Alex Koutmos, CTO of EagleMMS and author of Elixir Patterns, is back with two books in beta: Programming Nerves, which gets web developers building hardware from Livebook, and Elixir For Finance, written with his brother Dimitri on real market and Federal Reserve data. Then we ask whether anyone still buys technical books, and get into running on one server, what canceled trials teach you, and a laid off engineer with 1,000 applications.
00:00 - Introduction
02:41 - Programming Nerves: from Etch A Sketch to joystick
05:36 - The Patio Defender
07:40 - Why the book starts in Livebook
13:12 - Is anyone still buying technical books?
14:40 - DHH's Campfire rewrite and knowing your tools
18:00 - Shipping without a staging environment
20:42 - Cold outreach and email reputation
28:27 - Elixir For Finance: Yahoo Finance and FRED data
33:57 - Info products after AI
38:51 - Start on a single server
43:05 - Lessons from a failed two sided marketplace
47:04 - Splitting EagleMMS with his brother
51:55 - What canceled trials taught me
58:03 - Putting your work out there and ignoring trolls
1:04:45 - Laid off, 1,000 applications, and the death of software engineering
1:10:10 - Standing out in a tough job market
1:15:37 - Niche SaaS for the trades
1:20:21 - Grok Bots for clips and cold email
1:23:21 - AI pricing and platform risk
1:28:08 - Writing books without AI, and where books go next
1:30:18 - AI training and the authors' class action
1:35:24 - Where to find Alex
1:37:24 - What to buy for Programming Nerves
Resources Mentioned:
- Programming Nerves: https://www.programmingnerves.dev/?utm_source=elixir-mentor
- Elixir For Finance: https://www.financialelixir.dev/?utm_source=elixir-mentor
- Nerves Livebook: https://github.com/nerves-livebook/nerves_livebook?utm_source=elixir-mentor
- Killswitch: https://killswitch.app/?utm_source=elixir-mentor
Connect with Alex:
- X: https://x.com/akoutmos?utm_source=elixir-mentor
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/akoutmos.bsky.social?utm_source=elixir-mentor
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-koutmos-b8b2bb93?utm_source=elixir-mentor
Sponsors:
- BEAMOps: https://beamops.co.uk/?utm_source=elixir-mentor
- Paraxial.io: https://paraxial.io/?utm_source=elixir-mentor
- Jido: https://agentjido.xyz/discord?utm_source=elixir-mentor
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