up to us to uphold the complex--and often unclear--expectations of what constitutes safety on our own. Oxide colleague, Rain, joins Bryan and Adam to talk about the technical details of what it takes to impose safety on the hardest type of unsafe Rust. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by special guest star, Rain Paharia, Previously on Oxide and Friends: OxF s06e02 - Engineering Rigor in the LLM Age OxF s03e01 - Predictions 2023! Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Oxide Blog: iddqd, or the hardest kind of unsafe Rust PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Bryan and Adam discuss the process of restoring a software project--BattleTris--untouched and unbuilt in over 20 years! How did LLMs help restore code Bryan started in the mid-1990s and what does that teach us about developing and maintaining software in the future? Your hosts were Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal. Previously on Oxide and Friends OxF s03e24 - Fork in the road for Terraform? OxF s06e02 - Engineering Rigor in the LLM Age OxF s06e01 - Predictions 2026!! Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: BattleTris on github Surge 2011 ~ Closing Plenary ~ Theo Schlossnagle From the Governor of Delaware If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Two years ago we introduced listeners to the Oakland Ballers, the startup returning baseball to the city of Oakland. Bryan and Adam were joined again by Paul Freedman and Bryan Carmel to discuss the Ballers first two--highly successful--seasons, and to announce some exciting new collaborations between the Ballers and Oxide! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Paul Freedman, Bryan Carmel, and Steve Tuck. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: OxF S4 E11: A Baseball Startup with Paul Freedman and Bryan Carmel OxF S4 E7: Data Visualization Bryan's blog: A parade in Oakland Ballers x Oxide hackathon If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide ships a rack scale system--how to test the manufacturing of the backplane and switches? Previously we've been using a collection of sacrificial servers, but this was unwieldy, expensive, and unscalable--all big problems as we ramp up manufacturing to 100s a month! Enter "Reverso", an extremely simple test fixture, that uncovered an extremely complex bug. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Oxide colleagues, Robert "RFK" Keith, Adam "The Hammer" Suczewski, and Matt Keeter. Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s01e26 - The Pragmatism of Hubris OxF s01e24 - The Sidecar Switch OxF s03e13 - The Network Behind the Network OxF s05e23 - Adventures in Data Corruption Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Adam Leventhal, Hardware Engineer dendrite Paddle-to-the-Sea PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for…

AI is an existential topic for all aspects of education--for none more so than Computer Science. Bryan and Adam were joined by Kathi Fisler and Shriram Krishnamurthi, professors of Computer Science at Brown, to discuss their experimental introductory course that strongly incorporates agentic programming. What do students take away from their "smoke the whole pack" approach? In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Shriram Krishnamurthi, Kathi Fisler, and Will. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: OxF s5e29: AI in Higher Education with Michael Littman Greenspun's tenth rule Andy van Dam Brown CS15 Tetris Wesleyan Tetris Generating Programs Trivially: Student Use of Large Language Models Data-Centricity: A Challenge and Opportunity for Computing Education -- Shriram Krishnamurthi and Kathi Fisler LLMs ⭢ Regular Expressions, Responsibly! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on…

Bryan and Adam were joined by members of the Oxide mechanical engineering team to talk the mechanical challenges of building a rack-scale computer, and--in particular--of scaling manufacturing from just a few racks to hundreds. NOTE: Keep an eye on the chapter art for the pictures under discussion. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide Colleagues Elliott Donlon, Brooks Willis, Doug Wibben, and Ben Williams. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Topic [@M:SS](link into recording) Leventhal's Conundrum PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Brogrammer Garry Tan has been boasting about "writing" tens of thousands of lines of code each day as the paragon of productivity. Is this really the right way to think about building systems? Bryan and Adam were joined by Polish software engineer, Gregorein, who took a closer look into what Tan was generating to discuss what was found. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our guest (who we introduced a mere 4 minutes in) was gregorein. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Gregorein's twitter thread Bryan's blog: The Peril of Laziness Lost PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

