# The **epic** story of Markdown
Markdown is a system for writing that makes it readable to both humans and computers. It's all about the symbols. You use - to make a list, * for emphasis, ** for even more emphasis. Brackets and parentheses turn into links. Once you know Markdown, you might begin to think in Markdown. Right now it is absolutely everywhere: people are maintaining their Claude.MD files for conversing with AI bots, and writing their notes in Markdown editors like Obsidian. So where did Markdown come from? It came from John Gruber. John joins the show, along with Anil Dash, to tell the story of where Markdown came from and how it took over the world.
Further reading:
The Markdown spec
How Markdown took over the world
Gruber on Apple Notes Markdown support
9to5mac: iOS 26 to bring new features for Messages, CarPlay, and more
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Apple at 50: the good and the bad
It's Apple 50 week, so we've got an Apple-filled podcast. First, longtime Apple journalist Jason Snell joins the show to talk about the state of the company as a hardware maker, a software maker, a force for good in the world, and more. Then, blogger and entrepreneur Anil Dash explains why he's worried about the rise of video podcasts, and the role Apple could play to make it better. Finally, The Verge's Allison Johnson helps answer a question on the Vergecast Hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email vergecast@theverge.com!) about swapping your phone for a watch. And a tablet. And some other things.
Further reading:
Rank the 50 best Apple Products
Apple in 2025: The Six Colors report card
Apple turns 50: celebrating five decades of the tech giant
Apple II Forever!
“Wherever you get your podcasts” is a radical statement.
Why Apple’s move to video could endanger podcasting's greatest power
Subscribe to The Verge for unlimited access to theverge.com, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ad-free podcast feed.We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11.
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Settle down, nerds. AI is a normal technology
Ryan welcomes Anil Dash, writer and former Stack Overflow board member, back to the show to discuss how AI is not a magical technology, but rather the normal next step in computing’s evolution. They explore the importance of democratizing access to technology, the unique challenges that LLMs’ non-determinism poses, and how developers can keep Stack Overflow’s ethos of community alive in a world of AI.
Episode notes:
Anil is a tech entrepreneur (former CEO at our sister company Fog Creek Software) and writer. You can find him at his blog anildash.com and on Linkedin.
Check out the last time Anil was on the pod in 2020 to talk all things Glitch and Glimmer.
Shoutout to user pgrad for winning a Lifejacket badge on their answer to Using type hint Any in Django - NameError: name 'Any' is not defined.
TRANSCRIPT
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Out with C and C++, In with Memory Safety
Crash-level bugs continue to pose a significant challenge due to the lack of memory safety in programming languages, an issue persisting since the punch card era. This enduring problem, described as "the Joker to the Batman" by Anil Dash, VP of developer experience at Fastly, is highlighted in a recent episode of The New Stack Makers. The White House has emphasized memory safety, advocating for the adoption of memory-safe programming languages and better software measurability. The Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) noted that languages like C and C++ lack memory safety traits and are prevalent in critical systems. They recommend using memory-safe languages, such as Java, C#, and Rust, to develop secure software. Memory safety is particularly crucial for the US government due to the high stakes, especially in space exploration, where reliability standards are exceptionally stringent. Dash underscores the importance of resilience and predictability in missions that may outlast their creators, necessitating rigorous memory safety practices.
Learn more from The New Stack about Memory Safety:
White House Warns Against Using Memory-Unsafe Languages
Can C++ Be Saved? Bjarne Stroupstrup on Ensuring Memory Safety
Bjarne Stroupstrup's Plan for Bringing Safety to C++
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Merging Vision, Community, and Technology With Anil Dash
This episode features Anil Dash, VP of Developer Experience at Fastly, who returns to the podcast to share the integration of Glitch within Fastly post-acquisition. Anil shares how Glitch has continued flourishing under Fastly's umbrella, highlighting both platforms’ seamless acquisition and mutual growth. Anil shares the technical and cultural collaboration that has allowed Glitch to maintain its identity and mission while contributing to Fastly's broader goals. The episode highlights the power of community in tech, the importance of maintaining core values in mergers and acquisitions, and the advancements both Glitch and Fastly are making in the developer space.
Show Highlights:
(00:00) - Introduction.
(01:59) - Glitch's role within Fastly's infrastructure and services.
(02:16) - Comparison of AWS and Glitch’s approach to community building.
