Modern CTO

Has AI really become THIS powerful in the enterprise? Today, we're talking to Brian Elliott, CEO at Blitzy and Tom Jackson, CTO at RSM US LLP. We discuss how AI agents are autonomously completing months of development work in days, why organizational change management is now the biggest bottleneck in software development, and how enterprises are achieving 5x engineering velocity with agentic SDLC platforms. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To learn more about Blitzy, check out their website here.

This was the most useful, actionable advice we got on AI in 2025. Today, we're compiling the best AI content we got from our Modern CTO of 2025: Rob Duffy, CTO at HealthEdge. We discuss why AI demos aren't translating to production ROI, how to treat AI migration with the same rigor as cloud migration, and why technical leaders must use AI tools themselves to drive organizational transformation. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To learn more about HealthEdge, check out their website here.

Most people know booking.com. Almost nobody knows about the $100B+ travel empire behind it. Today, we're talking to Rob Ransom, Senior Vice President at Booking Holdings, about the business strategy behind booking.com, KAYAK, OpenTable, and more. We discuss how AI is transforming travel booking like mobile did a decade ago, why the best strategies prioritize simplicity over complexity, and how booking.com's legendary A/B testing culture removes politics from product decisions. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To learn more about Booking Holdings, check out their website here.

Today, we're doing something different: crowning the Modern CTO of 2025! In our first-ever year-end awards episode, we discuss the moments that stood out the most this year. From the most controversial moments to the wisest insights, we revisit the guests and clips that defined 2025 and reveal which tech leader earned the title of Modern CTO of the Year.

Shazam struggled to turn any profit for 6 straight years. But then the App Store changed everything. Today, we're talking to Chris Barton, Founder of Shazam. We discuss why they built a music recognition app eight years before the App Store launched, how they survived six consecutive years of near bankruptcy, and why eliminating the right friction is the key to massive user adoption. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To learn more about what Chris is up to, check out his website here.

Merry Christmas! Tune in next week to two of our favorite episodes of the year.

How did they reduce customer onboarding from 5 days to 7 minutes? Today, we're talking to Misha Keener, CTO at Flowable. We discuss why orchestration is more important than automation, how context engineering beats prompt engineering in agentic AI, and why enterprise readiness will separate winners from losers in 2025. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To learn more about Flowable, check out their website here.

Peacock has become a streaming giant. How did they scale it to millions of users? Today, we're talking to António Vieira, Director of Global Apps Engineering at Sky. We discuss how Peacock handles 30% of internet traffic during major NFL games, why live streaming is exponentially harder than video on demand, and how AI is being used to create personalized content experiences with synthetic voices. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To learn more about Sky, check out their website here.

All tech is witchcraft…until it isn’t. Today, we're talking to Sam Ransbotham, AI editor at MIT Sloan Management Review and host of the Me, Myself, and AI podcast. We discuss why 76% of executives now view AI as a coworker rather than a tool, how healthcare privacy laws from 1996 can't handle modern AI capabilities, and why cheaper coding will create more programming jobs instead of eliminating them. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! Thank you to Digital Ocean for sponsoring this episode. For simple cloud and powerful AI that’s built to scale, check out Digital Ocean here. To read MIT Sloan's AI study, "The Emerging Agentic Enterprise," check it out here!

They’ve created a “Google Translate” for the cloud, and it’s changing everything. Today, we're talking to Brad Parks, CloudOps and Private Cloud Leader at HPE. We discuss how Morpheus is bringing cloud operating models to on-premises infrastructure, why hybrid cloud is an inevitability rather than a strategy for most enterprises, and how HPE is helping IT teams eliminate vendor lock-in while maintaining workload portability across any infrastructure. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To get learn more about HPE and Morpheus, check out their website here.

How is the biggest newspaper in the United States using GenAI? Today, we're talking to Jason Sobel, CTO at The New York Times. We discuss how technology is transforming journalism for the digital age, why 70% of journalism jobs have disappeared in the last 25 years, and how The New York Times uses AI to enhance reporting without replacing human journalists. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! Thank you to Digital Ocean for sponsoring this episode. For simple cloud and powerful AI that’s built to scale, check out Digital Ocean here. To get learn more about the New York Times, check out their website here.