The Oxide rack contains within it a distributed system that needs to trust itself. But how is this trust built? Bryan and Adam were joined by colleagues Andrew and Finch to explore how Trust Quorum was designed, built, and verified. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide colleagues, Andrew Stone, and Finch Foner. Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s06e02 - Engineering Rigor in the LLM Age OxF s03e17 - Software Verificationpalooza OxF s06e02 - Engineering Rigor in the LLM Age OxF s05e20 - Debugger-Driven Development Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Oxide RFD 238: Trust Quorum and Rack Unlock PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Bryan and Adam were joined by members of the Oxide team to describe the multi-year search for a mysterious source of hardware failures. All related to an ultra-reliable--and yet still not reliable enough--component. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by members of the Oxide team: Nathanael Huffman, Alan Hanson, Cliff Biffle, Eric Aasen, Robert "RFK" Keith, and Jordan Hendricks. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Oxide RFD 630: BMR491 Glitch Mitigation Plan RFK's report PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide raised a truckload of capital a few weeks ago to fund the business for the foreseeable future. Bryan and Steve describe the raise, and Adam poses the best the best (and worst) questions scraped from Hacker News. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide CEO, Steve Tuck. Previously on Oxide and Friends: OxF s01e25 - Tales from the Bringup Lab OxF s04e30 - Intel after Gelsinger OxF s05e24 - Oxide’s $100M Series B OxF s02e18 - Silicon Valley Bank with Eric Vishria OxF s05e28 - Systems Software in the Large Mentioned during the show: Oxide Blog: Our $200M Series C Oxide is hiring! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Evan Ratliff, journalist and podcaster, joined Bryan and Adam to talk about his extraordinary podcast, Shell Game, in which he started a company staffed exclusively by agentic AI. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our special guest was Evan Ratliff. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Shell Game Evan on This American Life MIT Review: Moltbook was peak AI theater "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" The Startup Chronicles - HurumoAI PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Bryan and Adam were joined by Grady Booch, software engineering pioneer and living legend, to speak about the past present and future of software engineering. History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by special guest, Grady Booch. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them (some LLM assistance): SAGE as foundational real-time distributed system Software crisis demand outpaced ability to build reliable systems Margaret Hamilton (SAGE → Apollo) and the term “software engineering” UML Rational Software founded (1982); acquired by IBM (2003) OO overshot via inheritance; core idea (objects as cognitive units) endured LLMs are unreliable narrators - they cannot do abductive reasoning Architecture = decisions with high cost of change Core skills persist: abstraction, coupling, cohesion, judgment Fear cycles repeat; fundamentals endure Grady's Book Recommendations The Sciences of the Artificial — Herbert Simon The Mythical…

What do LLMs mean for the future of software engineering? Will vibe-coded AI slop be the norm? Will software engineers simply be less in-demand? Rain and David join Bryan and Adam to discuss how rigorous use of LLMs can make for much more robust systems. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Rain Paharia, and David Crespo. Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s03e08 – Does a GPT future need software engineers OxF s04e04 – Helios OxF s05e28 – Systems Software in the Large OxF s04e20 – Pragmatic LLM Usage with Nicholas Carlini Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: The issue Bryan was fixing iddqd: the crate Rain built Ghostty David's bugs: 1 2 3 Rain's nextest bug: SIGTTOU when test spawns interactive shell Oxide RFD 619: Managing types across Dropshot API versions drift: the crate Adam built If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our…

Time for the annual predictions episode! Bryan and Adam were joined by frequent future-ologists Simon Willison, Steve Klabnik, and Ian Grunert to review past predictions and peer into the future. If any of these predictions come to fruition, it's going to be an interest 1, 3, or 6 years! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Simon Willison, Steve Klabnik, and Ian Grunert. Previously on Oxide and Friends: OxF s04e02 – Open Source LLMs with Simon Willison OxF s02e23 – Predictions 2022 OxF s03e20 – Predictions 2023! OxF s04e01 – Predictions 2024! OxF s05e01 – Predictions 2025 Predictions during the show: Adam 1 year: AI companies go on an acquisition binge (especially for anything that smells like data) 3 year: Crisis of AI slop open source (both projects and contributions) 6 year: Jensen hands over the reins at Nvidia 6 year: Tesla is out of the consumer car business 6 year: With the iPhone market shrinking, Apple has several new attempts at the next potential flagship product…

