The Aboard Podcast
Episodes
New Words for a New Industry
31 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
AI is blurring—and even destroying—the distinctions between disciplines. Do we need a new way to talk about work? On this week’s episode, Paul t...
Evan Ratliff: Preparing for a Ridiculous Future
24 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Is the future of work sitting back and watching your company of bots plan their offsite? On this week’s episode, Paul is joined in the studio by jou...
Expertise Matters More Than Ever
17 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
With AI drastically cutting delivery times in tech and beyond, how should practitioners price their time? On this week’s podcast, Paul tells Rich ab...
Erynn Petersen: Fixing Healthtech, One Bill at a Time
10 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Can AI help heal our broken healthcare system? On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich are joined in the studio by Erynn Petersen, a longtime technolo...
Product Is More Than Prompts
03 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
People are constantly talking about how AI is transforming engineers’ work, but where does that leave the product manager? On this week’s podcast,...
Gideon Lewis-Kraus: How Anthropic Sees Claude
24 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Public opinion on LLMs like Claude varies widely—but how do the people who actually work at Anthropic think about it? On this week’s podcast, Paul...
Can Tech CEOs Be Thoughtful?
17 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Anthropic founder Dario Amodei wants AI to be regulated. Will anyone listen? On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich dive into Amodei’s recent (leng...
Robot Reddit Wants Your Passwords
10 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Is Moltbook—aka “Reddit for Robots”—merely a novelty, or does it contain bigger ideas about the future of tech? On this week’s podcast, Paul...
Docs Heart Bots
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
AI is poised to transform the healthcare sector—but what does that mean in practice? Fresh off hosting a healthtech event in Aboard’s Manhattan of...
Yelling at Vibe Coders
27 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
“I built it in six hours. Let’s deploy it to production!” On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich engage in one of their favorite pastimes: Corp...
Are We All Developers Now?
20 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Claude Code has emerged as a true development tool—but will non-tech people actually use it? This week on the podcast about “software in the age o...
Rafe Colburn: Building Etsy in the AI Era
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How is one of the internet’s biggest spaces for human creativity adapting in the AI era? On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich are joined in the s...
Totally Prepared for 2026
06 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What will the AI story be in 2026: Society-wide transformation or incremental change? On the first podcast of the new year, Paul and Rich (gently) arg...
Dan Frommer: Consumers in the Age of AI
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI is transforming what we buy—and how we buy it. On the final podcast of the year, Paul and Rich are joined by Dan Frommer, founder of The New Cons...
God, Sex, and AI
09 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Is there space for everyone in LLM world? On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich traverse the always-changing AI landscape from one end of the spectr...
Max Read: Reporting on the Big, Bad Internet
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI is reshaping the media, the internet, and the culture at large—and Max Read is writing about it. On this week’s podcast, the longtime journalis...
(AI) Bubble Trouble
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The AI industry teeters on the edge of the bubble, but AI tools are better than ever. What does this mean for the future of the technology? On this we...
Arushi Saxena: Can We Trust AI?
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As people feed their whole lives into LLMs, how can they protect themselves? On this week’s Aboard Podcast, Paul and Rich are joined by Arushi Saxen...
Why the Software Industry Hates Your SMB
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Big tech doesn’t care about medium-sized businesses—but is AI really the solution? On this week’s podcast, Paul is fresh off the plane from Phoe...
Bots Ate My Resume
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI is making job hunting near-impossible on both sides of the hiring equation. Is there a way out of this automated mess? On this week’s podcast, Pa...
Of Course There’s an AI Bubble
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Traffic to vibe-coding tools is plummeting. Financial analysts are invoking 1929. Is the big AI crash inevitable? On the latest Aboard Podcast, Paul a...
Welcome to Slopworld
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI videos from tools like OpenAI’s Sora and Meta’s Vibes are flooding our feeds. Is this the future? On the Aboard Podcast, Paul and Rich tackle a...
NYC Sends AI Packing
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
All over the New York City subway, ads for the AI wearable “Friend” are being defaced. It seems clear that New Yorkers don’t want what Silicon V...
Tech’s Hard-Right Turn
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The big tech CEOs are openly embracing Trump—so what do we all do now? On this week’s Aboard Podcast, Paul and Rich dig into Steven Levy’s recen...