(05:40) - Anil’s ongoing enthusiasm for Glitch beyond typical post-acquisition experiences.
(08:53) - Fastly’s unique capabilities and impact on the internet.
(14:35) - Fastly’s technical infrastructure and its performance advantages.
(20:42) - WebAssembly’s implementation and significance at Fastly.
(23:59) - Comparison of Glitch and Fastly’s developer engagement and pricing models
(25:18) - Ethical responsibilities and building a healthy tech ecosystem are important.
(27:50) - Importance of creating lasting and sustainable technologies.
(30:24) - Anil discusses Fastly's work culture and its influence on employee innovation and engagement.
(34:26) - Anil discusses Glitch's thriving post-acquisition integration into Fastly.
(38:26) - The critical role of Fastly's infrastructure in supporting major open-source platforms and decentralized networks.
(39:26) - Closing remarks and where to find more about Anil’s work.
About Anil:
Anil Dash is the vice president of developer experience at Fastly, where he leads the team behind Glitch, the friendly developer community where coders have collaborated to create and share millions of web apps. Anil advises startups and nonprofits, including Medium and the Lower East Side Girls Club. An accomplished writer and artist, Dash has contributed to Wired and The Atlantic and collaborated with Lin-Manuel Miranda on one of the most popular Spotify playlists in 2018.
Links referenced:
Anil’s Personal Website: https://www.anildash.com/
Glitch’s website: https://preview.glitch.com/
Sponsor:
Panoptica Academy: https://panoptica.app/lastweekinaws
(Bonus) Vibe Shift (?) Twitter (Also ?) With @anildash
The great Anil Dash joined us to talk about... well, what do you think we talked about? But also, a broader discussion about the crazy year that the tech industry has had.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
362: ‘Grand Scale Foot-Shooting’, With Anil Dash
Special guest: Anil Dash. A little about last week’s U.S. midterm elections, and a lot about what’s going on at Twitter under Elon Musk.
Sponsored by:
Squarespace: Make your next move. Use code talkshow for 10% off your first order.
Trade Coffee: Incredible coffee delivered fresh from the best roasters in the nation.
Kolide: The cross-platform endpoint security solution for teams that value privacy and transparency.
Links:
“Twitter Tumult” — me, on what’s going on at Twitter.
Twitter Is Going Great — A rundown of everything during Twitter’s saga under Elon Musk.
Fedifinder — “Search Twitter names, bios, locations, URLs, and pinned Tweets for fediverse handles and URLs.” Nifty tool for anyone moving from Twitter to Mastodon or just trying Mastodon out.
Fediverse of Madness — a collection of Glitch apps related to the fediverse.
Glitch.
The Obama Foundation Democracy Forum.
Anil’s prescient Twitter prediction from back in April.
Anil’s blog.
Dahlia Lithwick, SCOTUS columnist extraordinaire.
This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.
Breaching the Coding Gates with Anil Dash
About Anil
Anil Dash is the CEO of Glitch, the friendly developer community where coders collaborate to create and share millions of web apps. He is a recognized advocate for more ethical tech through his work as an entrepreneur and writer. He serves as a board member for organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the leading nonprofit defending digital privacy and expression, Data & Society Research Institute, which researches the cutting edge of tech's impact on society, and The Markup, the nonprofit investigative newsroom that pushes for tech accountability. Dash was an advisor to the Obama White House’s Office of Digital Strategy, served for a decade on the board of Stack Overflow, the world’s largest community for coders, and today advises key startups and non-profits including the Lower East Side Girls Club, Medium, The Human Utility, DonorsChoose and Project Include.
As a writer and artist, Dash has been a contributing editor and monthly columnist for Wired, written for publications like The Atlantic and Businessweek, co-created one of the first implementations of the blockchain technology now known as NFTs, had his works exhibited in the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and collaborated with Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda on one of the most popular Spotify playlists of 2018. Dash has also been a keynote speaker and guest in a broad range of media ranging from the Obama Foundation Summit to SXSW to Desus and Mero's late-night show.
Links:
Glitch: https://glitch.com
Web.dev: https://web.dev
Glitch Twitter: https://twitter.com/glitch
Anil Dash Twitter: https://twitter.com/anildash
293: ‘I’m More of a Porkins Guy’, With Anil Dash
Special guest Anil Dash joins the show. Topics include the 25th anniversary of Windows 95, and the parallels between the cyber era of computing and today’s App Store controversies.
