Oxide and Friends

Hosted by Oxide Computer Company

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Episodes

181

Latest episode

Jun 2026

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About the show

Oxide hosts a weekly Discord show where we discuss a wide range of topics: computer history, startups, Oxide hardware bringup, and other topics du jour. These are the recordings in podcast form. Join us live (usually Mondays at 5pm PT) https://discord.gg/gcQxNHAKCB Subscribe to our calendar: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/c_318925f4185aa71c4524d0d6127f31058c9e21f29f017d48a0fca6f564969cd0%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Listen to episodes

60 recent

June 13, 2026Episode 141 hr 28 min

The Hardest Kind of Unsafe Rust

We love Rust for how much the compiler helps enforce safety. But sometimes it's up to us to uphold the complex--and often unclear--expectations of what constitutes safety on our own. Oxide colleague, Rain, joins Bryan and Adam to talk about the technical details of what it takes to impose safety on the hardest type of unsafe Rust.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by special guest star, Rain Paharia,Previously on Oxide and Friends:OxF s06e02 - Engineering Rigor in the LLM AgeOxF s03e01 - Predictions 2023!Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Oxide Blog: iddqd, or the hardest kind of unsafe RustPRs needed!If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

June 9, 2026Episode 131 hr 18 min

This Old Repo: LLMs and the Restoration of BattleTris

Bryan and Adam discuss the process of restoring a software project--BattleTris--untouched and unbuilt in over 20 years! How did LLMs help restore code Bryan started in the mid-1990s and what does that teach us about developing and maintaining software in the future?Your hosts were Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal.Previously on Oxide and FriendsOxF s03e24 - Fork in the road for Terraform?OxF s06e02 - Engineering Rigor in the LLM AgeOxF s06e01 - Predictions 2026!!Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:BattleTris on githubSurge 2011 ~ Closing Plenary ~ Theo SchlossnagleFrom the Governor of DelawareIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

May 27, 2026Episode 121 hr 2 min

Rooting for the Home Team with Paul Freedman and Bryan Carmel

Two years ago we introduced listeners to the Oakland Ballers, the startup returning baseball to the city of Oakland. Bryan and Adam were joined again by Paul Freedman and Bryan Carmel to discuss the Ballers first two--highly successful--seasons, and to announce some exciting new collaborations between the Ballers and Oxide!In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Paul Freedman, Bryan Carmel, and Steve Tuck.Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:OxF S4 E11: A Baseball Startup with Paul Freedman and Bryan CarmelOxF S4 E7: Data VisualizationBryan's blog: A parade in OaklandBallers x Oxide hackathonIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

May 16, 2026Episode 111 hr 6 min

The Tale of Reverso

Oxide ships a rack scale system--how to test the manufacturing of the backplane and switches? Previously we've been using a collection of sacrificial servers, but this was unwieldy, expensive, and unscalable--all big problems as we ramp up manufacturing to 100s a month! Enter "Reverso", an extremely simple test fixture, that uncovered an extremely complex bug.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Oxide colleagues, Robert "RFK" Keith, Adam "The Hammer" Suczewski, and Matt Keeter.Previously, on Oxide and Friends:OxF s01e26 - The Pragmatism of HubrisOxF s01e24 - The Sidecar SwitchOxF s03e13 - The Network Behind the NetworkOxF s05e23 - Adventures in Data CorruptionSome of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Adam Leventhal, Hardware EngineerdendritePaddle-to-the-SeaPRs needed!If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

May 10, 2026Episode 101 hr 29 min

AI in Computer Science Education

AI is an existential topic for all aspects of education--for none more so than Computer Science. Bryan and Adam were joined by Kathi Fisler and Shriram Krishnamurthi, professors of Computer Science at Brown, to discuss their experimental introductory course that strongly incorporates agentic programming. What do students take away from their "smoke the whole pack" approach?In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Shriram Krishnamurthi, Kathi Fisler, and Will.Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:OxF s5e29: AI in Higher Education with Michael LittmanGreenspun's tenth ruleAndy van DamBrown CS15 TetrisWesleyan TetrisGenerating Programs Trivially: Student Use of Large Language ModelsData-Centricity: A Challenge and Opportunity for Computing Education -- Shriram Krishnamurthi and Kathi FislerLLMs ⭢ Regular Expressions, Responsibly!If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

May 7, 2026Episode 91 hr 24 min

Mechanical Engineering at Oxide [chapter images]

Bryan and Adam were joined by members of the Oxide mechanical engineering team to talk the mechanical challenges of building a rack-scale computer, and--in particular--of scaling manufacturing from just a few racks to hundreds. NOTE: Keep an eye on the chapter art for the pictures under discussion.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide Colleagues Elliott Donlon, Brooks Willis, Doug Wibben, and Ben Williams.Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Topic[@M:SS](link into recording) Leventhal's ConundrumPRs needed!If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

May 3, 2026Episode 81 hr 31 min

Are LLMs Insufficently Lazy?

Brogrammer Garry Tan has been boasting about "writing" tens of thousands of lines of code each day as the paragon of productivity. Is this really the right way to think about building systems? Bryan and Adam were joined by Polish software engineer, Gregorein, who took a closer look into what Tan was generating to discuss what was found.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our guest (who we introduced a mere 4 minutes in) was gregorein.Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Gregorein's twitter threadBryan's blog: The Peril of Laziness LostPRs needed!If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

April 4, 2026Episode 71 hr 26 min

Building a Quorum of Trust in the Oxide Rack

The Oxide rack contains within it a distributed system that needs to trust itself. But how is this trust built? Bryan and Adam were joined by colleagues Andrew and Finch to explore how Trust Quorum was designed, built, and verified.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide colleagues, Andrew Stone, and Finch Foner.Previously, on Oxide and Friends:OxF s06e02 - Engineering Rigor in the LLM AgeOxF s03e17 - Software VerificationpaloozaOxF s06e02 - Engineering Rigor in the LLM AgeOxF s05e20 - Debugger-Driven DevelopmentSome of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Oxide RFD 238: Trust Quorum and Rack UnlockPRs needed!If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

March 18, 2026Episode 61 hr 24 min

When Nine Nines Isn't Enough

Bryan and Adam were joined by members of the Oxide team to describe the multi-year search for a mysterious source of hardware failures. All related to an ultra-reliable--and yet still not reliable enough--component.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by members of the Oxide team: Nathanael Huffman, Alan Hanson, Cliff Biffle, Eric Aasen, Robert "RFK" Keith, and Jordan Hendricks.Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Oxide RFD 630: BMR491 Glitch Mitigation PlanRFK's reportPRs needed!If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

February 27, 2026Episode 51 hr 45 min

Oxide's $200M Series C

Oxide raised a truckload of capital a few weeks ago to fund the business for the foreseeable future. Bryan and Steve describe the raise, and Adam poses the best the best (and worst) questions scraped from Hacker News.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide CEO, Steve Tuck.Previously on Oxide and Friends:OxF s01e25 - Tales from the Bringup LabOxF s04e30 - Intel after GelsingerOxF s05e24 - Oxide’s $100M Series BOxF s02e18 - Silicon Valley Bank with Eric VishriaOxF s05e28 - Systems Software in the LargeMentioned during the show:Oxide Blog: Our $200M Series COxide is hiring!If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!