Bots, Feeds, and Kids
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Aboard Podcast is about software in the age of AI—but what non-AI things are happening in the world of software? Not much, Paul and Rich are sor...
The Billable Hour is Dead
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Will AI put an end to management consulting? Maybe hold off on writing that McKinsey obituary for now. On the podcast, Paul and Rich break down the di...
Is Search Really the Future of AI?
09 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Millions of people are using AI tools to search—so what does that mean for search engines? On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich dive into (the qu...
Matt Seitz: MBA…I?
02 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How should the business leaders of the future think about AI? On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich are joined by Matt Seitz, the Director of the AI...
AI Summer School #4: Chill Out About AGI
26 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Aboard uses AI to help build software, but in just a few years, AI will gain sentience and take over our work, personal lives, and even brains—just ...
AI Summer School #3: From Agents to Apps
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
So now that you’ve set up your AI agents, what can you build with them? In the third lesson of AI Summer School, Paul and Rich are joined by CTO Ada...
AI Summer School #2: Call My Agents
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
“Agents” are a big marketing term for AI companies right now—but how do they actually work? In the second installment of AI Summer School, Paul ...
AI Summer School #1: How LLMs (Don’t) Think
05 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Feel a little lost when it comes to AI? It’s time to go back to school—Aboard’s AI Summer School! Over the month of August, Paul, Rich, and a fe...
Timing My Vibe Coding
29 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mapping the history of the universe—and the limits of current AI programming tools. On this week’s podcast, Paul walks Rich through his recent exp...
The View from the Lebanese Tech Scene
22 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How do you build for the future amid ongoing instability? This week, Paul and Rich turn to Lebanon—literally, since that’s where Rich, who was bor...
Why We Made Aboard Human-First
15 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI is a great first step, but to really build software, you need humans to get the job done. On last week’s podcast, Paul and Rich talked about how ...
Reintroducing Aboard
08 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Paul and Rich are always talking about building software with AI—but how is Aboard actually building software with AI? This week’s podcast is a pe...
A Blast From Computing Past
24 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Same as it ever was: On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich take a spin through a 1980 issue of Omni magazine, comparing how computers were being dis...
Tech Giants Want AI to Behave
17 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As the legacy tech giants weave AI functionality through their existing systems, is it all over for AI-first companies like OpenAI and Anthropic? In t...
Artificial Intelligence/Artificial Deadlines
10 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When is something “done”—and why is it so hard to define “done” when it comes to AI? On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich talk about the ...
OpenAI Goes Shopping
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
OpenAI’s $6.5 billion acquisition of Jony Ive’s startup might be grabbing the headlines, but the real shifts in AI right now are a lot less flashy...
AI Advice for the Confused CEO
27 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The CEO comes into the office and says, “What are we doing about AI?” What’s wrong with this picture? On the podcast, Paul and Rich offer advice...
Help Wanted: AI-First Companies Need Humans After All
20 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last year, the fintech company Klarna announced they were going AI-first—but now, they’re hiring humans again. Is this a sign that the AI pendulum...
School’s Out Forever
13 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s young people are growing up with generative AI at their fingertips. Should we be worried? On this week’s podcast, Paul (father of 13-year-...
Patrick Austin: AI’s Not There Yet
06 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From your inbox to the podcast studio: Paul and Rich are joined by Patrick Lucas Austin, longtime tech journalist and founding editor of IT Brew, to t...
A Database Will Never Love You
29 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Are product managers’ jobs safe in our new AI-development reality? Paul and Rich discuss the news that OpenAI is looking to acquire the coding assis...
Could We Replace the Pope With AI? (God, No)
22 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Does AI have a place in religion—or in our moral decision-making more broadly? Recorded shortly after the death of Pope Francis was announced, Paul ...
AI is Part of Your Job Now
15 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke recently told his employees that AI use is now mandatory—and on this week’s Reqless, Paul and Rich talk about why they thi...
The Big Crash
08 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As Trump’s tariffs become reality and global markets plummet, Paul and Rich take stock of the situation and ask: How are the founders of an AI start...
Boring is Thrilling
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Rich asks Paul for a report from the AI-coding trenches, Paul brings news: AI is boring now! And that’s a good thing. As the novelty of the tec...