Bryan and Adam reflect on Oxide and Friends in 2025--favorite moments, episodes, and images. Happy new year and see you in 2026! Your hosts are Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: RFD 576: Using LLMs at Oxide (hacker news comments) OxF: Oxide and Friends 6/2/2025 -- AI Discourse with Steve Klabnik (around 1:08:00) Shell Game podcast OxF s05e12 – Hell is other networks — April 4, 2025 "No Egress" was a ChatGPT joke! OxF s05e33 – A Grown-up ZFS Data Corruption Bug — November 26, 2025 Simpsons scene deleted in syndication OxF s05e29 – AI in Higher Education with Michael Littman — October 17, 2025 OxF s05e28 – Systems Software in the Large OxF s05e18 – AI, Materials, and Fraud with Ben Shindel OxF s04e21 – Adventures in Data Corruption "Duck season, Fire!" MLG Airhorn aka "the jj airhorn" OxF s05e31 – Futurelock Laura's blog post: A disappearing Service Processor OxF s05e34 – Death by Uptime "Painfully concrete" - ChatGPT OxF s05e03 – Holistic…

We hit a new (and disturbing!) failure mode recently when a production rack that had been up for several months saw every (!) compute sled's service processor become simultaneously unresponsive. Bryan and Adam were joined by the members of the Oxide team who debugged the vexing issue -- and reached its surprising root cause. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide colleagues, Cliff Biffle, Matt Keeter, and Will Chandler. Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s05e03 – Holistic Engineering with Robert Mustacchi OxF s04e14 – Rebooting a datacenter: A decade later OxF s01e26 – The Pragmatism of Hubris OxF s05e20 – Debugger-Driven Development (omdb) OxF s05e07 – Transparency in Hardware/Software Interfaces OxF s05e31 – Futurelock OxF s05e33 – A Grown-up ZFS Data Corruption Bug Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: hubris #2304: STM32H7 Ethernet driver stops yielding CPU after many packets gist — Summarizing the Hubris side of investigations Matt's blog:…

Hey hey! We recently tripped over a ZFS data corruption bug–introduced over 18 years ago! Bryan and Adam discuss with members of the Oxide team as well as Matt Ahrens, the co-inventor of ZFS. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Alan Hanson, Matt Keeter, Andy Fiddaman, James MacMahon, and special guest, Matt Ahrens. Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s4e6 - Crucible: the Oxide Storage Service OxF s5e28 - Systems Software in the Large Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: ZFS fsync can trigger ZIL transaction reordering and data corruption RFD 177: Implementation of Data Storage the "fix" that introduced data corruption PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide founders, Bryan and Steve, as well as Oxide investor, Seth Winterroth, were joined by Liz Zalman and Jerry Neumann, authors of the book Founder vs. Investor, discussing the collaboration and conflict in company formation. Adam was also present. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our guests included Liz Zalman, Jerry Neumann, Seth Winterroth (Oxide investor), and Steve Tuck (Oxide founder / CEO). Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Founder vs. Investor Topic [@M:SS](link into recording) Leventhal's Conundrum PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

We're big users of async Rust at Oxide, and recently we found (another) very odd and hard to debug pathology related to async Rust that we dubbed "Futurelock". Oxide engineers who diagnosed the problem join Bryan and Adam to describe Futurelock and discuss methods to identify and avoid it. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included our Oxide colleagues Dave Pacheco, John Gallagher, Rain Paharia. Sean Klein, and Eliza Weisman. Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s05e22 - When Async Attacks! OxF s05e26 - Technological Revolutions with Jerry Neumann Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Oxide RFD 609: Futurelock PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Revisiting an annual tradition--Books in the Box! Bryan, Adam, and the Oxide Friends share book recommendations (and--sometimes--anti-recommendations). Take a listen if you're looking for your next read. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by some guests noted below: Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s05e06 - A Half‑Century of Silicon Valley with Randy Shoup OxF s05e26 - Technological Revolutions with Jerry Neumann OxF s04e03 - Fork in the Road for Terraform OxF s01e16 - The Books in the Box OxF s02e18 - Books in the Box Redux OxF s03e22 - Books in the Box III OxF s04e28 - Books in the Box IV Other Notes: Princeton Review: Happiest Students UMass Dining Named Best Campus Food by The Princeton Review CHM Oral Histories Night Rider (and K.I.T.T.) From Bryan and Adam (and others) The Mouse Driver Chronicles Fumbling the Future Slingshot Chip War Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital @bcantrill (economics book recommendation) Snow Crash (another Neal Stephenson book)…

