💥 Issue 90: Are your access tokens secure?!, Rust beyond memory safety, Leading teams in the GenAI era, Semantic search, ADHD productivity hacks, Evolution of security attacks
Featuring 8 talks of the week you need to be aware of
Happy Wednesday 👋 and a warm welcome to Tech Talks Weekly #90!
This week, we’ve got 128 talks from 34 conferences and 78 new podcast episodes.
I also decided to improve the structure of the newsletter. From now on, it includes:
🏆 Featured this week. Nothing changed here. For those of you who recently joined, it features the must-watch talks and podcasts of the week. It also contains a short hand-written summary which readers love as it saves them time!
📆 New talks now includes links to conferences where you can see all the recent talks ordered by number of views.
📆 New podcasts now includes a link to all the recent podcasts ordered by date.
🗄️ New talks & podcasts by category* now includes links to all the categories in this issue.
📈 Most-watched talks* includes a link to the most-watched talks in the past 7, 30, 90, 180, and 360 days.
* available to Plus subscribers, which you can try out for free
Go ahead, check it out, and let me know what you think!
🏆 Featured this week
Here are our top recommendations this week. Watch now or bookmark!
“Are you sure your access tokens are really secure? - Wesley Cabus - NDC Copenhagen 2025”
Conference ⸱ +3k views ⸱ Jan 16, 2026 ⸱ 00h 53m 36stldw: This talk exposes common validation mistakes that let attackers use forged tokens and shows the tests you can write to stop them.
“Keynote: Rust is not about memory safety - Helge Penne - NDC TechTown 2025”
Conference ⸱ +2k views ⸱ Jan 19, 2026 ⸱ 00h 46m 06stldw: This keynote argues that Rust’s type system (which is imo great) that includes typed error handling, lack of implicit conversions, Option and Result APIs, sum types, ... makes incorrect programs harder to write. Worth watching if you want to know why Rust community is so enthusiastic :)
“Beyond the code: Leading engineering teams in the GenAI era | Addy Osmani | LeadDev New York 2025”
Conference ⸱ +300 views ⸱ Jan 15, 2026 ⸱ 00h 26m 20stldw: The narrative that AI will replace engineers or solve all our problems is misleading. You’ll learn how engineering leaders should approach the “70% Problem”, i.e. how AI excels at routine coding tasks but still requires significant human expertise for the critical remaining 30% that makes the difference between functional code and excellent software.
“Supercharged Search with Semantic Search and Vector Embeddings - Giorgi Dalakishvili”
Conference ⸱ +400 views ⸱ Jan 19, 2026 ⸱ 00h 55m 00stldw: A hands-on walk through semantic search and vector embeddings. You will learn how to generate embeddings using large language models with OpenAI. Watch it if you want a really good getting started guide to building similarity search.
“The Art of Focus: Managing Productivity with an ADHD Brain - Alyssa Nicoll - NDC Copenhagen 2025”
Conference ⸱ +400 views ⸱ Jan 19, 2026 ⸱ 00h 49m 45stldw: People with ADHD have some really good ways to manage focus that everyone should know. You’ll learn practical tools like the Eisenhower Matrix, time blocking and yes bribery.
“Leading without committing: Managing teams outside your tech stack | Robin Bonatesta | LeadDev NYC”
Conference ⸱ +200 views ⸱ Jan 16, 2026 ⸱ 00h 10m 55stldw: You don’t need to be the most technical person to lead an engineering team well. This talk shows how to build technical trust without being the deepest expert, set team processes that work across stacks and support engineer growth.
“The Evolution of Security Attacks and Threats - Niall Merrigan - NDC Copenhagen 2025”
Conference ⸱ +100 views ⸱ Jan 20, 2026 ⸱ 00h 54m 48stldw: This talk will take you to the journey through the history of security attacks and will show you the evolution of security attacks and people’s response. You will learn that history repeats itself and how some of the most simple things in the world can be used to hack all the things.
“How to Decentralize Architecture Decisions (Without Chaos)”
Conference ⸱ +500 views ⸱ Jan 15, 2026 ⸱ 00h 49m 40stldw: See a practical case study of moving from “ivory tower” architecture to a decentralized decision process. It shows how Team Topologies, DDD context maps and ADRs helped six teams make decisions independently and what role “Architecture Advisory Forum” played.
📆 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.
🗄️ New talks & podcasts by category
All the items from 📆 New talks and 📆 New podcasts organized by category.
📈 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!
Absolutley killer curation here. The decentralized architecture talk hits different when you've seen team after team try the ivory tower approach and burn time on approval bottlenecks. That access token validation thing is gonna save someone a whole heap of pain down the line.