#120 - AI's Singularity & Commoditization: Navigating Hype vs. Reality with Georg Zoeller // Co-Founder @ C4AIL
In this episode, Tobi talks with Georg Zoeller, Co-Founder of the Centre for AI Leadership and mercenaries.ai, about the turbulent landscape of AI. Georg, with his background at Meta and deep expertise in AI strategy, cuts through the hype surrounding AI's capabilities and economic impact.
They discuss the 'singularity' we're already in, driven by rapid, open-source AI development, and why this makes future predictions impossible. Georg argues that software engineering is being commoditized due to the vast amount of training data available (Stack Overflow, GitHub), making AI adept at code generation but raising profound security concerns like prompt injection.
Explore:
- Why Georg believes blindly adopting AI early is a 'terrible mistake' for most companies.
- The fundamental security flaws in LLMs (prompt injection) and why they're currently unsolvable for open input spaces.
- The questionable economics of AI: high costs, self-cannibalizing business models, and the reliance on performative fundraising.
- How AI tools impact engineer productivity, shifting the bottleneck to decision-making and validation.
- The geopolitical risks and diminishing trust associated with Big Tech's AI dominance.
- Actionable advice for CTOs: Invest in understanding, focus on governance beyond the tech team, and consider the strategic value of local/open-source alternatives.
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1:13:51
#119 - Navigating Ambiguity and AI's Impact on Engineering feat. Ivan Kusalic // CTO @ Enpal
In this episode, Tobi talks with Ivan Kusalic, CTO of Enpal, who leads a team of 250 engineers at one of Germany's leading solar energy companies. Ivan shares insights from his extensive technical leadership journey and his recent return to coding after seven years due to his excitement about AI.
Ivan discusses how he navigates complexity and ambiguity in the renewable energy sector, where Enpal builds systems to help households manage solar panels, batteries, EV chargers, and heat pumps as integrated energy solutions. He explains the challenges of coordinating with Germany's fragmented energy grid infrastructure and how Enpal's Virtual Power Plant stabilizes the grid by coordinating household energy consumption in real-time.
Discover:
- 🧠 How Ivan uses intuition as a leadership tool while managing complex technical organizations
- 🌞 The technical challenges of building integrated renewable energy systems for households
- ⚡ How Enpal's Virtual Power Plant (VPP) helps stabilize the energy grid through coordinated home energy management
- 📱 Ivan's personal productivity system and thought management techniques
- 🤖 Insights on AI's impact on engineering productivity and the future of coding
- 🚀 Practical tips for managing complexity and making decisions in ambiguous environments
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56:31
#118 - Radical Engineering Culture and High Bar Hiring feat. Stefan Richter // Founder & CTO @ freiheit.com technologies
Discover insights into building a high-performance engineering organization with Stefan Richter, founder of freiheit.com technologies. With 25+ years of experience delivering successful software projects for the Who’s Who of European businesses and industries, Stefan shares his philosophy of radical engineering culture and maintaining an exceptionally high bar in recruiting. This episode dives deep into how freiheit.com has achieved their "Never Late, Never Failed" mission through disciplined processes, carefully selected talent, and a relentless focus on simplicity.
Listen to find out
🎯 Why shipping great software is their mission
🧑💻 How they maintain a high bar in recruiting with "tested in life" candidates
📊 Their approach to engineering career levels and continuous feedback
🏗️ Why they prefer full stack engineers over specialized roles
🧩 How they build complex systems from simple components
⚙️ Their custom-built engineering project management tool
🔄 Their program to continually find and remove friction
📈 How they've delivered every project successfully for 25 years
🔍 Why reducing entropy is critical in large software projects
🌐 Why great software should be simple and maintainable for decades
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1:02:51
#117 - Navigating AI Trends with Dat Tran // Partner & CTO @ DATANOMIQ, VP AI/ML @ Beams Safety AI
AI is moving faster than ever, and staying ahead of the curve is a challenge for every tech leader. In this episode, Dat Tran joins Tobi to break down what’s happening in the AI space, from cutting-edge model releases to AI-powered productivity tools and the global race for AI dominance. Dat has spent years leading AI teams at Idealo and Axel Springer, co-founding AI-driven startups, and now helps companies make sense of AI without the fluff.
Together, they explore the latest AI trends, the reality behind AI agents, and how engineering teams can actually get more done with AI today.
🚀 Dat’s journey in AI and tech leadership – From hacking on machine learning before it was cool to leading AI at Axel Springer and co-founding AI startups
🤖 DeepSeek R1’s impact – Why this new Chinese AI model is shaking up the industry and what makes it different from OpenAI’s GPT and Meta’s Llama
🛠️ AI agents & automation – What’s real and what’s just hype? Where do AI agents actually work in business today?
💻 The evolution of coding assistants – How AI tools like Cursor and GitHub Copilot are redefining what it means to be a full-stack engineer
🌍 The global AI race – Is Europe really falling behind? A look at China’s AI boom, US dominance, and what European AI companies need to do to compete
📈 CTO strategies for AI adoption – How to separate hype from real opportunities and where AI can have the biggest impact in engineering teams today
If you’re a CTO, AI enthusiast, or just trying to keep up with the latest AI breakthroughs, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss.
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1:08:42
#116 - Exploring Platform Engineering feat. Camille Fournier // CTO @ Open Athena & Author @ O'Reilly Media
How do you create an effective platform team and optimize DevOps? Tobi interviews Camille Fournier about her career, technical insights, and best practices in platform engineering. Camille shares her journey from building her own computers and installing Linux in high school to becoming Managing Director at JPMorgan Chase and authoring influential books for engineers 📚.
👩💻 Camille's early fascination with computers and engineering, including building her own systems and installing Linux
📚 Authoring 'The Manager's Path' and 'Platform Engineering'
🌐 Understanding platform engineering and its evolution from DevOps
🚀 Challenges and strategies in platform engineering for larger companies
💡 Key advice for CTOs on starting and managing successful platform teams
O alphalist.CTO Podcast - For CTOs and Technical Leaders
This podcast features interviews of CTOs and other technical leadership figures and topics range from technology (AI, blockchain, cyber, DevOps, Web Architecture, etc.) to management (e.g. scaling, structuring teams, mentoring, technical recruiting, product etc.).
Guests from leading tech companies share their best practices and knowledge.
The goal is to support other CTOs on their journey through tech and engineering, inspire and allow a sneak-peek into other successful companies to understand how they think and act. Get awesome insights into the world‘s top tech companies, personalities with this podcast brought to you by Tobias Schlottke.
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