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Taylor Otwell on Why Laravel + AI Pair so Well, and the Future of Programming · The Laravel Podcast

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The Laravel Podcast is brought to you by Tighten,
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your friendly neighborhood Laravel experts.
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Check us out at tighten.com
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and also by other sponsors you will hear about later in the episode.
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All right, welcome back to Laravel Podcast Season 7.
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I'm your host, Matt Stouffer, CEO of Tighten.
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And in this season, I'm joined every episode by a member of the Laravel team.
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And it's kind of weird to call Taylor Otwell a member of the Laravel team,
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but whatever. Today I'm joined by Taylor Otwell.
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What is your official title? Are you CEO?
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I forget every time. Okay, CEO of Laravel,
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Yeah, CEO of Laravel yeah.
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OG, originator, creator, ~ papa bear,
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whatever you want it to be. ~ Taylor,
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would you say hi to the people?
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Hey, what's up everybody? Good to be back.
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Dude, it's been so long. you you know this.
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The listeners don't know this,
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but I am ~ wrapping up this season and planning next season.
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And as I'm doing that, one of the things I've done is like kind of gone back
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to the previous seasons. And I have so much nostalgia for when,
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you know, both when it was just you and me,
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but also when it was ~ you and me and Jeffrey and when we had Adam stuff,
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Yeah. Yeah.
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I'm just like, ~ we've had so many good times on the podcast.
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So anyway, thanks for hanging out.
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Yeah.
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Yeah. It's good to be back. It's good to be back.
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It's been a minute.
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Okay, so there's so many things I want to talk to you about,
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but Laracon is next week, and I think I remember Kayla telling me that this episode
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that we're recording on July 20th,
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I think this is coming out on like the 21st or the 22nd.
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So this will come out before Laracon.
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Okay. Okay.
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So I know that you're in Laracon prep mode.
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So what's going on? What's interesting?
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What's new? What's different? If people are you know aren't going or are going,
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what should they look forward to?
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Kind of what's what's the situation with Laracon right
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Yeah, I mean it's it's we're in the final stretch here,
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the last week. ~ I'm really excited about this year's Laracon.
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I think the venue's really cool.
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I really like Boston as a city,
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honestly. We went there as a family,
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~ I guess. Yeah, last fall.
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Yeah, last fall. Really enjoyed it.
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Cool place.
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Did you guys
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know it was a potential venue when you went?
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Don't think we did actually, but it was soon after that.
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Okay. huh.
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It was soon after that that we got that figured out.
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~ no, but I I'm excited about it.
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I mean we have a lot of great talks.
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I can speak to my talk a little bit.
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You know, I'm gonna be doing kind of the usual ~ demo of some like open source
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Yeah.
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stuff, just like in the code, like I usually do.
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If you've ever been to a Laracon I kind of have like a routes file,
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I show some new features, we kinda walk through it together.
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So there's a chunk of that.
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~ and then I'll dive into ~ some of the Cloud stuff we've been doing.
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And I should say on the open source side,
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you know, there's a mix of kind of like some framework stuff,
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~ some inertia stuff, some AI SDK and boost stuff,
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actually some pretty cool stuff coming there.
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~ and then I'll dive into some Cloud stuff and kind of a recap
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of stuff we've recently launched,
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maybe in the last like month or so,
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as well as ~ some things that are launching sort of like now at Laracon.
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And then ~ a preview of some things that are coming in the next couple of months,
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let's say. So it's a it's a it's yeah,
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Yeah, you've been teasing some things on on Twitter that I'm
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yeah.
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I'm I'm very excited to see what you're doing there.
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Yeah, I mean let me look at I've got the list of my Laracon topics pulled up.
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One, I think, four, five. There's at least probably like eighteen
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or nineteen things. I'm probably gonna have to prune it a little bit.
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My god.
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~ so we'll see.
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Nobody's gonna complain if you
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go long. I I'm gonna tell you that right now.
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I don't know. I I assume are you like at the end of the first day like usual?
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Okay. Yeah, if we have to go late because we're listening to Taylor Otwell talk
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Yeah. End of the first day.
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about amazing new stuff. Maybe the venue will complain or something,
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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or whoever's running ops, but we won't complain,
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Yeah, I feel like
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so
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last year's keynote was a little long,
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so I'm not gonna try to go that long,
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but
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Well, I I didn't notice it, but I know that when you you have a space booked they're
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very sticklery about kind of when you wrap things up.
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But from our perspective, give us the Taylor man.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Like okay, so there is new and and I have actually tried to have multiple people
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Yeah.
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from the team on the podcast, and they've literally told me there's nothing
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I can share that will be even remotely interesting because everything I've worked
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on is top secret, but you can have me on after Laracon if you want.
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So I'm like
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Yeah.
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Well well damn So I'm very excited.
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Yeah. Awesome.
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Okay, so I've never been to Boston,
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but I know it's at the Sowa Power Station.
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So it's this like big kind of brick building that's historic
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and beautiful and everything. But I assume you've kn big because you guys
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did your vacation that did you fly back and actually see the SoWa Power Station
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in person once you guys picked it,
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or have you never so you've never been to the venue?
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my god. It's a different world.
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actually that ~ I have not seen.
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I saw last year's in Denver. ~ well,
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Uh-huh.
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did I? I don't even know if I saw that one beforehand,
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but I definitely have not seen this one in Boston.
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~ so I will be you know, surprised myself.
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I actually probably also know the least about sort of just like what
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That's awesome.
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the stage decorations look like and things like that than any previous year.
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So I've kind of left that to Laracon team.
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How do you feel about that? Is that a peace
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is that a peaceful thing for you?
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Yeah, I'm fine with it. It feels good.
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I mean, it'll be fun to be surprised a little bit.
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Plus, ~ the Laracon team, th they've done a Laracon or two before,
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so they know, like, you know, what to do.
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So
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~ so ~ this is not live as of the recording,
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but it will be live as of publishing.
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~ and you already know about this,
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but I built a a thing called Voxacon Anyone who hasn't seen it,
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just go check out Voxacon V-O-X-A-C-O-N.
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Laravel.cloud. ~ and one of the things that it is is a as accurate
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as I possibly could get in a Minecraft style thing representation of the the venue.
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So I have been poring over
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every blueprint, every picture,
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every video I could find of the SOA power station.
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So it's crazy because one of the things that I'm very curious to see is when
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I get there, like what did I miss?
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You know, like what was not accessible.
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There's one thing I know for sure.
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There's no pictures of the kitchen in the entire internet.
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So I have no idea what the kitchen looks like.
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~ but outside of that, I feel like I have a more intimate understanding
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of the layout of the Sowa power station than any other person in the history
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of the world who has not been there in person because I've been obsessing over it.
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That's funny. That's
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Yeah.
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funny.
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Okay. So you mentioned one of the things you're going to be introducing
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is Laravel and AI. And I wanted to hear a little bit about ~ you know,
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like we have been talking a lot publicly about how Laravel is an ideal
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~ environment for somebody who wants to to work in AI.
