Skip to main content

Katyella · Episode 5 · October 2, 2026 · 50:39

I Shouldn't Anger the Time Zone Gods

First guest episode: Ben Sun of Meadow joins from Berlin. Pirates vs the Navy on startup life, whether agile survives AI-speed development, review bottlenecks, bigger tickets, multi-agent testing, and what managed infrastructure is still worth. Plus the continuing saga of Nina not charging for her fiction app.

Episode five, and our first guest: Ben Sun, software engineer at Meadow, four startups deep and a Berlin neighbor.

What we talked about:

  • 0:17 Ben’s startup journey: pirates vs the Navy, and why he keeps choosing the pirate ship.
  • 4:20 Where the bottleneck moved: AI writes faster than anyone can review.
  • 11:01 Is agile even working anymore at AI speed?
  • 19:38 Agent search and model costs.
  • 24:06 Multi-agent testing and workflows.
  • 29:51 Bigger tickets and coordinating a team around them.
  • 32:41 Rethinking AI code reviews.
  • 38:46 The continuing saga of Nina’s fiction app and the money she refuses to make.
  • 43:03 Rebuilding media apps in Rust.
  • 45:29 OpenSearch and what managed infrastructure is still worth.
  • 47:17 Personal AI assistants, and why Matt shouldn’t anger the time zone gods.