LLMs have had a dramatic impact on education. There are obvious reasons for concern, but what about the less obvious opportunities afforded by LLMs? Bryan and Adam were joined by Michael Littman, professor at Brown University and Associate Provost for AI, to talk about his role advising the university on productive, innovative, creative uses for AI in higher education. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our special guest was Michael Littman. Previous, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s01e18 - Dijkstra’s Tweetstorm OxF s04e02 - Open Source LLMs with Simon Willison OxF s05e18 - AI, Materials, and Fraud with Ben Shindel Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Michael's home page Leslie Kaelbling Computing Up: Rich Sutton PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us,…

Dave Pacheco is leading Oxide's multi-year effort around full-system update. He recently gave a talk about his experience leading that project, the complexities of designing the system and organizing the team. Dave, Bryan, and Adam discuss the project, the many sources of leadership, and the often underestimated peril of "organizational procrastination". In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide colleague, Dave Pacheco. Previously on OxF: OxF s05e21 - Rebooting a Datacenter: A Decade Later OxF s01e09 - Agile + 20 OxF s04e11 - A Baseball Startup with Paul Freedman and Bryan Carmel Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Dave's talk: Path to self-service update (slides) Fire trucks dousing the champion Ballers Bryan's talk: Debugging Under Fire Roger Faulkner: "I'm not here to make it perfect; I'm here to make it better" Mid-recording earthquake If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p…

Bryan and Adam were joined by members of the Oxide manufacturing team to talk about all that goes into ramping up production, from people and processes to expanding the team and refining inefficiencies. It's a great problem to have! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide colleagues, CJ Mendes, Kirstin Neira, Erik Anderson, Aaron Hartwig, and Doug Wibben. Previously on Oxide and Friends... OxF s03e20 - Tales from Manufacturing: Shipping Rack 1 Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Topic [@M:SS](link into recording) Leventhal's Conundrum PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Jerry Neumann joined Bryan and Adam to discuss his blog post from 2015, examining the work of Carlota Perez on technological revolutions. These waves have similarities, in particular: frenzy, bust, and deployment. Is AI a new wave or the culmination of the IT wave of the last 50 years? In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by special guest, Jerry Neumann. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Jerry's 2015 blog post: The Deployment Age PRs needed! Previous episodes mentioned: OxF s05e24 - Oxide’s $100M Series B OxF s05e04 - AI Disruption: DeepSeek and Cerebras If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Scott Hanselman gave a terrific talk about the promises of tech: connection, convenience and creativity. Did it deliver? Scott joins Bryan and Adam to discuss... and also wander around as one expects from an Oxide and Friends episode. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our special guest was Scott Hanselman. Past episodes mentioned: OxF s01e12 - A Brief History of Talking Computers OxF s02e18 - Books in the Box Redux OxF s05e10 - Lip‑Bu Tan’s Intel Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Scott's talk: Tech Promised Everything. Did it deliver? If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide raised its $100M Series B round of venture capital. Oxide's founders, Bryan and Steve, answer questions selected by Adam from social media about the round, the company, and the future. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide CEO, the man, the myth, the legend, Steve Tuck. Previous episodes mentioned: OxF s05e10 - Lip‑Bu Tan’s Intel OxF s03e04 - Oxide and the Chamber of Mysteries OxF s04e27 - Unshrouding Turin (or Benvenuto a Torino) OxF s05e14 - Bringing up Cosmo Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: blog: Oxide's $100M Series B Hacker News thread PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Two years ago, the Oxide team encountered data corruption during a fairly simple network data transfer. The ensuing debugging sessions uncovered a truly bizarre bug involving CPU speculation! Bryan and Adam were joined by colleagues John and Rain to discuss the discovery and circuitous hunt to track down the bug. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included John Gallagher, and Rain Paharia. Previous episodes mentioned: OxF s03e09 - Get You a State Machine for Great Good OxF s03e20 - Shipping the first Oxide rack: Tales from Manufacturing OxF s04e25 - RTO or GTFO OxF s02e38 - A Debugging Odyssey Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: The Update Framework Omicron Issue #3441 (Oxide Computer GitHub) Omicron Pull Request #3455 (Oxide Computer GitHub) stlouis Issue #454 (Oxide Computer GitHub) Changing psrset.out.txt (Oxide Computer) Commit 5ec2885322423c0cca0d006611b5c9ac94b0f588 (Oxide Computer) Omicron Pull Request #3560 (Oxide Computer GitHub) If we got something…