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And I think that's true for those of us who are already,
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you know, writing Laravel. You've got the AI SDK and stuff like that.
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But I think part of the kind of the case that we're making here is also that it's
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valuable for people who don't currently use Laravel.
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So I live in Atlanta. There's a lot of people in Atlanta Tech Village
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Mm.
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and and you know the surrounding tech world who are doing the startup world
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and they want to find a productive ecosystem for developing applications,
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using AI, ready to ship securely,
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stably, as quickly as possible.
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Can you give the pitch for like what have you been working on with Laravel
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to make it the ideal environment for those types of folks?
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Yeah, I mean, I think, first of all,
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I agree that like Laravel works really well paired with coding agents.
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And I pretty much see that every day,
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you know, in my own work with Laravel.
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I think the foundation for a lot of the work we do around making Laravel great
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for coding agents is with Laravel Boost,
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as far as like new package development goes,
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we've been working on some new boost features,
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which I'll show at Laracon that make ~
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cool.
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you know, building Laravel apps even better.
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~ but you know, Boost basically feeds a bunch of context about Laravel into
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the coding agent, gives it access to the docs,
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things like that. ~ I think we also just benefit a lot from Laravel's opinionated
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structure of as we've said, you know,
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many times before, where the agent sort of knows what to do.
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It knows how to access the database.
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It doesn't have to like, you need to go sign up for Superbase,
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you and and link that into your project.
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Yeah
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Yeah.
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not that super base isn't great,
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but you like the database is just available,
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you know, right there. and just all of the conventions,
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you know, around Laravel I think make it really just a productive stack
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for like hitting the ground running with minimal sort of like setup
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and decisions you have to make.
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Yeah.
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You can kind of just like start almost vibe coding right out of the box,
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you know, with like a complete package.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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~ you know, so I think that's like the main thing that makes it.
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really great. We are working on a couple of other things,
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~ which I'll show at Laracon that I I think will make it even better.
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Some boost related, some not boost related.
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~ but yeah, I mean I I'm actually continually surprised.
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And during my prep for Laracon,
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it's been interesting because like historically one of the most time consuming parts
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of prepping for Laracon was like prepping the demos themselves,
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especially if it had like a graphical component or was like a dashboard where
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I needed I needed to show off some feature.
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And now with like I was using Boost and a fresh Laravel app.
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Yeah.
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And I was like, hey, I want to demo this feature at Laracon.
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Here's kind of like the docs for it.
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I need to build a dashboard that has these buttons and lets me interact with
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it in this way. And it's just like done,
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you know, in five minutes. And it's basically one shot it.
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And it actually used the inertia react like boost skill to like know what to do.
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Yeah, that's cool.
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And that just that would have taken me like all day pretty much,
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you know, to to build that kind of thing.
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And I've
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I would have made mistakes and like had to fix stuff and hunt bugs down
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and like it just so much time saved.
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Yeah.
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Wow. I mean that's you you've often said in the past that one of
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the things that makes you able to build a framework that is easy
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for newcomers is you constantly put yourself back in kind of this newcomer state.
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And I mean, I don't know about you,
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Yeah.
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but for me, every time I you every time I hit Laravel New when it's been
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a few months, I feel like I'm able to enter that newcomer state.
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I'm like, What what what
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Where do I do that? Where is that?
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And the easier that process is,
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and to your point, it's so much easier now than it has been in the past.
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The more I'm just like, okay, like I can I can walk a newcomer in.
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If I if my brain, who has been maintaining legacy apps or doing marketing
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or whatever for the last year all of a sudden has to start from scratch,
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I'm getting some of that newcomer energy.
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And I imagine these kind of like these prep experiences are like that for you.
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Yeah, definitely. And and it's it's crazy how easy it is to get started,
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~
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you know, these days, just in programming in general,
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but especially with Laravel, to where,
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you know, a couple of years ago someone told me they wanted to like learn Laravel
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and start building apps, I would have like,
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my gosh, like this is gonna be like yeah,
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Where do you start?
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this is gonna take years, you know,
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to like get up to speed. but now it's just like chat with a coding agent about it.
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Yeah.
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If you get confused, just ask it a question and keep moving along.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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Well, I mean, you and you and I both know Kayla Helmick and she was featured
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on the the Laravel blog. For anybody who's interested,
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we'll make sure that she's linked in the show notes.
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And she is has no history as a programmer,
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~ but understands programming between being friends with you and and being
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my VA and stuff like that. And ~ you know,
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Mm-hmm.
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she's built multiple functioning Laravel applications from scratch
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Just using an agent. And she knows her bounds.
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I mean, not everybody does. So one of the things she knows,
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she's like, I'm not going to do anything that takes credit cards.
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I'm not, I'm not even doing anything that,
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you know, takes usernames and passwords,
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but still super functional tools for her,
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for her, ~ for her clients. And that's been really transformative to me
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Mm-hmm.
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to watch her experience. Cause this is not theory.
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We're not just throwing out phrases,
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batteries included this or whatever.
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It's like, no, we have a real person we know who doesn't understand
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a line of programming who has built functional applications that clients have paid
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her for. And I'm like, that's different.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, it really is. One thing I also notice,
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That's really special.
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you know, with Laravel at AI is I'm starting to see or or maybe this is
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one reason I would say that Laravel's great for even new people that
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are interested in building software.
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I've been getting more and more sort of like a lot of it is just through real world
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friends, so called real world outside of like Twitter,
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you know what I mean? Like people I know in Arkansas.
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Yes, yes.
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Yeah.
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that are either referring to me people they know because they know
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I do web development and I'm seeing more and more people that are using sort
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of like vibe coding platforms that are getting like call it fifty or sixty percent,
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Mm-hmm.
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maybe even higher, of like on the way to their idea.
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And they eventually hit sort of like a wall or a limitation in
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the platform or something, or they run out of tokens b or whatever,
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and they're like, I'm stuck.
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And I think Laravel is really a great alternative to that because
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Yeah.
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you don't really have the same ceilings,
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you know, like we when when you're using Laravel and Boost,
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you can build even like multi tenant,
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multiple users, ~ using the app.
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You can just get a lot farther,
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a lot cheaper usually, honestly,
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~ by just by linking it to your like existing chat GPT account and using
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a coding agent. And you just don't have a lot of the same barriers
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~ that just people seem to inevitably hit,
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you know.
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on sort of like the prepackaged vibe coding platforms.
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Yeah. Well, and there's something fun about that too,
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though, is we have taken now several clients from a lovable or replit
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or whatever else vision to a production scalable secure Laravel
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application. And we're able to do the final build for them faster than
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we would if they had not used those vibe coding platforms.
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So there's actually a way where I'm like,
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Mm-hmm.
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regardless of whether you started with a lovable or not,
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launching on Laravel still makes sense.
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Right. So you either start from Laravel on s on day one,
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Yeah.
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that's totally fine. But like for example,
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we had a client who's just like,
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he's like, I don't have the budget it would take for you guys to build this whole
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thing in in Laravel, part of which is because I have not fully defined the thing.
