Episode notes
On this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, Rob Ocel and Danny Thompson talk with Brian Morrison, Senior Developer Educator at Clerk. They cover the state of authentication today, what makes Clerk stand out for small teams and indie builders, and how thoughtful developer experience design can make or break adoption.Brian shares why bundling tools like auth, billing, and user management is becoming more common, how Clerk handles real-world concerns like bot protection and social login, and why starting with a great developer experience matters more than ever.The conversation also explores the…
Modern Web
by Modern Web · English · Tech & Science
The modern web is changing fast. Front-end frameworks evolve quickly, standards are emerging and old ones are fading out of favor. There are a lot of things to learn, but knowing the right thing is more critical than learning them all. Modern Web Podcast is an interview-style show where we learn…
More from Modern Web
-
6 Aug 2025 · 48 min
What is AI Agentic Experience and Why Provide a Great AX for Users?
In this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, hosts Rob Ocel and Danny Thompson talk with Sean Roberts, Head of AX Architecture and Distinguished Engineer at Netlify, about the emerging discipline of Agentic Experience (AX). They explore how AX is reshaping how we design services for AI agents, what makes an agent experience successful, and why traditional user flows often break down in agent-driven systems. Sean discusses the role of MCPs, the challenges of discoverability, and the future of content delivery in an agent-first web. They also dig into real-world examples, like how an agent…
-
3 Jul 2025 · 36 min
Why Prompt Engineering Skills Matter More than Your AI Model with Melkey Dev
In this episode of Modern Web, Danny Thompson chats with MelkeyDev, a Machine Learning Infrastructure Engineer at Twitch, about AI’s real-world applications, developer productivity, and the future of careers in Go. They cover everything from the rise of tiny AI-driven teams competing with large enterprises to how system prompts may matter more than model choice. Melkey shares his thoughts on cost-effective LLMs, production pitfalls, and the cognitive downsides of over-relying on AI. The conversation also explores backend development with Go, what makes it great for fast-moving teams, and how…
-
1 Jul 2025 · 39 min
What is Agent Experience (AX)? + Scalable AI Agent Orchestration
In this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, hosts Rob Ocel and Danny Thompson sit down with Andre Landgraf, Senior Developer Advocate at Neon (now part of Databricks), to explore the evolving role of AI agents in developer workflows. They discuss how more Neon databases are being spun up by agents than humans, what that means for developer and agent experience (DX vs AX), and how tools like MCP and step functions are enabling scalable agent orchestration. The conversation also touches on agent security concerns, real-time vs. async UX, and how developers can build resilient, human-in-the-loop…
-
12 Jun 2025 · 50 min
How MCP is Changing AI App Building
On this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, hosts Rob Ocel, Danny Thompson, and Adam Rackis are joined by Tejas Kumar, host of The Contagious Code podcast, author of Fluent React , and Developer Relations Engineer for Generative AI at DataStax. They unpack the current wave of AI announcements from Google I/O and Microsoft Build, and zoom in on the significance of MCP (Model Context Protocol) as a foundational shift in how AI-powered apps will be built and used. Tejas breaks down what MCP is, why it's catching on across the industry, and how it could become the HTTP of AI apps. The group…
-
4 Jun 2025 · 47 min
Building AI Agents That Build AI Agents: Inside Chai.new
In this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, Rob Ocel, Danny Thompson, and Adam Rackis sit down with Ahmad Awais, CEO and founder of LangBase, to talk about agents, context, and the future of AI-assisted software development. Ahmad shares the origin story of Chai.new, an agent that builds agents, and why he believes context, not code, is the true value layer in the AI era. The group unpacks how "vibe coding" is reshaping who can build software, why Chai isn’t just another AI assistant, and how agents might evolve into personalized, production-grade tools for everyone, technical or not. Plus:…
-
28 May 2025 · 35 min
Building a TikTok-Style App with React Native & Expo: Interview w Skylight Social CTO, Reed Harmeyer
In this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, Danny Thompson sits down with Reed Harmeyer, CTO of Skylight Social, and Brandon Mathis, React Native engineer at This Dot Labs. They unpack the technical and strategic decisions behind Skylight’s meteoric growth: why they built on the AT Protocol, how they tackled video discovery and scaling challenges, and how a fast-tracked in-app video editor gave them an edge. Keypoints from this episode: Skylight Social was built on the AT Protocol, allowing users to retain followers across platforms like Blue Sky and enabling creators to publish interoperable…
-
24 Aug 2026 · 43 min
How Entire's Developer Platform Preserves Context for AI-Assisted Development
Rizel Scarlett, principal developer advocate at Entire and former Goose maintainer, joins Rob Ocel to explore the missing context layer in AI-assisted software development. They unpack why session history, prompts, tool calls, and decision-making need to stay connected to code; how Entire captures that context through Git-based checkpoints; and why AI should be used as a learning partner, not just a code generator. The conversation also covers code-review overload, agent-friendly workflows, and a more sustainable path to adopting AI. 5 Key Takeaways - AI-generated code makes context and…
-
27 Jul 2026 · 41 min
How Balon.aI Uses Model Consensus to Improve AI Accuracy
AI models are becoming more capable, but reliability remains one of the biggest challenges. In this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, Rob Ocel and Brandon Mathis are joined by Andrew Baker, Founder & CEO of Balon.ai, and Arif Hosein, COO of Balon.ai, to discuss why AI hallucinations persist and what it will take to reduce them. The conversation explores Balon.ai's Deep Fusion architecture, which combines multiple AI models through a consensus-driven approach to improve accuracy without sacrificing performance. They also discuss why larger models alone won't solve reliability, the tradeoffs…
-
5 Jun 2026 · 38 min
Improving AI Assisted Development with Minko Gechev
Rob Ocel sits down with Minko Gechev to unpack one of the fastest-evolving areas in AI-assisted development: skills, agent workflows, and the growing complexity of AI harnesses.Explore AI skills, how they differ from rules and MCPs, and why developers are increasingly treating skills as structured, executable instructions rather than traditional documentation. Minko explains how modern agents operate under the hood, how skills are lazy-loaded into context windows, and why poorly designed skills can create context rot, unnecessary token usage, and degraded performance over time. Rob and Minko…
-
8 Jan 2026 · 48 min
Databases at Extreme Scale (PlanetScale CEO Sam Lambert)
In this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, Rob Ocel talks with PlanetScale CEO Sam Lambert about what “database scale” actually looks like in 2026. Sam shares migration stories from companies that moved at the perfect time and others that waited until they were already in trouble, plus why sharding and reliability are never just “magic” if your queries and data model are a mess. They also cover PlanetScale’s evolution beyond its MySQL and Vitess roots into Postgres, Metal, and what’s coming next for sharding in the Postgres world. Along the way, they connect the dots to AI workloads, which…
Take it with you
The Melo app keeps playing with the screen off, works in the car and on your watch, wakes you to your station, and browses the whole catalogue offline. Free, no ads, no account.