What happens when the Oxide API is slow? A podcast episode! More specifically, one about how the team employed all manner of debugging techniques to track it down to one obscure and configurable async runtime feature! Bryan and Adam were joined by members of the team to talk about that journey and the tools we used (and made!) along the way. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide colleagues, Dave Pacheco, Eliza Weisman, and Augustus Mayo. Previous episodes mentioned: Oxide and the Chamber of Mysteries The Saga of Sagas DTrace at 20 Cultural Idiosyncrasies Mr. Nagle’s Wild Ride A Debugging Odyssey RTO or GTFO Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Falling in Love with Rust Tokio Runtime Builder – disable_lifo_slot magic‑trace (GitHub) Magic Trace podcast episode from Jane Street diesel‑dtrace (GitHub) omicron issue comment qorb statemap tokio‑dtrace tokio issue #7411 Visualizing Systems with Statemaps PostgreSQL WAL INIT ZERO Statemaps: Visualizing…

On the heels of Bryan's blog post about the similarities between aspiring college athletes finding a team and entrepreneurs raising a round of capital, Bryan and Adam were joined by Robert Bogart to discuss his own experiences with both--and the life lesson accrued along the way. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by special guest, Robert Bogart. College Baseball, Venture Capital, and the Long Maybe OxF: Debugger‑Driven Development Anthony Ervin – Wikipedia Eddie Reese – Wikipedia Metaweb – Wikipedia If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Building systems software can be quite opaque, leading to the need for great debugging tools. At Oxide, we've found that debuggers can be even more valuable leading rather than following system development. Bryan and Adam talk with Oxide colleagues about how domain specific debugging tools help us build systems not only more robustly, but faster as well. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide colleagues, Dave Pacheco. John Gallagher, Alan Hanson, and Eliza Weisman. Previous episodes mentioned: OxF: AI Discourse with Steve Klabnik OxF: The Saga of Sagas OxF: A Crate is Born OxF: The Network Behind the Network OxF: Bringing up Cosmo OxF: RIP USENIX ATC OxF: Dijkstra’s Tweetstorm Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: omdb ground rules If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar.…

Last week, our colleague (and frequent Oxide and Friends guest) Steve Klabnik made some new friends on the Internet with a blog entry on AI discourse. Bryan and Adam were joined by Steve to try to de-polarize the discussion a little. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by special guest, Steve Klabnik, and valued listener, Julian Giamblanco (aka "Oatmealdealer"). Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Steve's blog post: I am disappointed in the AI discourse OxF: A Baseball Startup with Paul Freedman and Bryan Carmel (The Ballers) OxF: Adversarial Machine Learning with Nicholas Carlini OxF: Hiring Processes with Gergely Orosz ("the RFD 3 podcast episode") OxF: AI Disruption: DeepSeek and Cerebras OxF: Reflecting on Founder Mode ("ego con") If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar.…

Late in 2024, an economics paper captured the attention of the world. AI, it claimed, had a tremendous impact on materials research, disproportionally benefitted the most productive, and--sadly--reduced job statisfaction. It now appears that the results are entirely fabricated! Ben Shindel joins Bryan and Adam to discuss. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by special guest Ben Shindel. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Ben's blog: AI, Materials, and Fraud, Oh My! OxF: Theranos, Silicon Valley, and the March Madness of Tech Fraud Topic [@M:SS](link into recording) Leventhal's Conundrum PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Bryan and Adam discuss the recent announcement of the discontinuation of the USENIX Annual Technical Conference (ATC), reminiscing about their own visits to the ATC and the impact of the conference. Long-time Oxide Friend, Tom Lyon, joined to dial the reminiscence back a couple more decades! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Tom Lyon. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Bryan's blog 2025: RIP USENIX ATC OxF s1e13: Put the OS back in OSDI Bryan's Lisa 2011 talk: Fork Yeah! The Rise and Development of illumos Bryan's USENIX 2016 talk: A Wardrobe for the Emperor USENIX 2004 Gnutella not Nutella USENIX DTrace paper USENIX Summer 1994 Slab Allocator NFSv3 WSJ 2006 Technology Innovation Awards 0xF s1e18: Dijkstra's Tweetstorm Meeting Dennis Ritchie BoF session Birds of a feather flock together Freenix 2003 2004 Rik Farrow ;login: editorial on USENIX 2016 Bryan's blog 2004: Wither USENIX? blog comments from Werner Vogels Systems We Love Adam's blog 2004:…