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And I know that there's gonna be a ton of back and forth,
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and I'm not gonna be a great client.
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But if I'm going back and forth with lovable for six months,
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then when I get the lovable to the point where it looks good.
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Then I hand you the lovable and you actually make it functional on Laravel base.
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And we did, and he launched and he's got paying subscribers
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and everything went great. And I'm just like,
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and this has happened multiple times.
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Yeah, it's crazy.
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So I'm just like, Lar Laravel should be the end result,
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regardless of whether you started Laravel or started something else,
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because there's no way that he could have done,
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he could have hosted on Lovable or Replet or whatever else the level
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of complexity that he needed. But we could build it in Laravel faster because
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Yeah.
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Lovable built the whole front end for him.
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So it's it's really fun to be able to say,
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Yeah.
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regardless of where you start,
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this is where you should land.
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Yeah. Yep. And it's it's crazy how like using AI,
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a big mindset from shift for me has been that like code is sort of like cheap
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in a way. Where like even if you build something on Loveable or
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Mm-hmm. Yeah.
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you start somewhere else and you're like,
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I kinda wish I would have done this in Laravel,
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you know, previously that would have been like,
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ugh, like this is gonna be a pain,
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Rewrite Hell. Yeah, yeah.
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you know. Like Yeah. But with with with AI,
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that kind of stuff, like the code is not so
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intimidating or like, you know,
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those kinds of migrations are maybe a little bit more palatable because like
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it is so much faster to do with AI.
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And like, you know, I've had to like train my mind to think that
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way where it's like, ~ I want to try some kind of quirky big idea.
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Previously that was a lot of commitment,
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you know, like, do I really want to devote eight hours to exploring this?
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Yeah. You gotta really know that it's worth the time here.
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Yeah.
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But now if I can kick something off in five minutes and just get a sense
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of like if it's a good idea or not,
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that's so much time saved.
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Yeah. ~ have you found yourself in positions where you generate ~ stuff that you're
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like feeling exhausted from having to maintain it,
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or are you like, no, I just feel comfortable throwing it away,
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it's no big deal.
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In regards to like Laravel framework,
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or what do you mean?
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Well, just any so one of I've found the same thing as you where it's
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I'm able to generate more experiments than I have in the past.
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But sometimes I'm like, ugh, I spent all this time,
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Mm.
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all this time, because really like I spent this time prompting this thing.
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I told people about it, I launched it,
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Yeah.
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and I'm like, you know what? This would not have stood the test of is this worth
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my time in the past? And it wasn't worth my time.
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And I've just had to give myself permission to say,
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That's fine. It was an experiment.
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I launched it and now I'm deleting it.
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You know, like and I just tell people internally,
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Yeah.
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I'm like, Hey, you that internal tool I built?
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I'm gonna get rid of it 'cause it wasn't worth it.
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You know, have you ever had things where you're like,
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Yeah.
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I've gone further down a road than I would have before 'cause it is so cheap
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to do so.
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yeah, totally. And I think it's part of the training my brain is that it's okay
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to delete it. You know, like i I would have held on to it a lot harder.
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Yeah.
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And I think my I want to sometimes because of,
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you know, it used to be that it required so much time investment in code,
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Yes.
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but now like with the code kind of being disposable in a sense,
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like I'm more comfortable or I'm trying to become more comfortable saying,
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this didn't work out. We can just trash it entirely,
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you know. ~
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Yes. Which is a weird
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thing to learn because it would have been so wasteful in the past,
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right? And now you're like, look,
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Yeah.
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I it was a it was a thought experiment.
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I and it was possi valuable for me in this way.
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I learned these things. And that doesn't mean it has to be in production.
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That's okay. Yeah. ~ okay,
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Yeah, totally.
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so I before we step off of AI,
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there is one thing. We use the phrase batteries included all the time,
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and and people a lot of team
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Mm.
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people marketing Laravel out to the outside world talks about Laravel's value
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as a batteries included framework,
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even before AI. Can you talk a little bit to somebody who's been hearing that phrase
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and isn't actually familiar with what are you talking about?
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What does that actually mean and how does that set Laravel apart from other
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frameworks?
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Yeah, it's a good question. ~ when it comes to sort of like popular
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web frameworks in today's age,
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there's kind of ~ I I mean the most popular framework,
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you know, in the JavaScript sp space,
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which is Next.js, doesn't have a lot of opinions on how you do various things,
17:20
which is can be good or bad. So like it doesn't necessarily have strong opinions
17:25
on how or where or with who you run a database.
17:29
~ it doesn't necessarily have super strong opinions out of the box on
17:33
how you do authentication and things like that,
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or how you do OAuth or social authors or things like that.
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So what it means is that like if you were to start building
17:43
an application like that, or using other popular like frameworks in that space,
17:48
there's a lot of sort of like pre decisions you need to make that maybe you're
17:52
not even really equipped to make ~ around like where what kind of database
17:54
Yeah.
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Where's your auth gonna be? How's it gonna work?
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How are you gonna do like scheduled tasks?
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How are you gonna send emails?
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~ you know, all of that stuff you're gonna have to make decisions on,
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or the agents is gonna maybe make decisions for you,
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which is probably likely the case.
18:13
and it can lead to a little bit of just like vendor sprawl where
18:20
you're signing up for a lot of different services,
18:22
you know, for across database,
18:24
auth, email,
18:28
maybe even Q jobs, you know, it's just spreading out quite a bit.
18:32
~ it's also gonna be like there there's not necessarily a structure or
18:38
an opinion on how the code is actually architected to do those things in many cases.
18:42
So it can lead to a little bit more of like,
18:43
Yeah.
18:45
you know, we know AI is great,
18:47
but it doesn't always really like architect the most like firm foundations
18:50
Yes.
18:51
for a long lived project that's you're gonna want to maintain for years
18:53
Yeah. Yeah.
18:55
and you need to be stable.
18:57
it it can build a demo really quickly,
18:59
but as far as like longevity and maintaining it over long time horizons still
19:03
requires like good architecture,
19:05
some a lot of times human input and kind of human review to make sure it's
19:09
not going off the rails. ~ so with Laravel,
19:13
a lot of those opinions are baked in.
19:15
A lot of the even the structure is baked in of where certain files should
19:18
go and kind of what should be in them and how they should all work together.
19:21
And those opinions have sort of been formulated.
19:24
over many years of building web applications ourselves,
19:27
but also just kind of learning from what came before Laravel,
19:30
Yeah.
19:31
whether that was Ruby on Rails or other popular frameworks at the time,
19:34
and sort of incorporating the best practices that generations of
19:38
web developers have sort of distilled.
19:39
~ so that leads to sort of just like out of the box,
19:44
kind of more maintainable code that's gonna just like survive longer
19:48
and hold up better.
19:49
That's not to say you're never gonna need like human eyes on
19:52
AI generated Laravel code, 'cause you probably will.