Sponsored by:
Honeybadger: The web developer's secret weapon. It only takes a few minutes to set up Honeybadger’s total monitoring suite. Try it free for 15 days.
Eero: We’re asking a lot of our Wi-Fi. Eero can help yours do more. Use code thetalkshow at checkout for free next day shipping.
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Linode: Instantly deploy and manage an SSD server in the Linode Cloud. New accounts get a $20 credit with code talkshow20.
Links:
Anil on Windows 95.
Jason Snell with the Mac user’s (and MacUser’s) take on Windows 95.
My take on Snell’s take.
Microsoft’s Windows 95 “Start Me Up” commercial.
Francisco Tolmasky’s observation on Apple’s control over iOS stifling innovation.
Glitch.
Boscov’s.
How 728,000 “E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial” Atari 2600 cartridges wound up in a landfill.
Vectrex, the vector-display home video game system I nearly pissed my pants to play.
Classic Mac OS’s curiously-named built-in text editor TeachText and its successor, SimpleText.
OS/2 Warp.
OS/2 Frequently Launched Criticisms.
Michael Sippey demoing TypePad for iPhone at WWDC 2008.
This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.
A Dash of Anil, a Pinch of Glimmer, a splash of Glitch
Glitch, a platform that makes it easy for anyone to create or remix a web app, has seen over five million apps created by users. You can read more about how it works here. If you want to learn a little about how it works with Docker, check out this piece here.
If you want to know more about the shared history of Stack and Glitch, you can read up on it here. TLDR; Glitch was born out of Fog Creek software and counts Joel Spolsky and Michael Pryor as founders.
Glimmer is a new web magazine from the folks at Glitch. It focuses on creators and makers, with a special emphasis on unearthing the human stories of people building today's software.
While you're here, don't forget to take 15-20 minutes and share your opinions in our 2020 Developer Survey. Whether Stack Overflow helped you during your journey as a programmer or not, we want to hear from everyone who codes.
Some fun background for younger listeners:
Geocities - a popular platform for building and hosting a personal website and linking it with others that share similar themes.
BetaBeat - a website launched by The NY Observer that covered the SIlicon Alley tech scene. It was how Ben first met Anil, Joel, and many others.
Heroku
Docker
If you have comments, questions, or suggestions, please send us an email at podcast@stackoverflow.com
Today’s episode is brought to you by Refinitiv. Unlock new possibilities with consistent, high-value market data from Refinitiv. Try the Refinitiv Eikon Data API for the largest breadth and depth of data and community tools with native Python support. Check out refinitiv.com/stackpodcast to try the Eikon Data API today. Refinitiv. Data is just the beginning.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Interview with Anil Dash (Part 2)
Anil is the CEO of Glitch, an activist, writer and host of the podcast, Function. In today's episode, we sit down with Anil to talk about animating motivations, community building and career goals.
##👋Anil On the Web
Twitter
Website
Podcast
🧡 Leave a Review
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This is a daily challenge designed help you become more self-aware and be a better developer so you can have a positive impact on the people around you. Check it out and give it a try at https://www.teabreakchallenge.com/.
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Interview with Anil Dash (Part 1)
Anil is the CEO of Glitch. He's an activist, writer and host of the podcast, Function. In today's episode, we sit down with Anil to talk about the origin story of Glitch and the journey to making cool things for and with the developer community and thoughts on the whiteboard interview process.
👋Anil On the Web
Twitter
Website
Podcast
🙏Thank you to today's sponsor: Flatiron
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##👋 Get in touch
If you have questions about today's episode, want to start a conversation about today's topic or just want to let us know if you found this episode valuable I encourage you to join the conversation or start your own on our community platform Spectrum.chat/specfm/developer-tea
🧡 Leave a Review
If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.
🍵 Subscribe to the Tea Break Challenge
This is a daily challenge designed help you become more self-aware and be a better developer so you can have a positive impact on the people around you. Check it out and give it a try at https://www.teabreakchallenge.com/.
SaaStr 228: Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson and Glitch CEO Anil Dash on the Secrets to Building a Billion in ARR and Being an Ethical leader.
Join Glitch CEO Anil Dash and Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson for a discussion about the ethical implications of technology in today's society. Jeff and Anil discuss how social media and AI are changing the way we think about the impact of technology on society as well as the responsibility of tech leaders for this impact.