Prompts, Promptly
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On this week’s Reqless, Paul and Rich consider the prompt: What it represents within generative AI tools, how they think about it as users, and what...
Kurt Schrader: Shipping AI at Shortcut
18 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As AI transforms the way engineers build software, how is it changing the software that’s built for engineers? On this week’s Reqless, Paul and Ri...
The AI Centrist
11 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Some people hate AI and think it’ll destroy everything. Others love it and want to press their feet on the AI gas pedal. What happens if you’re st...
Sara Chipps: How AI Changes Coding
04 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What should developers be doing right now to adapt to AI? On this week’s Reqless, Paul and Rich get an on-the-ground perspective from longtime softw...
AI Regulation (and Disregulation)
25 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Is it too late to regulate AI? On this week’s Reqless, Paul and Rich assess what “regulating AI” could even mean, from controlling training data...
Clay Shirky: AI for Higher Education
18 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How is generative AI transforming the university? On this week’s Reqless, Paul and Rich sit down with someone on the front lines of AI in higher ed:...
Waiting for the DOGE Barbarians
11 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Government by Grok? On this week’s Reqless, Paul opens with a poetry reading (stay with us) and then he and Rich discuss the poem’s relation...
AI as an Accelerant for Good
04 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How is AI transforming the social sector? Flying solo in the Reqless hosting chair, Paul sits down with Perry Hewitt, Chief Marketing and Product Offi...
Don’t Freak About DeepSeek
28 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As Chinese LLM company DeepSeek makes headlines for wreaking havoc on the stock prices of the American tech sector, Paul and Rich sit down and answer ...
Brains Are Better Than Butlers
21 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI tools are often positioned as agents, assistants, or butlers—but their potential is so much greater than that. On this week’s Reqless, Rich exp...
Not Quite Finishing Apps
14 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Can you actually build an app with AI right now? Fresh off a holiday break where he attempted to do just that (rather than talking to his family), Pau...
We Need More Software
07 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Does the world actually need more software? In the first Reqless of 2025, Paul and Rich skip the “AI predictions for the coming year” and instead ...
A Year of Chaos Concludes
17 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Farewell 2024—a boring year in which nothing really happened! On this week’s Reqless, Paul and Rich reflect on our current moment of widespread in...
Employees Don’t Care About AI
10 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Executives are all-in on AI, but many workers are not: A recent survey of white-collar employees conducted by Slack shows workplace AI adoption has sl...
AI Fires Our CEO, Rich
03 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week the robots bring the pink slip…for Aboard’s CEO, Rich Ziade! On the latest episode of Reqless, Paul observes that much of Rich’s job a...
Career Advice for a UX Researcher
26 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On this week’s Reqless, Paul and Rich receive a letter from a different Rich—a UX researcher interested in helping NGOs make the most of new AI te...
Things Keep Getting Faster
19 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
AI is on the verge of utterly transforming the software industry, but how quickly will that change come? While Paul has been betting on a shorter time...
What’s the Opposite of AI Slop?
12 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Paul and Rich look towards the future with an AI lens—especially with the incoming Trump adminis...
Can AI Save NGOs Tons of Money?
05 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Non-profits often have tight budgets and specialized needs—and wind up having to pay a whole lot of money for consultants and imperfect, out-of-the-...
Robots Take Over, Get Regulated
29 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Biden administration recently put out their first-ever National Security Memorandum on Artificial Intelligence, so on this week’s Reqless, Paul ...
Explaining AI with Josh Tyrangiel
22 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How has public perception of AI changed over the past two years? On this week’s Reqless, Paul and Rich welcome on writer and editor Josh Tyrangiel, ...
Exploring Anti-AI Thinking
15 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Reqless tends to take a measured yet optimistic stance on AI, but a lot of people out there hate it—for reasons including the environmental impact, ...
A New AI Acronym
08 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
You’re a business stakeholder trying to evaluate AI tools for your organization. How should you assess them—and how should you measure the value o...
Introducing Aboard Climate
01 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
These days, it can take longer to plan the software launch party than to spin up the software itself—which is exactly what happened with Aboard Clim...
A Case for Growth
24 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Does AI mean the end of software development jobs—or is this the start of a brand-new boom? Tech industry narratives are painting a gloomy future fo...
They’re Killing SaaS?