19:54
~ but I think it's just gonna get you further faster and without necessarily needing
20:00
to result to signing up for a bunch of different vendors,
20:03
you know.
20:04
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, with our clients these days,
20:06
you know, the biggest complaint often was,
20:08
I have to sign up for Forge and DigitalOcean.
20:10
So like, well, those are pretty easy infrastructure changes.
20:10
Mm.
20:13
So you know, just sign up for Forge VPS or just sign up for ~ you know,
20:17
cloud or whatever. ~ but it is definitely not a point where you don't have
20:18
Yeah.
20:20
a managed queue provider and a separate database provider and
20:22
all these other things. ~ but I also remember onboarding some JavaScript developers
20:27
into Laravel I don't think it was ten years ago,
20:30
but quite quite a while ago, and they were
20:32
They were a little bit overwhelmed because they said there's so many files
20:35
and directories. And in some ways,
20:36
you know, you've worked on that to say there's less off the bat.
20:37
Mm-hmm.
20:38
But part of what I had to tell them was part of the reason there's more here
20:42
is because it does more things,
20:43
right? Like what you're seeing is stuff that's actually functional out of the box.
20:43
Yeah.
20:46
And yeah, there might be more things here,
20:47
but it's because you don't have to build those things.
20:49
And bike shedding is a real problem,
20:51
man. Just like, we're we have to start something.
20:53
Now let's spend the next six months deciding.
20:56
And and on every app you've ever built,
20:57
it's different.
20:58
So good luck remembering how to fix it and having you know,
21:01
and now have good luck having the AI know how it works because first thing
21:01
Yeah.
21:04
it has to do is research which of seventeen different situations you
21:07
set up with versus with Laravel It's like,
21:08
I know, I I know you're using eloquent,
21:10
so it's gonna be eloquent, so that's it.
21:11
Yeah.
21:12
Yeah.
21:13
Yeah, for many developers the bike shedding part's the part they enjoy the most.
21:17
Yeah, so let's talk about that
21:19
because I I've you you just mentioned something about code being kind
21:23
of ~ throwaway, but you're also the the eloquent artisan guy,
21:28
right? Like you, you know, an origin story of Laravel is,
21:28
I know. Well
21:31
you know, what does it make sense if I pay extra attention to my,
21:35
you know, my lines and everything like that.
21:37
So how do you how do you feel about saying that?
21:40
That like is it some are you disappointed in any way?
21:42
Cause I know we've had a lot of conversations online about like some people
21:44
it was always about writing the code and some people it's about building
21:46
the product, but you've always been both.
21:48
So what does this new world feel like for you?
21:51
I think it is it's a great question.
21:54
I think it is a very like interesting time where like,
21:56
you know, historically Laravel and myself have taken a lot of pride
22:01
in sort of crafting these sort of really elegant APIs and interfaces
22:07
for doing different things, whether that's just being able to say like
22:07
Yeah.
22:11
Q colon colon later, you know,
22:13
to to delay a job or something like very concise,
22:16
very memorable syntax that sort of is a pleasure to read.
22:21
I still do that for what it's worth on all of the open source stuff.
22:25
So we just worked on a really big feature for the AI SDK,
22:30
which I'll show at Laracon. And ~ you know,
22:33
a lot of the code is like AI assisted and generated,
22:37
but I still reviewed every file.
22:39
I still sort of like sweat the details on how the user is gonna interact with this
22:46
API, even if
22:48
No user ever does. Maybe only AI generates this code,
22:50
Yeah.
22:51
but like I still spend the time thinking about like,
22:54
okay, let's assume that users are going to be interacting with this.
22:57
Like, what is the most like intuitive,
22:59
joyful to write API? Maybe that's like a lost cause,
23:03
but I still kind of derive like personal satisfaction from that.
23:08
I think a lot of developers actually probably still do.
23:11
Like, even though the AI is assisting you,
23:13
you still find joy in sort of finding just the right
23:17
abstraction or just the right name for something,
23:19
Yes.
23:20
that is still like a really fun for me.
23:22
And again, I still just derive personal satisfaction from knowing that sort
23:26
of like you're building like a dresser,
23:28
right? And the backside of it is still like finished perfectly,
23:32
even if no one ever sees it because you know and you know that the tool
23:36
is like good and well built. And for me,
23:39
like I still don't want to use tools that or I I wouldn't really
23:43
be comfortable using Laravel if I didn't know
23:46
that the whole thing was thought through,
23:48
you know, all the way through.
23:49
Yeah. Yeah.
23:49
~ so I I still do that and maybe that will become sort of an outdated mindset over
23:56
time. It's possible, right? As AI keeps getting better.
23:59
But for now I still find it personally satisfying.
24:03
And I I it's one that I hope that you continue to take the luxury to do,
24:06
~ because A, I think it's just good and beautiful to do that.
24:10
But B, ~ I'm still one of those sticklers who says,
24:13
even if I'm using AI, I'm gonna read every single line of code
24:15
and understand every single line of code.
24:17
And I've found a draft drastic difference.
24:17
Yeah.
24:20
As as I have been using AI to delve into worlds outside of Laravel that
24:25
I wouldn't have done as much in the past,
24:26
I find a drastic difference in the ease with which I can
24:30
Comprehend and review Laravel code and code outside the Laravel ecosystem.
24:34
So, like, even if the AI is writing it,
24:35
Mm-hmm.
24:36
if I'm reading it, especially if I want to have to skim it,
24:39
because whatever, like I can, it's so expressive that it's just very clear what
24:43
the Laravel code should be doing.
24:44
And that's not the case everywhere else.
24:46
So e if there's a human in the loop,
24:47
Yeah.
24:49
even if the human didn't write the code,
24:52
I still think this human-friendly
24:55
Coding is going to like if if I were to look at two two sets of code that were spit
24:59
out by, you know, an AI, ~ I'm much more likely to comprehend
25:03
and therefore continuing to choose to read,
25:05
interview, and comprehend and take ownership over the Laravel code than something
25:08
Mm-hmm.
25:09
else where I'm like, I don't understand this crap,
25:11
whatever. And once you hit that whatever point,
25:13
you've lost your ability to, you're never gonna go back and learn it more once that
25:17
hit you first hit your whatever,
25:18
right? Like it's gone. Yes, exactly.
25:21
So I think it's beautiful just for that.
25:23
that has has gone into the Laravel framework,
25:26
you know, in the last what is it,
25:28
maybe seven or eight months since sort of agentic coding really exploded.
25:31
I've still reviewed every line that has gone into the framework by hand,
25:35
Love it. Yeah.
25:36
essentially.
25:38
Yeah, I love it.
25:38
So I want to thank some of our sponsors.
25:42
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Taylor and I, of course, will both be speaking at Laracon We'll both
26:10
be there in person. And we are talking ~ both in our talks about Laravel Cloud.
26:14
So definitely check it out. And also Laracon Australia,
26:17
where I also will be. I don't know about Taylor.
26:19
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26:31
so you know one of the questions I wanted to ask
26:33
was kind of what's the future of programming?