Gartner placed them in the highest corner of their Magic Quadrant. Why is HPE leading their industry? Today, we're talking to Brian Gruttadauria, CTO of Hybrid Cloud at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. We discuss how agentic AI is transforming hybrid cloud infrastructure, why human-in-the-loop will remain critical for enterprise AI adoption, and how HPE went from 20% to 92% GitHub Copilot adoption in just over a year. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To get learn more about HPE, check out their website here.

When will customer service be run entirely by bots? Today, we're talking to Adrian McDermott, CTO at Zendesk, about how AI agents are transforming customer experience. We discuss why automation drives escalation instead of elimination, how Zendesk is moving from seat-based to outcome-based pricing with their resolution platform, and why the future of leadership requires being more like a slot machine than a vending machine. Thank you to Digital Ocean for sponsoring this episode. For simple cloud and powerful AI that’s built to scale, check out Digital Ocean here. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To get learn more about Zendesk, check out their website here.

This is some of the best advice we’ve ever heard on managing teams. Today, we're talking to Mark Porter, CTO at dbt Labs. We discuss why knowing your audience is the foundation of effective communication, how to create psychological safety for escalation without surprises, and why hiring remarkable talent requires unconventional tactics like asking for negative references and spending six hours with final candidates. Thank you to Digital Ocean for sponsoring this episode. For simple cloud and powerful AI that’s built to scale, check out Digital Ocean here. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To get learn more about dbt Labs, check out their website here.

When he went to investors, nobody believed that the internet would be a big deal. Today, we're talking to Rouzbeh Yassini-Fard, the Father of the Cable Modem. We discuss how he invented broadband when no one believed home internet would succeed, why letting your product do the talking beats PowerPoint presentations, and how to distinguish between technology hype and delivery reality in the age of AI. Thank you to Digital Ocean for sponsoring this episode. For simple cloud and powerful AI that’s built to scale, check out Digital Ocean here. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To get a copy of Rouzbeh's book, The Accidental Network, buy it here on Amazon. To check out Rouzbeh's YAS Foundation, visit their website here.

THIS is how you can actually leverage AI to transform your business in a realistic timeframe. Today, we're talking to Rebecca Carr, CEO at SmartRecruiters, about how she led a complete AI transformation of her company in eighteen months without asking the board for permission. We discuss why 58% of job applications are now completed by AI agents, how she threw out her entire product roadmap to build an AI-native recruiting platform, and why traditional jobs won't exist in five years. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To learn more about SmartRecruiters, check out their website here.

It’s lonely at the top. But being lonely is actually a choice. Today, we're talking to Jay Owen, CEO at Business Builders. We discuss how leading in ministry has changed his approach to business leadership, why loneliness at the top is actually a choice, and how AI tools like vibe coding are enabling agencies to build $50,000 solutions in just one week for a few hundred dollars. Thank you to Digital Ocean for sponsoring this episode. For simple cloud and powerful AI that’s built to scale, check out Digital Ocean here. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To learn more about Business Builders, check out their website here.

Web3 crashed and burned when it first rolled out. But now, it’s picking up steam in gaming. Today, we're talking to Chris Hewish, President at Xsolla. We discuss why the first wave of Web3 gaming collapsed into pyramid schemes, how blockchain technology is being reimagined to enhance gameplay instead of replace it, and why creator economies and decentralized ownership could finally solve the cold start problem that's been holding back mass adoption. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To learn more about Xsolla, check out their website here.

He walked away from a cushy job to build products in his garage. Here’s how he made it work. Today, we're talking to Scott Henderson, CTO and Co-founder at Celigo. We discuss why AI needs minimal autonomy instead of maximum freedom, how the future of SaaS is chat-to-validate rather than click-to-execute, and why the most expensive AI mistake is adopting it too slowly rather than spending too much. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To learn more about Celigo, check out their website here.

Everyone is rushing to master AI, but what does that mean for software security? Today, we're talking to Henrik Plate and Amod Gupta from Endor Labs about their State of Dependency Management report. We discuss how AI coding assistants are introducing new security vulnerabilities, why 90% of security issues exist in code you're not even using, and how malware is now hijacking local AI agents to steal credentials. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast! To read Endor Labs' State of Dependency Management Report, check it out here!