Greater Than Code
The Human Side of Technology
About the show
For a long time, tech culture has focused too narrowly on technical skills; this has resulted in a tech community that too often puts companies and code over people. Greater Than Code is a podcast that invites the voices of people who are not heard from enough in tech: women, people of color, trans and/or queer folks, to talk about the human side of software development and technology. Greater Than Code is providing a vital platform for these conversations, and developing new ideas of what it means to be a technologist beyond just the code.
Featuring an ongoing panel of racially and gender diverse tech panelists, the majority of podcast guests so far have been women in tech! We’ve covered topics including imposter syndrome, mental illness, sexuality, unconscious bias and social justice. We also have a major focus on skill sets that tech too often devalues, like team-building, hiring, community organizing, mentorship and empathy. Each episode also includes a transcript.
Greater Than Code on social media
Episodes
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189: Succeeding in Science with Deborah Berebichez
July 1st, 2020 | 1 hr 10 mins
Dr. Deborah Berebichez talks about teaching science to kids in fun ways, data literacy, why getting negative results in science is important, the fact that human performance is contextual, and her path to becoming a scientist and ultimately a TV-show host on The Discovery Channel.
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188: Going Off the Rails with Damien Burke
June 24th, 2020 | 59 mins 32 secs
Damien Burke talks about life being hard: How do we make things easy? Also: treating expertise as transferable to different fields, loving yourself unconditionally, his background in theater and applying it to tech, and "ontological coaching."
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187: Seeing The World with Bryan Liles
June 17th, 2020 | 47 mins 56 secs
Bryan Liles talks about his ability to see the world as it is, conferencing and working from home during Quarantine, fighting and overcoming meritocracy, and how people work, and finding power in other things.
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186: The Universe Makes it Happen with Emily Gorcenski
June 10th, 2020 | 1 hr 5 mins
In this episode, Emily Gorcenski talks about hunting Nazis and how doing so involves data science. She also talks about failure and learning and being willing to be wrong, the need for systematic restructuring in America, and nuance, power, and authority.
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185: Adaptive Capacity and Mutual Aid with Michelle Glauser
June 3rd, 2020 | 58 mins 32 secs
In this episode, Michelle Glauser talks about Techtonica: full-time tech training with living stipends and laptops to Bay Area women and non-binary adults with low incomes, then place graduates into jobs with sponsor companies.
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184: The Python Software Foundation and the Future of Conferencing with Naomi Ceder & Ewa Jodlawska
May 27th, 2020 | 1 hr 1 min
In this episode, Naomi Ceder & Ewa Jodlawska talk about the Python Software Foundation and speculate what the future of conferences might look like due to the pandemic.
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183: How We Learn with Vaidehi Joshi
May 20th, 2020 | 1 hr 12 mins
In this episode, Vaidehi Joshi talks about how we learn: approaching it, brain percolation, improving over time, and doing your best.
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182: Labor Organizing with Ellen Wondra
May 13th, 2020 | 50 mins 1 sec
In this episode, Ellen Wondra talks about labor organization. She explains what shareholder and stakeholder economies are, and talks a lot about how things are done in Germany. The panelists speculate about why tech workers aren’t organizing more, and how we could potentially help ourselves and our coworkers if we did.
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181: Normalcy Theater with Aaron Aldrich
May 6th, 2020 | 56 mins 7 secs
In this episode, Aaron Aldrich joins the show to talk about how everything has a technical aspect, connecting high-performing resilient teams, how a virtual tech conference has actually worked in the wake of COVID-19, and a concept called normalcy theater: maintaining a sense that everything is okay when it’s clearly not.
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180: Open Source Freedom and Technical Purity with Tobie Langel
April 29th, 2020 | 50 mins 32 secs
Co-Conspirator of Ethical Open Source, Tobie Langel talks about open source freedom and technical purity: developer attachment, privacy, security, and flavors of safety, the problems with prioritizing implementers over end-users, and internationalization issues.
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179: Conference Magic with PJ Hagerty
April 22nd, 2020 | 1 hr 13 mins
In this episode, PJ Hagerty talks about Developer Relations, having online vs in-person conferences, making conferences both diverse and inclusive, talking about mental health, and conference accessibility.
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178: Data Science and Sponsorship with Emily Robinson
April 15th, 2020 | 59 mins 49 secs
Data Scientist, Emily Robinson, talks about her journey into the data science field, the idea of passion, dealing with failure, the ideas of sponsorship vs mentorship, and the fact that companies should be training their senior people to be mentors.
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Special Edition: COVID-19
April 9th, 2020 | 53 mins 7 secs
In this special episode of Greater Than Code, several of our panelists have a candid conversation about the current COVID-19 situation, how it has been affecting them personally, and how they believe it will affect the tech industry as a whole. Discussion topics include how it feels both to be working and unemployed during the pandemic, productivity while quarantined, the effect on WFH and conference culture, the current political climate, and human resiliency in the face of the unknown.
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177: Source Docs and People with Chris Stead
April 8th, 2020 | 55 mins 5 secs
In this episode, Chris Stead joins the show to talk about source documents and their relation to people, encouraging others to write code for people, interviewing for the benefit of the interviewee, and the fact that code stores emotion.
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176: Career Karma with Ruben Harris
April 1st, 2020 | 52 mins 35 secs
Ruben Harris talks about Career Karma, the benefits of being underestimated, how the fire lit inside him, the origin of Career Karma and how they secured funding, the Career Karma team, and what’s on the horizon for Career Karma.