26:35
So let's let's go there because I think it's a pretty natural transition.
26:36
Mm.
26:38
As you think about the future of programming,
26:42
you have built tools for programmers your the majority of your adult life.
26:45
You've built, you know, open source tools,
26:47
you've built paid tools, you run a company,
26:49
~ building, you know, dev tooling and also providing ~ open source tooling
26:54
for developers. ~
26:56
What do you think the future is of programming?
26:59
And I mean that in two ways, and you can add more ways,
27:01
but the two I mean for sure are the the future of the the role that
27:06
we as programmers have, ~ and also the future of the way that other people outside
27:11
of us are doing programming, you know.
27:12
So, you know, for us is are we gonna be writing code?
27:15
Are we all becoming product owners?
27:17
Are you know we're becoming solutions architects instead of hand handled coders?
27:17
Mm.
27:20
Are other people outside of us now gonna be doing a lot more code?
27:23
Like as you look to, you know,
27:25
a couple of years from now.
27:26
What is your sense of where it's heading,
27:27
or do you know any more than anybody else?
27:31
I sort of suspect that we're living in it now,
27:34
~ to a large extent. And what I mean is that like
27:41
I think that the main shift has actually already happened.
27:43
~ in the sense that many of us are actually not writing the majority of
27:49
the code by hand, maybe none of the code by hand.
27:50
~
27:51
~ I think that was like the big thing.
27:55
I think like what remains maybe like to come or is less clear is how much
28:01
of the review will we be doing versus like trusting the AI.
28:05
And I think people are already at sort of like various levels with this,
28:09
you know.
28:10
in different places. So like I actually just went to Anthropic's office
28:13
for a founder day, ~ that they did and got to hear from a few of the people working,
28:16
cool.
28:20
~ particularly on Claude Code,
28:22
~ but someone kind of on the research side of Anthropics model stuff as well.
28:26
And I think they are very like high trust of the model.
28:31
They're obvious obviously using like the model
28:34
before we get it and at a faster speed than we get it and maybe with higher effort,
28:38
you know, and less token limits.
28:40
But they seem to have like very high trust in the model.
28:43
And I think their their view that I gathered out there was that,
28:47
you know, the future is not really reviewing the code.
28:51
It's more of a agent manager.
28:55
You're sort of like guiding the agent or steering it in terms
29:00
of the overall solution, but you're not reviewing every line of syntax.
29:04
they were also very like goal or loop focused of you know,
29:08
kicking off long running goals with the agent that are maybe running for hours
29:12
at a time to do big projects. But yeah,
29:17
I mean I mean to come back to the question,
29:18
I think the the main shift has happened in the sense that we're not code writers.
29:22
~ I think that is like already done.
29:25
It's just a matter of like how much trust are we gonna place in the agent
29:30
as far as the review and overall architecture.
29:33
And I think it's hard to say. I mean,
29:34
if we if we keep going projecting out years,
29:37
you could imagine with model improvements.
29:40
I mean, it's you could imagine a world where the code is trustworthy.
29:43
You know, like it's not science fiction,
29:44
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
29:46
I don't think, to to think about it a few years out to think that,
29:49
well, maybe it does become sort of like a waste of time to review all of the code.
29:54
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
29:55
~ But you know, I don't I don't think we're there yet,
29:59
but again, you could imagine a world.
30:01
And at that point,
30:03
I don't think it actually looks all that fundamentally different from what
30:07
we do now. You know, I I think we're still gonna have to have a basic grasp
30:11
of like the technologies available,
30:13
how they work, what the upsides and downsides are maybe to different databases
30:19
or to different strategies for building things or different overall architectures,
30:22
especially at scale. ~ but yeah,
30:27
I you know, I think ~ I don't know.
30:30
That that's the best I can like kind of state it,
30:32
I guess, from where we are now.
30:34
Yeah. Well, I don't I don't know if I've heard anybody say that before.
30:36
That that that we're there already.
30:37
Mm.
30:38
~ everybody's got visions, whether positive or negative,
30:42
but ~ I I'm actually really heartened if that's the case,
30:46
because so everybody at Tighten still reads every single line of code,
30:49
and a large portion of the code written at Tighten is handwritten.
30:53
~ I have told everybody you need to be an expert in AI.
30:56
Like that's the baseline expectation.
30:56
Mm-hmm.
30:57
So they're all experts in AI.
30:59
but they use it to differing degrees.
31:01
They use, you know, different models,
31:02
although claude code is the most common.
31:04
~ but I have noticed that in the agency world at least,
31:09
~ the people who are doing the best are people like us,
31:13
where we are here for our expertise.
31:15
Like we're here because we understand the architectures,
31:17
the systems, the decisions to make.
31:18
We're here because we've seen thousands of code bases and because
31:21
we know what's going to scale and what's going to be secure.
31:22
And those things are implemented through us actually typing characters into an IDE.
31:29
But the characters in the IDE is not really what Tighten brings uniquely compared
31:34
to somebody else. That's just an implementation detail of our expertise.
31:37
So the implementation shifting doesn't change the fact that you hire Tighten
31:38
Mm-hmm.
31:41
for expertise, right? Whereas with people where your job is to have
31:43
Mm-hmm.
31:46
an expert tell you, now go type characters into an IDE,
31:49
those are the folks that are having the hardest time.
31:52
And my hope is we're able to keep a pipeline where people can be in that stage.
31:57
And still be able to move up. Otherwise,
31:59
we're never gonna have any a junior pipeline anymore,
32:01
right? So there's definitely things to consider about there.
32:02
Mm-hmm.
32:03
But my hope is that we can find spaces for people as they are going through
32:07
a junior pipeline to be learning maybe earlier how to be expert thinkers,
32:12
rather than spending their first five years just learning which characters
32:15
go into what's state in the IDE.
32:17
So
32:17
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.
32:19
I think a lot of people if I mean I think a lot of people are also like
32:21
Okay, yeah.
32:25
my AI coding setup is I think much more vanilla than a lot of people
32:29
Yeah.
32:30
are thinking the future of AI coding might look like.
32:32
I think I think I think Dax I think Dax and Open Code had a great tweet about this
32:33
So tell us, what is your setup?
32:37
a few days ago. I mean my my ~ setup is just like either Claud Code or open code
32:38
Uh-huh.
32:43
and I type into it and code comes out at the other end.
32:46
Yeah. Yeah.
32:47
And there's
32:47
no like advanced orchestration layer beyond that.
32:50
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
32:51
Rather the in just whatever is built into the vanilla setup is sort of what I use.
32:56
I think a lot of time is being spent sort of like trying to I think this
33:01
is very like developer brained,
33:03
by the way. Like trying to like come up with these more like fancy
33:03
Yeah.
33:07
and efficient ways to like have tons of things going at once and like it's
33:12
Yeah.
33:12
a big software factory black box.
33:14
And in a lot of ways I feel like anthropic actually does operate this way,
33:17
which is maybe like a counterpoint to how I see it.
33:18
Yeah.
