Episode 05|06/22/26
Charlie Holtz
The Tool That Builds Itself
Draw the line, then automate everything inside it. Speak into your computer to write code, but never let the agent be your architect.
The Guest
Charlie HoltzCEO & Co-Founder, Conductor
Founder of Conductor, a YC-backed tool for orchestrating fleets of coding agents in parallel. Previously a Hacker in Residence at Replicate and a quant at Point72.
The Stack Monitor — 15 tools
Hover for notesThe Analog Stack
4- Basically just scribbles to get some ideas down.— CharlieNNotebook
- Headphones on means don't talk to me. Flag up means can we chat?— CharlieAAttention Flag
- José Valim recommended this. We're trying to make it okay to speak into your computer.— CharlieDDesk Mic
Vertical MouseThe analog objects are the rituals that make the digital sprint possible.— Charlie
Stack Specificity
7
ConductorFive instances open at once — Prod, Beta, Alpha, Tripoli, Chicago. Conductor building Conductor.— Charlie
ZedThese apps have become my review surfaces.— Charlie
NotionArchitecture lives here, written by humans. Don't let the AI be your architect.— Charlie
SpokenlyThis is Spokenly, not Whisper. Speak into the computer to write code.— Charlie
ClaudeAware of the Granola markdown. Institutional knowledge becomes skills.— Charlie
GranolaMeeting notes the agents can read. I want it running on every internal meeting.— Charlie
RaycastI tried Spotlight. It's just slightly slower.— Charlie
Conductor's Operating Principles
2
Fly.ioSprites — persistent VMs for isolated coding agents. That's Conductor Cloud.— Charlie- Take what you've learned about writing React and translate it into something the agents can use.— CharlieS/Skills
In Their Words
“We have this principle which is, don't let the AI be your architect. When you're building out a big new part of the codebase, it's pretty important still to have humans driving that.”
“We are obviously very pro AI writing code, but we are very anti AI writing. You can smell it from a mile away.”
“I think it's interesting to take your institutional knowledge and translate it into skills that your agents can then use.”