Issue 101: "I hate AI software dev" 😡, agents are destroying Open Source 🤖, how to fix vibe coding 🧑💻, MCPs future 🔮, building trust in teams 🤝, ...
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Happy Thursday 👋 and a warm welcome to Tech Talks Weekly #101!
This week, we have 10 (‼️) featured talks & podcasts. There’s tons of great content to watch and listen this week and I don’t want to take much of your time, so let’s jump right in!
🏆 Featured this week
Here are our top recommendations this week. Watch now or bookmark!
“Building pi in a World of Slop — Mario Zechner” from AIE Europe 2026
Conference ⸱ +110k views ⸱ Apr 16, 2026 ⸱ 00h 18m 25stldw: All Mario Zechner wanted was a modest coding agent that was truly his own. Then Peter Steinberger decided to make it the agentic core of OpenClaw, and suddenly pi became collateral. In this talk the creator of libGDX explains why and how he built pi, reflects on how agents are destroying OSS and delivers a plea to slow “the f***” down.
“State of the Claw — Peter Steinberger” from AIE Europe 2026
Conference ⸱ +102k views ⸱ Apr 17, 2026 ⸱ 00h 44m 12stldw: Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw, gives the five month update on what he calls the fastest growing open source project in history. He covers what it’s really like to maintain it: security, community, misinformation and the burden of being at the center of it all. The keynote is followed by an audience Q&A.
“The Future of MCP — David Soria Parra, Anthropic” from AIE Europe 2026
Conference ⸱ +93k views ⸱ Apr 19, 2026 ⸱ 00h 18m 46stldw: David Soria Parra, Member of Technical Staff at Anthropic and co-creator of the Model Context Protocol, shares what he believes will be true for agents in 2026 and how MCP plays a part in that future.
“How the JVM Optimizes Generic Code - A Deep Dive” from JavaOne 2026
Conference ⸱ +6k views ⸱ Apr 19, 2026 ⸱ 00h 47m 23stldw: John Rose, Senior JVM Architect at Oracle and lead on Project Valhalla, takes us deep into how the JVM actually optimizes generic code. Using a QuickSort example, he shows how type profiling, inlining and devirtualization often match C++ template speed, why profile pollution can degrade performance and how Valhalla’s value classes and generic specialization change the picture.
“try! Swift Tokyo 2026: The Evolution of SwiftUI” from try! Swift Tokyo 2026
Conference ⸱ +800 views ⸱ Apr 16, 2026 ⸱ 00h 21m 37stldw: Natalia Panferova, former Apple SwiftUI engineer and author of SwiftUI Fundamentals, shares an insider’s perspective on what’s actually driving SwiftUI’s rapid API evolution. You’ll learn how and why SwiftUI changes, how to evaluate when to move from older APIs to newer ones and why embracing these changes is essential for building robust apps.
“Algorithms Demystified | Dylan Beattie” from Build Stuff 2025
Conference ⸱ <100 views ⸱ Apr 19, 2026 ⸱ 00h 51m 27stldw: Dylan Beattie, Microsoft MVP and creator of the Rockstar programming language, breaks down the world of algorithms without the fear, formulas or academic fog that usually surrounds them. Using music, pub crawls, Scrabble, sorting, spell checkers and real-world engineering stories, he shows how algorithms actually work, why they matter and when developers should understand them deeply even if they never implement one from scratch. It’s a playful but powerful guide to one of software engineering’s most important foundations.
“Building Trust in Teams | Richard Campbell” from Build Stuff 2025
Conference ⸱ <100 views ⸱ Apr 19, 2026 ⸱ 00h 41m 01stldw: Today businesses run on software, and the quality of that software is directly shaped by the level of trust between the people who build it. Richard Campbell, co-host of .NET Rocks, shares how you can improve trust on your own team, drawing on years of experience building it with time, effort, honesty and pizza.
“Most Data Teams Are Doing It Wrong” from Data Engineering Central Podcast
Podcast ⸱ Apr 22, 2026 ⸱ 00h 58m 49stldl: Most data teams think they’re building value. In reality, they’ve become ticket queues. In this episode Chris Gambill, a veteran of Fortune 500 data teams, digs into what separates senior engineers from true strategic operators, the biggest early-career mistakes, Databricks vs Snowflake without the marketing hype and why the classic problems that have plagued data teams for decades still haven’t gone away.
“998: How to Fix Vibe Coding” from Syntax
Podcast ⸱ Apr 22, 2026 ⸱ 00h 44m 35stldl: Wes Bos and Scott Tolinski talk about making AI coding more reliable using deterministic tools like fallow, knip, ESLint, StyleLint and Sentry. They cover code quality analysis, linting strategies, headless browsers, task workflows and how to enforce better patterns so AI stops guessing and starts producing maintainable, predictable code.
“Episode 509: I hate AI software dev, so should I become a manager and leading, not doing” from Soft Skills Engineering
Podcast ⸱ Apr 20, 2026 ⸱ 00h 36m 09stldl: In this week’s episode Dave Smith and Jamison Dance tackle two listener questions that hit close to home. A senior engineer at big tech no longer enjoys the job in the age of AI and wonders whether engineering management is the right pivot. And Paolo, newly stepped into a senior role, watches projects drift because he’s trying to let juniors lead: how do you give real ownership without becoming either the micromanager or the absentee leader?
🗄️ New talks & podcasts by category
All the items from 📆 New talks and 📆 New podcasts organized by category.
📆 New talks
Here’s the complete list of all the talks published since the last issue, grouped by conference, and ordered by number of views for your convenience.
📆 New podcasts
Here’s the complete list of all the podcasts published since the last issue.
📈 Most-watched talks
Find the most watched talks from the past 7d, 30d, 90d, 6m, and 12m.
Found something useful? Hit the ❤️ or leave a comment. Thank you 🙏
Enjoy the weekend ☀️ and see you next week!