33:20
But I just see I just like think a lot of that is sort
33:24
of another flavor of I'm gonna build my own framework.
33:29
~ it's that classic like developer brain of like,
33:30
Yeah.
33:33
I'm the special snowflake that wants this special setup and I need
33:36
Yeah, yeah.
33:37
all of this abstraction around it to make it work well.
33:41
Yeah.
33:41
Instead of just like using the tool like to do something useful,
33:44
Yeah. Yes. Well
33:45
you know? Like and I I think that that is what I mean by I think
33:50
the fundamental shift in software is like with AI sort of already we're living
33:54
in the future of it. I've just that was the fundamental shift is having like this
34:00
terminal or text box that I can type into a plain English thought and code comes
34:05
Mm-hmm.
34:06
out the other end and multiple files are changed and things are done for
34:09
me on my computer.
34:11
That that was like the futuristic shift and ~ you know,
34:13
Yeah.
34:15
I think we're already there in that sense.
34:17
Yeah. And I I love that. My other podcast,
34:19
Pragmatic AI, I allow myself to get a lot more into like what's happening this week.
34:23
And we just had John O'Nolan on and John was talking.
34:26
And John has always been one of my friends who is A,
34:30
building real things and B at the forefront of AI.
34:33
I feel like there's very few people who are both of those.
34:35
You're either at the forefront of AI and you spend all your spare time building
34:36
Yeah.
34:38
yet another orchestrator, you know,
34:40
or you're building real things and you're like,
34:41
Yeah, AI is helpful in some ways.
34:43
But you're not like
34:43
Just.
34:45
Again, trying to bleeding edge spend all your time and energy on orchestrators.
34:48
~ so but it was he and he mentioned goals,
34:51
you know, he mentioned goals as a thing that he's using,
34:53
and I hadn't even been switching to goals.
34:54
So I I'm I appreciate the fact that I don't have to be in the latest,
34:58
greatest to feel really productive.
35:01
in part because the people who are and that's one of the reasons why
35:06
I'm just like I'm perfectly fine if I'm not doing the same thing as anthropic,
35:09
because the people who are at the absolute forefront,
35:12
they will spend
35:13
Sure.
35:13
spin through things in two weeks and then I would be like,
35:18
Yep, you you you were hype about it.
35:19
You talked about it nonstop for two weeks and then it never ever came up again.
35:22
Let me see something that surfaces and actually sticks around for three months
35:26
and then maybe we'll talk about it.
35:26
Yeah.
35:28
it remind it's a little bit reminiscent also of like the you know,
35:32
like when Facebook was popping off in that era of ~ startups
35:36
and there were microservices and things like that where like the individual devs
35:41
or maybe the two or three person teams were like splitting their app with
35:44
a hundred users into five microservices.
35:47
And it's just like th they're Exactly,
35:47
Cause AWS and Facebook do it.
35:50
because these sort of like hyper scaled startups were doing it.
35:53
There is maybe a little bit of a similar thing in AI where
35:53
Yeah.
35:57
You know, you would be better served by just popping open the agent
36:01
and typing something into it and not spending so much time sort
36:02
Yeah. Yeah.
36:04
of like orchestrating around it.
36:06
Yeah. Or maybe open up a second tab with second agent or use solo.
36:09
Yeah. Yeah. Use solo. Shout out solo.
36:10
So you get you know, like it's just sort of like Yeah,
36:12
love solo. The the most complicated thing I do is if I want
36:17
to have distinct sub agents, I've found using solo to do it is a little
36:22
bit easier than having the agent manage it itself.
36:24
And that's it. Outside of that,
36:24
Yeah.
36:25
I'm just sort of like, Yeah, I've got an agent doing this,
36:27
an agent doing that, I'm doing this.
36:29
That's enough.
36:31
Yeah, totally.
36:32
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37:01
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37:11
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37:19
and get some delightful free ice cream.
37:23
so one thing that has been really fun over the last maybe two weeks
37:27
is your Twitter account. and Spicy Taylor ~ has lots
37:32
of opinions and it's been really cool because I feel like ~ when everything happened
37:39
with the investment and Accel and stuff like that,
37:41
you you just had so much to manage,
37:44
right? You went from having a team at like 10 to a team of nearly a hundred,
37:47
and obviously you don't manage every single person,
37:49
but as somebody who is really active on the internet.
37:52
And then I took over as the CEO at Tighten.
37:54
And then it was really hard to be active the internet because I'm suddenly doing
37:57
all what I was doing before and now fully running a company.
37:59
It's I've only been I've been pretty slow coming back.
38:02
And so I've been watching you come back and I'm just like,
38:04
like we've got Taylor again. If somebody's not on Twitter,
38:07
d I could describe it, but I'm curious for you.
38:10
Like, did you just feel like was there just a moment where you felt free?
38:13
Did something change? Like what what is leading us to the point where you're
38:17
all out you're thought leading,
38:18
you're sharing funny stuff, and I just feel like we have old Taylor back.
38:22
Yeah. I don't I don't know. I I think like I'm still trying to distill it myself.
38:26
I think like the last couple of years have been a lot of like learning
38:27
Yeah.
38:31
and growth and lessons and kind of like reflections.
38:34
I do think, you know, maybe I'm coming to a place where like some things
38:40
are starting to click for me, ~ or I'm getting comfortable with some things.
38:43
You know, but I mean just to go back,
38:45
yeah, like Laravel has grown a lot.
38:47
~ when we first raised a series A
38:51
In 2024, like you said, we were like eight or nine people,
38:54
~ mostly devs. We brought on Tom and Andre as kind
39:01
of our first like couple of hires.
39:03
and we started growing the company.
39:06
And, you know, those foundational people had a lot of great experience that
39:12
I didn't have ~ and to some extent still don't have.
39:16
I
39:21
You know, I am not I actually I don't know that I really manage anyone at Laravel,
39:26
even today. I don't think I'm actually a good like manager in the traditional sense.
39:31
I collaborate a lot with people.
39:34
~ almost a little bit as like a peer,
39:37
even though I I'm I am like their boss,
39:40
you know, to a certain extent,
39:41
and we're not totally peers at the same level in that way,
39:44
but I prefer to work in this like very collaborative way.
39:47
~
39:49
So like I work a lot with like Joe Dixon in in product,
39:53
~ where we're just kind of thinking about like what are the projects we want
39:57
to work on next? Where where are we kind of heading like long term?
40:00
~ and even that I'm not I don't I prefer not to think like in terms
40:04
of multiple years. I think that's really silly in tech.
40:06
~ if we would have tried to do that a couple of years ago,
40:09
it would have all been useless.
40:10
~ but I try to at least think of c a few quarters,
40:13
you know, of like where where do we wanna go and kind of what are the like vague
40:19
goals we want to hit, you know,
40:20
in the next year or two. ~ I spent so I spent a lot of time working on that
40:25
in open source and then just sort of like collaborating across the business.
40:28
You know, it could be like in a marketing thing for Laracon.
