Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Creators & Guests

Chad Pytel is the developer, co-founder & CEO of Thoughtbot, co-author of the books Rails AntiPatterns and Pro Active Record, and host of Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast.

Chris Pallatroni is the Founder of The Standard.

Robby Russell is the Founding Partner of Planet Argon, a Portland, OR-based Rails development agency. He is also the creator of the popular open-source tool Oh My Zsh.

Alex Cornell is the co-founder and designer at Cocoon.

Engineer and Product Manager

M. Scott Ford directs the technical and product vision at Corgibytes. His test- and empathy-driven approaches to working with existing software systems help our team effectively modernize even the most complex codebases. Scott is a true mender at heart and a polyglot developer who, at last count, is fluent in over twenty-five programming languages.Scott’s love of software restoration and remodeling began in college where he and his team were responsible for retrofitting the testing tools for the X-31 jet fighter under some pretty hefty constraints. Where others found frustration, Scott found joy. So, in 2009, he teamed up with a friend from high school to build a business focused exclusively on software modernization and working with legacy code. Scott enjoys sharing his philosophy of maintenance and has been featured in books such as The Innovation Delusion. He has regularly been invited as a guest lecturer on Continuous Delivery practices at Harvard University. Scott is the author of three courses on LinkedIn Learning: Dealing With Legacy Code And Technical Debt, Code Quality, and Clean Coding Practices. Scott is the host of the podcast Legacy Code Rocks and enjoys helping other menders find a sense of belonging in a world dominated by makers.In addition to fixing old code, Scott is an avid reader of sci-fi fiction and enjoys spending time with his family and kids.

Jerod Santo is a podcast maker, writer, and co-host of The Changelog Podcast.

Steli Efti is the co-founder and CEO of Close.io. He also co-hosts the show The Startup Chat Podcast.

Mike is the co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks, the world’s #1 cloud accounting software for self-employed professionals. Built-in 2003 after he accidentally saved over an invoice, Mike spent 3.5 years growing FreshBooks from his parents’ basement. Since then, over 24 million people have used FreshBooks to save time billing, and collect billions of dollars. A lover of the outdoors, Mike has been bitten so many times it’s rumoured he’s the first human to have developed immunity to mosquitoes.

Alex Friedman is an entrepreneur and co-founder and CEO of LOLA.

Patrick McKenzie is a marketer, software engineer, and founder of Kalzumeus Software.

Ellen Chisa is a writer, speaker, reader, former Microsoft project manager, and CEO & co-founder of Dark Inc.

Art Papas is the founder and CEO of Bullhorn.

Max Temkin co-hosts the Unattended Consequences podcast.Max is a designer from Chicago, Il. He advises and designs for organizations like EMILY’s List, Obama for America, Hillary for America, Jonathan Coulton, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He also mae the games Cards Against Humanity, Secret Hitler, and Humans vs. Zombies.

Camille Fournier is known for being the former Chief Technology Officer of Rent The Runway, former Vice President of Technology at Goldman Sachs, and author of The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change. She is a Managing Director at the hedge fund Two Sigma.

Peter Reinhardt is CEO and co-founder of Segment.