17 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Is the SaaS era coming to an end? On this week’s Reqless, Paul and Rich discuss recent comments from Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski, who says th...
The New Code Curriculum
10 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If AI is about to fundamentally change software development, what should current students be learning about code? On this week’s Reqless, Paul anoin...
Are Developer Jobs Safe?
03 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Generative AI is already revolutionizing software development—so how long are developers’ jobs safe? On this week’s Reqless, Paul and Rich use a...
AI Meets Marketing with Noah Brier
27 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How is AI changing the marketing industry? This week Paul and Rich welcome Noah Brier, a marketer and startup founder who’s excited about the ways A...
Asking a Squirrel to Explain Politics
20 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
By emphasizing the chatbot use case, are we missing the real communication powers of generative AI? On this week’s Reqless, Paul describes his recen...
Why Facebook Gives AI Away
13 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Are Meta’s ideas about AI the future of the technology? In the wake of the recent tech stock slump and with questions about newer AI companies’ tr...
Will AI Take Your Job?
06 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It’s easy to make blanket claims about “AI taking jobs”—but what does AI mean for specific industries in the near-term? On this week’s Reqle...
Will AI Change Spreadsheets?
30 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On this week’s Reqless, Paul and Rich look at how AI might affect the dominant way people organize data today: The spreadsheet. With its low barrier...
AI and the Legal Industry
23 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich look at how AI is going to transform a very special industry filled with the nicest people: The law. After lay...
Reqless and Step Skipping
16 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Introducing Reqless—the new podcast from Aboard about how AI is changing software. In this episode, your hosts Paul Ford and Rich Ziade explain why ...
Time for a Change
09 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A one-minute episode—we’re taking a very short summer break! But expect some big changes when we return…TranscriptPaul Ford: Hi, I'm Paul F...
Who Actually Needs AI?
25 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Your boss walks in and says, “What are we doing about AI?” How do you respond? On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich break down the problem with...
The Dangers of Metaphors in Tech
18 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why do we try to explain tech concepts and processes with metaphors—and why do we choose the metaphors we use? On this week’s podcast, Paul and Ri...
Deciding What to Build Next
11 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
You’ve just shipped your latest release. Once you finish celebrating, how do you decide what to build next? Paul taps Rich, in his role as Aboard CE...
Rhetoric, Cringe, and Stock Disasters
04 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich offer up some quick hits—and sample, in Rich’s words, “a buffet of technology news.” First, rhetoric: ...
AI Is Scaffolding
28 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Does the real promise of generative AI lie in the chatbot? Paul and Rich don’t think so. Building off a post by tech entrepreneur Dustin Moskovitz o...
How Real Is Low Code?
21 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There are a huge number of low-code tools out there—but is “low code” a meaningful term? Paul and Rich discuss the promise versus the reality of...
Bringing More Chaos to the Enterprise
14 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What does “risk-taking” really mean in business—and how can embracing some level of chaos help foster success? Paul and Rich make the case for u...
The Space Between Platforms
07 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
You’ve got one software system that doesn’t play nicely with your other software system—so surely the answer is a third software system to link ...
Growing 10x Is the Wrong Idea
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How do you bring in ten times as many new users every day? That’s not the question you should actually be asking. Paul and Rich discuss the tech wor...
When Giants Want to Befriend You
23 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If a huge company wants to “partner” with your small business, can that ever be a fair partnership? Paul describes a recent mentorship dilemma to ...
Using AI Respectfully
16 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From copyright violations to environmental concerns to the looming threat of the singularity, AI is a hot-button topic these days. Paul and Rich talk ...
Aboard Goes AI
11 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Most weeks, the Aboard Podcast is only sponsored by Aboard—but this week, Paul and Rich celebrate Aboard’s relaunch by devoting the whole episode ...
Podcast Coming Soon
09 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Just a quick update today, because....WE'RE LAUNCHING A SHINY NEW VERSION OF ABOARD!!! Paul and Rich will be back on Thursday with a full episode (whi...
Stop Wrestling With Giants
02 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This past week, the big news in the design software world was Canva’s acquisition of Affinity, and Paul and Rich kick off the episode by asking, “...
Planning Through the Vibe Shift
26 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Can we all agree that the vibes are off? On this week’s podcast, Paul and Rich dig into our broader societal malaise (the effects of the pandemic; o...