40:31
It could be on a website thing.
40:32
It could be even on an email we're sending and like what the copy should be.
40:36
~ it could be looking at something for one of our private cloud customers.
40:42
~ something's not working quite right or in the framework itself maybe.
40:46
~ but you know like
40:49
Regarding sort of like the the the reversion to sort of like old Taylor on Twitter,
40:55
I think that like for me maybe one of the biggest regrets
41:01
I have over the last couple years,
41:03
and not to say it was like a huge mistake or it was a big regret,
41:05
was like not leaning into myself enough or like not like really like
41:10
Yeah.
41:12
I don't know it's hard to say it without sounding like proud or sort of like
41:17
conceded, but not sort of like just owning that I have actually been successful
41:18
Yeah.
41:22
at the at like a software business.
41:22
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
41:24
~ in ways that other people of the company maybe haven't.
41:27
~ I've actually, you know,
41:31
opened up an editor totally blank and convinced hundreds of thousands
41:35
of people to use this tool. And the business say millions of dollars,
41:39
right? ~ which is just like rare.
41:41
~ so I do think that ~
41:42
Yes.
41:45
I have a very like particular opinionated way of doing things,
41:48
right? The spicy takes. Like you can do a lot of things in one day.
41:51
Or like, why would you ever start with like a longer time frame?
41:51
Yeah.
41:54
Or you could run the whole company out of 10 notion docs and 10 Slack channels.
41:57
Yes. Yeah.
41:58
I think that ~ I am very that is very true to me as a person.
42:04
Like I am very radical that way.
42:05
So there is like so much I feel what I'm saying is like actually true.
42:10
~
42:12
And just sort of like leaning into it a little bit more of like,
42:15
what of I I think what I'm trying to say is when we grew the company,
42:15
Yeah.
42:19
we brought out a lot of really talented people in a lot of very various areas.
42:24
And I kind of like in some ways I feel like retreated mentally
42:30
of like these people know these people are professionals.
42:34
I am was more of like a hobbyist that got lucky in many ways.
42:34
Yeah. I should defer. Yeah.
42:39
You know what I mean?
42:40
Yeah, absolutely.
42:40
And I'm trying to get
42:41
a get away from that a little bit to where like these people it is true,
42:45
these people are professionals,
42:46
but I actually have done a lot of crazy shit too.
42:50
Very successfully. And should lean into those opinions a little bit more because
42:50
Yeah. Truly. Yeah.
42:54
I think like what I bring to the table is like a nice counterbalance
42:59
to what other people bring to the table,
43:02
a little bit more like crazy, a little bit more like swashbuckling,
43:06
you know, like just ship something now.
43:08
Like what if we just shipped it now?
43:09
Yeah.
43:09
Like what if we just hit the button right now?
43:11
Like what would really happen?
43:13
Is it really that scary? You know,
43:14
like, ~ so trying to push on that a little bit,
43:15
Yeah.
43:17
you know, push the pace a little bit,
43:18
push the energy a little bit. ~ you know,
43:22
which I think is like what I can bring to the table.
43:25
~ and I think other people at the company bring amazing things to the table,
43:29
but I think we all need to bring our unique selves to the table.
43:33
And I think I was trying to be a little bit more like,
43:36
blending in, you know, with what everyone else brought to the table.
43:39
And that's really probably not what the company needs from me,
43:41
actually. You know, we already have that.
43:43
And we need me to be me. So it was me trying to like,
43:46
a lot of it's me preaching to myself,
43:48
you know, of like, I need to be like pushing the pace.
43:50
This is true. Yeah.
43:52
You know, it is so easy like when you're building a software company,
43:55
like, ~ especially remotely,
43:59
I think. It's hard to feel the like intensity and the energy when you're all remote.
44:06
And so like I do want to be someone at the company that sort of is like always sort
44:11
of like, you know, like, okay,
44:13
what are we working on this week?
44:14
Like what are ex trying to like bring excitement and energy to the to the space?
44:18
'Cause I mean startups is a competitive world,
44:20
you know, like there's companies out there that are locked in,
44:22
like right now, you know. And I used to think about this back when
44:26
I started Laravel. I would absolutely not be outworked
44:32
by anyone for sure. I knew that.
44:34
~ you know, back when I first started Laravel in twenty eleven,
44:36
twenty twelve, I was like, okay,
44:38
well, they may be like smarter than me or like more like advanced than me,
44:42
but like I'm working gonna work harder than them.
44:45
And like in a on a long time scale,
44:48
it's just gonna compound and I'm gonna beat them,
44:51
you know, just out of sheer like grit and determination.
44:54
~ and that but that's that can be challenging as the company gets larger,
44:59
it's remote, like
45:01
It's hard to maintain. So I try to,
45:03
you know, bring that to bear a little bit.
45:05
Yeah. Well, it's been really fun.
45:06
And I I I I love what you've described here.
45:09
It absolutely makes sense of ~ you are a self aware,
45:13
~ you know, you can read the room,
45:16
you understand people, and so as you bring in a whole bunch of people
45:18
who especially like a lot of people coming from the existing startup world,
45:22
and a lot of people come from the existing,
45:23
you know, enterprise corporate world,
45:25
people who do things differently than you.
45:27
And there is a type of founder who would come in and say,
45:27
Mm.
45:30
You all are going to
45:31
Co work my way. You are going to it's shape to be like me.
45:34
You're at my company now. and then there's a founder like you who says,
45:38
I want to learn from you and I understand and respect what you're bringing
45:41
and all those things. ~ but in doing so,
45:44
you can lose yourself a little bit.
45:45
And that's ~ that's something I'm very familiar with having done in
45:48
my personal life and in my professional life.
45:50
and you hit a point where you're like,
45:53
wait a minute, you know, like I've learned,
45:55
I've listened, and I've also squashed myself and I want to.
45:58
Mm, yeah.
45:59
To to say that I not to say to disrespect other people's opinions or
46:02
to say they were wrong, but you say like there's also needs to be space for
46:05
me and I have been so good at deferring and listening and considering others that
46:10
I forgot to be myself to. And so I'm I'm like,
46:12
~ I love you doing this. This is so good for my friend and it's so good
46:12
Yeah.
46:14
Yeah. I
46:16
for our community.
46:17
I feel that too. And I think it it really I think what you said really hits home
46:21
for me too. And it it goes outside of Laravel.
46:23
Like just I am a pr I as a person am very like very like compromising
46:29
and willing to let go with the flow and not really that hard to get along with,
46:33
you know, not really polarizing,
46:34
like in person, I mean like, you know,
46:36
just in my interactions with friends and family and stuff.
46:38
~ but yeah, you can kind of like squash yourself so much that like
46:43
Yeah.
46:44
It's actually a disservice to the to the company and to the people you want
46:46
Yes.
46:48
to be working with. It feels like,
46:50
I'm kind of like I'll I'll be this person that just sort of gives everyone space
46:54
to do their thing and not really bring any particular flavor to bear.
46:58
Yeah. Yeah.
