A podcast where I interview interesting people that work in the technology space, who have managed to retain their sense of humor, don't take themselves too seriously, and aren't on book tours or selling cryptocurrency.
Host Cory Doctorow discusses "Fisher-Price Management" and its implications for modern leadership, offering insights into effective team dynamics.
16 Jul 2026TRANSCRIPT
"Crisis Engineering" with Layer Aleph
Host Layer Aleph interviews guests about leveraging crises for organizational change, offering insights from the book "Crisis Engineering".
15 Jun 2026TRANSCRIPT
"4:30 AM Is An Evil Hour" with Ed Zitron
Host Alex Blumberg interviews tech journalist Ed Zitron about the challenges of early mornings and the modern media landscape.
18 Apr 2026TRANSCRIPT
"This Episode Is A Cognitohazard" with Efron Licht
Host [Host Name] interviews Efron Licht, a programming expert, about navigating industry dysfunction and improving coding practices.
16 Mar 2026TRANSCRIPT
"Security's Fuckin' Weird" with Dan Tentler
Host Dan Tentler explores the peculiar nature of security, offering insights into its often-unconventional landscape.
16 Mar 2026TRANSCRIPT
"Hunky Sales Dudes" with Dan Tentler
Host Lisa Lorenzin interviews security expert Dan Tentler about his reputation as a "rockstar" in the cybersecurity community.
17 Jun 2025TRANSCRIPT
"Damn Chatbots" with Demetrios Brinkmann
Nik Suresh interviews Demetrios Brinkmann about machine learning hype, job searching, and career authenticity, providing insights into navigating software challenges in business.
21 Oct 2024TRANSCRIPT
"Improvisation" with Felipe Velez
Today we've got Felipe Velez on the podcast, a close friend of mine from the improv theatre scene here in Melbourne. I know, I know, weird topic, but I want everyone to know about it. We're catching Felipe as he's on his way back to Columbia for the next big chapter of his life. He's easily amongst the funniest and most wholesome people I've ever met.
If anything we talk about sounds interesting, look up a local improv school, preferably one that uses Keith Johnstone's material quite heavily. I attend a place called Impro Melbourne, which I highly recommend.
And finally, thanks to Dennis Crenshaw for helping with the audio. As always, all good things are Dennis and all bad things were probably me.
21 Jun 2024TRANSCRIPT
"The Million Dollar Curtain Pull" with Simon Swords
Today we've got Simon Swords, the managing director at Fundipedia and all-around extremely cool guy. His first email to me had this at the start, middle, and end:
"DO NOT START A BUSINESS THAT DOES NOT HAVE A LARGE AMOUNT OF ANNUAL RECURRING REVENUE."
And I cannot begin to describe how much suffering he has saved me.
With my newfound internet fame, I am going to upgrade my recording setup substantially after this one - so this is and the next episode (already recorded) are hopefully the last times I apologize for the audio. Sorry Simon!
22 Apr 2024TRANSCRIPT
"Jokes For Jokers" with Jesse Alford
This episode's guest is Jesse Alford, a former staff engineer at Pivotal Software, and the host of Radio Free XP. I've been corresponding with Jesse daily for a month or two now, and am consistently blown away by his insight into any topic I dredge up. We discuss a whole bunch of things, ranging from seriousness in job, whether entering management to drive organizational change is wise, to what you should learn from crashing prod.
I have also used a compressor for the audio this time, so we move ever closer to respectability. Enjoy!
3 Apr 2024TRANSCRIPT
"I Don't Even Have Pizza Budget" with Kijana Woodard
This episode is one that I've been super excited for - it's with Kijana Woodard, who runs kaizen.io! Kijana reached out to me a few months ago to talk about some writing, and we've been talking ever since. We're spiritually aligned on what fulfilling work looks like, and had a fantastic time talking.
Today's topics range from how it's terrible that I.T has three-year seniors to how most actual decision-making authority looks like it's distributed, but in reality most managers don't have the ability to buy their team a pizza.
Kijana also tells me one of the funniest stories I've ever heard in the tech space in the last three minutes.
As always, feedback at nik.suresh@hermit-tech.com is welcome, especially on audio quality. I think I did a lot better this time, but I have listened so many times that I feel like I've lost the ability to even tell what's good anymore.
25 Mar 2024TRANSCRIPT
"What The Hell Are Terms Of Reference?" with Stephen Deutsch
This is a re-upload of the first episode with more post-processing done.
In this first episode, we speak to Stephen Deutsch, the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action's Principal Data Scientist. At the time of recording, an article I had written on the grotesque overuse of the word 'leadership' had just hit the #1 spot on Hackernews, where Stephen was named as one of the the best actual leaders I've ever worked with. Spoiler: He hired smart people and let them lead themselves. I was so impressed that we added him as the final member to my consultancy even though we have an equal profit sharing model. We've put our money where our mouths are on this guy.
In this episode we talk about helping your people live their best careers, treating people like people, corporate theater, the difference between management and leadership, how Stephen is a fraud that still doesn't know half of the nonsense phrases that the organization uses, and Saint Hicks.
Audio quality will hopefully become better with each passing episode as I learn what the hell I'm doing, but feedback is welcome at nik.suresh@hermit-tech.com. Anything good in the audio is attributable to Dennis Crenshaw, and everything bad is my fault.
Inside a recent episode
"Fisher-Price Management" with Cory Doctorow
Published 19 Aug 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] Specifically, they, along with every other country in the world, have signed up to something called anti-circumvention. That makes it illegal to reverse engineer and modify technology if it's designed not to be modified to change like DRM systems. Right. Which is why, you know, there's not a company in Malaysia today that will make you like the universal printer unlocking kit that makes it just disabled for every printer disables their devices. ink checking routine so that you can use generic ink or refilled cartridges with them, which would be a giant business. I mean, ink is like $10,000 a gallon. […]
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