Our Guest: Karim Fanous is the Senior Vice President of Engineering at StrongDM, a cybersecurity company, and the writer behind Cumulative, a Substack focused on engineering management, building startups, and how AI is reshaping the craft of software.

Episode Topics:

• Why VPE is “people + product + processes” and how breakdowns show up as business problems (growth, quality, churn, GTM).
• How “buggy processes” reveal themselves at the exec level through growth stalls, quality pain, churn, and GTM friction?
• Executive interview questions that reveal whether an engineering leader can connect engineering to business reality.
• The common scaling fallacy: doubling engineers does not double output.
• “AI made us faster… not necessarily better”: how AI boosts strong engineers, but used carelessly amplifies technical debt.
• Why human review won’t scale in an agent-driven world and why software will need machine verification to move at “GPU speed.”?
• Engineering shifts toward architecture, integration, trade-offs, experiments, and validation.
• The “10x engineer” debate in the AI era.
• AI security risks: non-deterministic systems + autonomous actions require controls beyond RBAC.
• Inside StrongDM’s approach on agents treated like coworkers with identities, visibility, and feedback that improves behavior.

Resources:
https://www.cummulative.io/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karimfan
https://www.strongdm.com/
https://www.cummulative.io/p/ai-agents-are-here-security-isnt

https://www.cummulative.io/p/preparing-for-a-world-where-humans

https://www.cummulative.io/p/how-do-you-interview-a-vp-of-engineering

About Cloud Radio by Cloud Ratings:

Made for "full stack" cloud + SaaS operators, Cloud Radio is a SaaS podcast covers all aspects of the business of software.

Our host - Matt Harney - is active on Twitter @saasletter and writes "SaaSletter", an investing-oriented SaaS newsletter on Substack.

https://cloudradio.cloudratings.com/

https://twitter.com/SaaSletter

https://www.saasletter.com/

About Cloud Ratings:

Cloud Ratings is a customer outcomes-focused, data-driven software research analyst firm. We exist to allow organizations to make more confident, lower-risk software purchasing decisions.

Our Cloud Ratings Category Reports combine user reviews with verified vendor data to impartially identify leading software products. Recent report examples include: Board Management Software, Account-Based Marketing Software, Cap Table + Equity Management Software, Lead Routing Software, and Sales Training + Onboarding Software.

Built upon investigative customer interviews, our True ROI Reports quantify and provide 3rd party validation of a software product’s business value.

https://cloudratings.com/

Our Guest: Godard Abel, Co-Founder and CEO of G2, the world's largest and most trusted software marketplace. He previously built cloud CPQ pioneers BigMachines (acquired by Oracle) and SteelBrick (acquired by Salesforce).

Episode Topics:

• AI across the stack: Infrastructure, data, models, and applications—where the most significant opportunities and risks lie
• Incumbents vs. startups: Why the next decade will reward incumbents with data and trust, and AI-first challengers with 10x user experiences
• G2’s AI strategy: From generative engine optimization (GEO) to G2 AI as a buying assistant
• Future of software buying: Will AI shorten shortlists? How buying cycles, transparency, and seller roles are evolving
• Marketing in the AI era: Risks of losing optimized website conversion funnels and how vendors must retool
• Endurance in entrepreneurship: Lessons from the Leadville 100 on perseverance and keeping vision through valleys

Resources:

G2 2025 Buyer Behavior Report

Godard Abel LinkedIn