Matthew Sanabria joins Bryan and Adam to talk about his role at Oxide--Solutions Software Engineer--and how it fits in with engineering, sales, support and marketing. It takes everyone in Busytown! Sound good? Apply! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide colleague, Matthew Sanabria. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Solutiuons Software Engineer application OxF: the "squeezefish" episode The Fallthrough podcast Busytown If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Last week the kerfuffle between Synadia and CNCF, tussling over the ownership and futures of NATS, bled into the public. The outcome may cast a long shadow for open source and for the CNCF. Bryan and Adam were joined by Rachel Stephens and Adam Jacob to discuss how we got here and possible outcomes. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Rachel Stephens Adam Jacob, and Eliza Weisman. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Goats in sweaters CNCF Slide: Why You Should Host Your Project at CNCF CNCF NATS documents NATS GitHub discussion The uncashed $10k check CNCF landscape CNCF blog on NATS / Synadia Synadia response to the CNCF Postscript: The CNCF updated its blog with proof that the ACH transfer of $10,000 was completed [still very funny! -ahl]. Derek Collison--as reported by Runtime News--has agreed to transfer the NATS trademark to the CNCF "because we just feel that the damage to the ecosystem and the ugliness is not worth it for anyone." If we got…

Oxide is bringing up its next generation server. To discuss the (amazingly smooth) bringup process, Bryan and Adam were joined by members of the oxide team. Tales of adversity, re-work, un-re-work, and triumph! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide colleagues Nathanael Huffman, Ian Sobering, Matt Keeter, and Aaron Hartwig. We mentioned quite a few terms! Here's a helpful guide: Cosmo - Oxide’s next-generation sled (currently in development) with an AMD Turin CPU Gimlet - Oxide’s current-generation sled with an AMD Milan CPU Turin - AMD Epyc 9005 Series Milan - AMD Epyc 7003 Series Genoa - AMD Epyc 9004 Series (Oxide chose to skip this generation) Sequencing - the precise control of when power rails are energized throughout a PCB Sled - One of the (max 32) computers in an Oxide rack; a custom form-factor optimized for power and cooling efficiency IBC - Intermediate Bus Converter (Our 54VDC -> 12VDC converter) RoT - Root of Trust SP - Service Processor, the small computer…

Bryan and Adam have been gushing for months over Character Limit, the fantastic book by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac about Elon Musk's haphazard and disastrous takeover of Twitter. They're joined by the authors themselves to discuss the book, Musk, DOGE, and some of the Character Limit unreleased B-sides. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our guests were Ryan Mac and Kate Conger. If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

An Oxide customer encountered a peculiar issue at the intersection of their Oxide network and their broader network. Bryan and Adam were joined by several members of the Oxide team who collaborated to investigate and--ultimately--solve the problem using a combination of tooling, intuition, and dark knowledge. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide colleagues, Levon Tarver, Alan Hanson, Will Chandler, and Trey Aspelund. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Much of the work at Oxide goes into hardware and software used to build and test the eventual product. Bryan and Adam were joined by Ian, Doug, and Nathanael to talk about "Minibar", a rig for connecting up an Oxide server (code name: Gimlet) for manufacturing and internal use. Triumphs and catastrophes including stabbing a connector with a guide pin and bringup mishaps! In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Ian Sobering, Doug Wibben, and Nathanael Huffman, Some other, related Oxide and Friends OxF: Cabling the Backplane OxF: The Network Behind the Network OxF: The Power of Protoboards Images from the show:

Intel has a new CEO! And it's Lip-Bu Tan. We had assumed it would not be Lip-Bu--he was such a clear front-runner that the more time passed the less likely it seemed it would be him... and yet! Bryan and Adam were joined by Reuter's Max Cherney to discuss. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our esteemed guest was Max Cherney; we were also joined by Bryan Russett, and Alex Kesling. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Cooking with Oxide and Friends The Oxide John von Neumann bust Intel's new CEO plots overhaul of manufacturing and AI operations Lip-Bu Tan: Remaking Our Company for the Future Intel oneAPI Morris Chang: "A very discourteous fellow" If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Recently, a change to a utility in the Rust toolchain changed behavior in a way that impacted users. Rather than being a story of frustration and aspersions, it was a story of a community working... and working well together! Bryan and Adam were joined by Dirkjan Ochtman (of the rustup team) and Steve Klabnik to discuss. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by special guest, Dirkjan Ochtman, and treasured colleague, Steve Klabnik. Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: Steve: A Happy Day For Rust PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!