Inside the Brand Partnerships that Drive Culture | Vicki Diez (Highsnobiety)

The Open Protocol for Developers Reshaping Social Media in the Age of AI | Jim Ray (Blue Sky Social)

Megashift sits down with Jim Ray, developer relations lead at Blue Sky Social, to dig into what happens when social media is built on an open protocol instead of a closed platform. Jim breaks down the AT Protocol, how developers are already building everything from blogging tools to neighborhood apps on top of it, and why decentralization might be the antidote to a web increasingly shaped by AI and corporate consolidation. It's a conversation about the original promise of the internet: and whether there's still time to get back there. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

The Agentic AI Push Bringing Food & Beverage Brands into the Future | Sunny Israni (Lightswitch)

Megashift sits down with Sunny Israni, co-founder and CTO of Lightswitch, to talk about one of the biggest untapped opportunities in AI: the consumer packaged goods industry. While many in the tech world obsess over full autonomy, lots of food and beverage brands are still running on clipboards and manual processes. Sunny is building the agentic software to change that, and shares why the real opportunity isn't replacing humans, it's building AI that works with them. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Inside the Brand Partnerships that Drive Culture | Vicki Diez (Highsnobiety)

Vicki Diez, Director of Brand Partnerships at Highsnobiety, joins Megashift to break down how brands earn real cultural relevance: not by chasing trends, but by investing in them. Vicki shares how Highsnobiety operates as a media publisher, brand, and agency all at once, and what it takes to help non-endemic brands like finance and tech companies show up authentically in culture. She also walks through her work with Apple Music at Miami Art Week: one of the standout brand partnership moments of the year. What we cover: - How Highsnobiety identifies and reaches the "cultural pioneer" consumer - What makes a brand partnership culturally meaningful vs. just a logo placement - The difference between chasing lightning in a bottle and building long-term cultural equity - How to measure experiential activations when the ROI is partly just vibes - Why mission-driven partnerships are the ones that actually last 🎯 For marketers, brand strategists, and anyone trying to understand how culture and commerce are colliding right now. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Building Safe Infrastructure for AI Agents | Brian Douglas (The Paper Compute Company)

Brian Douglas, co-founder of The Paper Compute Company and once GitHub's first developer advocate, joins Megashift to talk about the messy, exciting reality of AI agents in 2025. Brian breaks down what agents actually are (beyond the buzzwords), why giving them unchecked access to your systems is like handing a toddler a Sharpie, and what his team is building to make agents safer and more manageable. His products Tapes (open source telemetry for agents) and Stereos (an operating system for agents) aim to give platform teams the control and visibility they need as AI takes on more autonomous work. The conversation also covers Brian's journey from career switcher to GitHub developer advocate to open source founder (acquired by the Linux Foundation), and how he's using Claude and AI tools in his own workflow, from generating requests for comments to skilling up on distributed systems. Brian shares practical advice for developers feeling overwhelmed by the pace of AI: develop taste by reading code, build things to learn (not just to sell), and don't let the hype drown out the fundamentals. Topics covered: > What AI agents really are and why they need guardrails > The Paper Compute Company's approach to agent infrastructure > How developer workflows are shifting with AI-assisted coding > Brian's path from Netlify to GitHub to founding OpenSauced (acquired by Linux Foundation) > Why "if you're a bad engineer, AI's gonna make you a worse engineer" > The case for reading algorithms books and building side projects to learn ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Scaling DevRel Programs for Product Impact & Learning | Erica Hanson (Tech Community Thought Leader)

Our chat with Erica Hanson, a global developer relations and community leader who spent over 17 years at Google before leading DevRel at Flutter Flow. Erica shares how she grew Google's developer community programs to reach 3 million developers and students annually across 110+ countries. We discussed how to validate the demand for your product community using data, the feedback loop between community insights and product teams, and building cross-functional partnerships to drive real impact. Erica also shares her framework for selecting great volunteer leaders, the shift toward in-person communities in the AI age, and a story about her father's 43-year tech community involvement that exemplifies lasting community. If you're interested in community-led growth, DevRel strategy, or scaling developer education programs, this conversation is for you! ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.