s05e02 - Craig Sturgis - From CTO to AI Warlord скачать в хорошем качестве

s05e02 - Craig Sturgis - From CTO to AI Warlord

In this episode of the BigCheese Podcast, Brandon Corbin and Jacob Wise sit down with Craig Sturgis, fractional CTO and AI-first builder, for a wide-ranging conversation on how AI has permanently reshaped software development. Craig breaks down what it means to operate as a “one-person wrecking crew” using AI agents, how startups can now be built and scaled with dramatically smaller teams, and why the traditional paths for junior developers are rapidly disappearing. The group dives into recursive language models, vibe coding, AI fatigue, VC economics, and the emotional reality of building in a non-deterministic world—ending with a look at Craig’s personal AI executive assistant and why the future belongs to builders, not ticket-takers. ⸻ Topics 00:00 – 06:30: Introductions, rotating hosts, and how Craig reconnected with the BigCheese crew 06:30 – 15:00: Daily life with AI as a developer: Claude Code, terminal workflows, and context switching 15:00 – 27:00: Building Rootnote as a solo developer and how AI replaced entire dev teams 27:00 – 40:00: How AI changes consulting, fractional CTO work, and startup economics 40:00 – 55:00: Recursive language models, orchestration, agents, and breaking big problems into small ones 55:00 – 1:10:00: Burnout, dopamine, flow state vs. agent management, and mental fatigue 1:10:00 – 1:25:00: Venture capital, bootstrapping, and why the old startup playbook is dead 1:25:00 – 1:40:00: The future of software teams: fewer engineers, more leverage, higher expectations 1:40:00 – 1:55:00: Junior developers, builders vs. ticket-takers, and how to start a career in 2026 1:55:00 – End: Craig’s AI executive assistant (ACE), side projects, and where to find him online ⸻ Mentioned in This Podcast Rootnote – Analytics and media kits for content creators Cloudflare – Infrastructure, edge compute, and network effects OpenAI – Large language models and AI primitives xAI – Grok and conversational AI experimentation Claude / Claude Code – AI-assisted development and agent workflows Recursive Language Models (RLMs) – Breaking large problems into smaller LLM calls VC vs Bootstrapping – Changing economics of building software companies ACE (AI Executive Assistant) – Craig’s personal productivity and accountability system Vibe Coding – High-velocity AI-driven software creation Product Engineers vs Ticket-Takers – The future skill divide in software development ⸻ Sponsors • Crafted – https://craftedup.com • Wickedform – https://wickedform.com BigCheese Podcast – Season 5 🎧 Powered by curiosity, chaos, and way too many AI agents