46:58
And I think that's, you know, that's not good either.
47:00
And ~ you know, so that's what I'm trying to correct for a little bit is like
47:05
be a little bit like crazier, be a little bit more opinionated,
47:08
be like a little bit more genuinely me.
47:11
~
47:11
Yes.
47:12
Because I think that's just another that's another,
47:17
you know, ~ ingredient in the recipe of Laravel that is needed.
47:22
And without that, ~ it I think it is like missing something.
47:25
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I'm I'm very happy for it.
47:28
~ I know we're just about at time,
47:31
so I did want to kind of end with just a little bit more talking about you.
47:34
I get to know you as a friend,
47:37
and so I get to kind of like see what you're doing in your life,
47:39
but I know everybody doesn't. What is something you've done outside
47:41
of work recently that was really you know,
47:44
did you guys travel somewhere or have you taken up hobbies,
47:46
or have you gone is there something you or you and the family or you
47:49
and Abby have done recently that's just like,
47:50
man, this was so great. I want everybody should do this or I want to cheer about
47:53
it or anything.
47:55
man, you know, it's been a busy summer.
47:56
~ well, we did all go to Tokyo.
47:59
~ this is not exactly work related,
48:02
but I was there for Laravel Live Japan,
48:03
but we all went, we had to turn it into like a family vacation.
48:06
It was very different actually than all of the ~ most of the other vacations we've
48:06
Uh-huh.
48:11
done. Tokyo's massive, by the way.
48:12
Okay. Yeah.
48:13
It made like New York City feel small.
48:15
~ but it was f it was fun for the the kids to like go to Asia in general.
48:16
Really?
48:21
Mm-hmm.
48:22
You know, I had been to India and and other places,
48:24
but they had never been and just all hang out in such a huge city that
48:29
is is quite different, you know,
48:30
than America. ~ and it that was a lot of fun.
48:34
~ my son James, he's been fishing a ton,
48:37
so we've been chatting like fishing strategies,
48:40
baits. He went to a fishing store in Tokyo because they like make a special kind
48:40
Yeah.
48:45
I don't
48:46
of like bass baits, which I didn't know that fishing was ~
48:49
Especially like bass fishing and stuff like that was a big thing in Japan,
48:52
but apparently it is. ~ so we packed up the suitcase with a bunch
48:52
Neither. Yeah.
48:56
of baits and brought them back to America.
48:58
That's awesome.
49:00
And do you fish? I feel like he's got like an uncle he fishes right with,
49:03
right? Did I make that up? Uh-huh.
49:04
Yeah, I I can fish, but ~ he fishes a lot honestly with his friends and then yeah,
49:06
it's with the friends. Okay, got it.
49:09
my my uncle
49:10
has a boat and takes him out. But ~ yeah,
49:11
Okay.
49:12
fishing has been a big thing for our family for the last year or so.
49:15
~ yeah. But it yeah, it's been fun.
49:16
Yeah. Okay, and and
49:18
the kids, I I don't know I know we try not to say exact ages,
49:21
but I feel like the kids are, you know,
49:23
late middle school, early high school ish ages.
49:25
Yeah.
49:25
So you guys are staring down the barrel of empty nesting.
49:28
Have you thought about that at all?
49:28
Yeah.
49:30
Is there any big changes coming in the future?
49:31
Man, we have
49:31
Or like, we'll get to it when we get to it.
49:33
I I can't say we've like cracked it on what it's gonna look like,
49:36
Yeah. Yeah.
49:36
but definitely we've talked about it because you know it's like coming
49:39
up relatively soon, say in the next like seven or eight years.
49:43
we're kind of we're kind of there.
49:45
I don't know what it will look like for us,
49:47
you know. Like, I grew up here in Arkansas,
49:51
but my wife did not. ~ you know,
49:55
I my
49:56
My whole like personal situation looks so much different than I thought
49:59
it would in general. And I think this is I mean,
50:01
this goes back to trying to predict things years in advance,
50:04
right? It's just so like impossible.
50:05
~ you know, my my parents have both passed away.
50:09
Didn't expect that. ~ that makes,
50:13
you know, what is what where do we wanna be,
50:15
you know, in the future? It's a lot more like open ended now,
50:16
Yeah. Yeah.
50:18
like I, you know. ~ so we'll see.
50:20
~
50:20
Yeah. Okay.
50:22
~ I think I'll still be tinkering around on tech stuff.
50:25
I'll probably still be tinkering around on Laravel even at that point,
50:28
Yeah. Yeah.
50:28
hopefully if the company's doing well.
50:30
~ so you know, we'll see. But it I I think it'll be fun,
50:33
~ because there's just so much it's so open ended.
50:35
You know, there's we'll see where the kids end up and then we'll we'll figure
50:39
it out.
50:40
Love it. ~ is there anything you want to share or anything we didn't get
50:44
a chance to talk about today you'd want us to cover?
50:47
well. Definitely stay tuned for Laracon.
50:49
There's gonna be a bunch of stuff.
50:50
We may have to do a follow up recap or something.
50:52
Heck yeah, I love it.
50:52
But ~ yeah, there's gonna be a bunch of stuff ~ coming out.
50:56
I'm really excited about it. I think ~ a lot of it is stuff I've been excited about
51:00
for a long time. And Laracon is always kind of this moment to like,
51:04
you know, take like a deep breath.
51:06
Finally, like all of the things are out and we can talk about them
51:09
and there's no like secret projects we're preparing behind the scenes,
51:12
Yeah.
51:13
or at least we get to start fresh doing that again.
51:15
Yeah. Well I'll see if I can either steal you away at Laracon or get
51:16
~ but no I couldn't be
51:19
you the week afterwards so we can do a follow up.
51:21
Sorry interrupted.
51:21
Yeah. But
51:23
it'd be fun. I'm proud of the team,
51:24
you know. There's been a lot of like heavy technical lifting and work that's gone
51:28
into a lot of this stuff. And ~ you know,
51:30
but that's what really makes the products,
51:32
you know, great is ~ tackling these sort of hard problems that are very hard
51:38
to solve on your own with your own sort of like small team or DevOps team.
51:42
These are pretty complicated spaces that we're playing in now,
51:45
but that's what really gives the product like value and ~ differentiates it,
51:50
you know, from what's out there.
51:50
So I'm excited.
51:52
I love it. Well, thank you so much for your time,
51:54
especially and I know that you're super,
51:56
super busy this week. ~ I will see you next week.
51:59
A lot of us will see you next week,
52:00
and then I'll I'll try and catch up with you a little bit afterwards.
52:00
Awesome.
52:02
So it look forward to so we've got this Taylor episode,
52:05
we've got a ~ episode coming after that,
52:07
and then after that it'll be one more Taylor before we wrap the season and
52:10
we can do a full debrief of everything you announced at the at the conference.
52:13
Nice. Yeah, it'd be fun. We can ~ talk about everything.
52:13
All right. I love it.
52:16
Well, thank you for hanging out,
52:17
and for the rest of you, we'll see you all next time.