Missed the session? Here's what Jeff talks about:
How taking no stance as a business leader today, is taking a stance
How to set concrete numbers for diversity goals
The impact of corporate culture on employee happiness
If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
SaaStr
Jeff Lawson
Anil Dash
The dark side of the web w/ Anil Dash and Allison Esposito
In the second episode of the new Product Hunt Radio, I’m joined by two amazing community-builders based in New York, Anil Dash and Allison Esposito.
Anil is the CEO of Glitch, a friendly community where developers build the app of their dreams. You'll find everything from AI-powered musical spinners to multiplayer drawing game created on the platform. He's also an advisor to Medium, DonorsChoose, Project Include, and Stack Overflow.
Allison is formerly of Oyster, the Netflix for books, which was acquired by Google in 2015. Afterward she founded Tech Ladies, a community that connects women with the best jobs in tech.
In this episode we talk about:
The good ol' days of IRC, Friendster, AIM, and MySpace. A lot has changed since then, yet they continue to exhibit some of the same dynamics and challenges of today's massive social networks.
The challenges of building a healthy community on the internet in a time when careers and reputations can be destroyed in an instant.
How online communities mirror offline interactions. Opening up an app has many parallels to walking into a social gathering in real life.
Some of the common misconceptions people have about creating communities online and what a founder’s goal should really be in starting a community.
Of course, we’ll also cover some of our favorite products that you might not know about.
We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Also, big thanks to our sponsors, Airtable, GE Ventures, Intercom and Stripe for their support. 😸
Quotes from This Episode
“There’s something about community that if you’re doing it right, it should feel like a mix of it just happened and it’s natural.” – Allison
“It turns out the hosting of the video wasn’t the thing, the community is the thing and it has a value. Whether you create an environment that you feel people can express themselves in is a rare and special and delicate thing.” — Anil
“You open up the app and you’re basically walking into an event. The design, language, people and the way they talk to each other [influence how people] adapt to this community.” — Ryan
“Most companies throw up a community and it’s a ghost town and nobody goes. The worst case is that they throw up a community and there’s nobody moderating or managing and it does grow. That is a nightmare.” — Anil
“I also have these theories that tech is a fashion industry — it goes in cycles. Instead of hemlines going up or down, we have centralized to decentralized, or this programming language is cool and now it’s not cool…” — Anil
Companies and Products Mentioned in This Episode
AIM (RIP) – Instant messaging in the 90s
Aloe Bud — Self-care pocket companion
GeoCities (RIP) – Your home on the web
Glitch — The community where you'll build the app of your dreams
Hello Weather — All the weather info you need, and nothing you don't
LastPass — All your passwords in one place
MySpace – The social network with blinky tags and auto-playing music
Tech Ladies — A job board and community for women in tech
ThinkUp (RIP) – Personal analytics for social networks, delivered daily
Trello — Organize anything, together
Yapper — Stay connected to your community
S3:E7 - From tech blogger to Fog Creek CEO (Anil Dash)
Anil Dash has been in tech for a long time. He’s a vocal advocate for inclusion and humane tech, writes amazing blog posts (and tweets!), and is now the CEO of Fog Creek. He shares how he navigated his impressive career in tech and how he builds kindness and community into his company's products.
Show Links
Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor)
Fog Creek Software
Glitch
StackOverflow
Anil Dash's blog
Trello
Codeland Conf
Codeland 2019
Anil Dash
Anil Dash is an entrepreneur, activist and writer recognized as one of the most prominent voices advocating for a more humane, inclusive and ethical technology industry. He is the CEO of Fog Creek Software, the renowned independent tech company behind Glitch, the friendly new community that helps anyone make the app of their dreams, as well as its past landmark products like Trello and Stack Overflow.
Stack Overflow Podcast #106 - Data Team Assemble!
On this week's episode, we talk about the what the data team has been up to lately as well as learning a thing or two about rockets. Guest host - Anil Dash!
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Stack Overflow Podcast #96 - A Face Full of Code
In this week’s podcast, Anil Dash - new CEO of Fog Creek and old friend of ours - stops by, as does Dr. Dave Robinson for our new segment, Dr Dave’s Data Desk with Dr. Dave Robinson. Because alliteration. And this week’s Stack Overflow Constitution question has the potential to destroy us all: Is it pronounced GIF with a hard G /ɡif/ or GIF with a J /jif/?
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
