Alex Koutmos on Nerves and Finance

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