I tried following this podcast. It has merit to it, but it seriously lacks maturity and is rife with petty inside jokes (e.g. what’s with the dr. Rubin bashing?).

Host Tim Mitra barely knows anything on any subject, has no real opinion on any subject and cannot go beyond anecdotes. Aaron Vegh talks too much, like John Siracusa, but lacks John’s incredible insight.

On this show, I have heard Tim say “ka-ching!” with relation to a git repo that fit the needs of something a client had asked of him. Mindblowing. Furthermore, both Tim and Aaron constantly have to remind everybody how they do not have a CS degree like Jaime Lopez, but that they are equally qualified to be programmers (NOT software engineers, though, because let’s face it; an engineer needs to have a university degree, according to Aaron!). In this field, yes, degrees do not really matter and we, the audience, are aware of this. Constant reminders of this are indicators of an unnecessary insecurity.

And finally, from what I gather, Mark Rubin must have claimed to be buddies with Tim Cook. I know this because it is brought up (literally!!!) almost every episode! If the others believe that they should be making fun of Mark Rubin for making such a claim, please keep it off the air. Obviously Mark is less confident at the microphone than the talkative-never-shut-up Aaron Vegh. But it is Tim Mitra’s responsibility to make sure that Mark (who holds a PhD from MIT) also gets to make some insightful comments instead of being made the fool of every inside joke this clique has. The very few times Mark did have the opportunity to offer an opinion, he displayed his ability to go against the grain and draw from his own experiences to come to string opinions, unlike Tim Mitra’s fuzzy and undefined anecdotes.

Unless you solve these issues and start treating your podcast more professionally, you will never draw proper sponsors and you will be stuck asking people for donations. (“ka-ching”, Tim!).

I had great hopes for this underdog. But unless they grow up and start taking things seriously, I cannot continue listening. Today’s episode (“37 Aaron’s Apple Watch…”) made me cringe so hard that I am unsubscribing. I might give it another shot in the future, because honestly, this seems like a bunch of fun guys who have very nice contributions to make, but they need to get their act together.