Root Cause

What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and does it replace SEO? In this episode of Root Cause we get to the root cause of what happens to being findable when people stop Googling and start asking ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity. With search engines, a human picks from a list of results. With AI search, the model gives one answer and one recommendation, and if you are not in it, you are not in the consideration set. That shift is what GEO (also called AI search optimization or AI visibility) is trying to address.We cover GEO vs SEO and why good SEO is only a subset of AI visibility; the what, where and how of AI-readable content (which topics, which sites like Reddit, G2 and Capterra AI trusts, which formats); whether GEO feeds the AI slop machine (AI-generated content is no more readable to LLMs than human writing, and three purposeful articles beat ten); how fast-changing models affect what you optimize; why millennials using ChatGPT as a search engine and Gen Z using it as a companion are two different problems for a brand; B2B vs B2C vs creator use cases; and the fairness question of manufacturing a persona that ranks above the better product. Then the technical part: how you get a deterministic, credit-score-style AI visibility score out of non-deterministic LLMs, why the LLM should be a data extractor and never a grader, and practical GEO advice for content creators (know your proposition, get cited where AI trusts, transcribe your videos, and yes, bring back the blog).My guest is Tamanna Haque, mathematician, lead data scientist with a decade of production AI on real customer data, and co-founder of GenSight.AI, a GEO platform she built in her personal time with her husband Jonas. This is her first public conversation about it, and I came in openly skeptical.00:00 Introduction of the Episode and the Guest02:56 Why Build a GEO Product in the Evenings: Eating Your Own Dog Food06:08 What Is Generative Engine Optimization?07:21 GEO vs SEO: Being an Option vs Being the Answer10:48 The What, the Where and the How of Being Visible to AI11:51 Does GEO Feed the AI Slop Machine?15:05 Models Change Fast: Optimize Once or Forever?17:02 Millennials Search, Gen Z Chats: Two Different Problems20:46 B2B vs B2C vs Creators: Who Benefits Most?22:35 Manufacturing a Persona: Who Deserves the Top Spot?26:58 Deterministic Scores from Non-Deterministic Models29:39 The LLM as Data Extractor, Never a Grader31:44 Free Advice for Creators: Know Your Proposition, Bring Back the Blog36:09 Book Recommendation: Harry Potter38:05 Question from Fraser Merrifield: Top Movies39:46 Question for the Next Guest: Which Pet Would You Have?40:38 ClosingFind Tamanna at:GenSight.AI - https://gensight.aiFind me (Nune) at:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nisabek/ Substack: https://www.thoughtfultechnologist.com/

In this episode of Root Cause we sit down with Fraser Merrifield, founder of FORM Careers in Glasgow and the self-described craft brewer of digital recruitment, to get to the root cause of the gap between what the hiring market says it wants and what it actually rewards. Fraser spent over a decade placing engineers in oil and gas, then bet on software in his late 30s, went fully solo, and now runs deliberately small on what he calls bullshit-free recruitment. He barely reads CVs anymore, and he'll tell you why a perfect one makes him suspicious.We dig into why AI has made both hiring and getting hired harder while most of the horror stories stay myths: his clients average two interview stages, and the CV-rejecting AI mostly doesn't exist. Fraser explains the 12-month window on the "AI-native engineer" hype, what happens when an engineer burns through more in tokens than their salary, and why leaning on senior hires is the same mistake that left oil and gas with a talent shortage. And the story that sums up the whole market: 200 applications for one graduate role, one candidate picked up the phone, and he got the job, as the only person interviewed. Three years later he is still there.00:00 Cold Open: Six Yes/No Claims About the Job Market00:41 Introduction of the Episode and the Guest03:35 Writing Like a Human: Pop Culture and Starting in Lockdown05:56 Five Views or Five Million: How to Read Your LinkedIn Visibility07:45 Everyone's CV Is Perfect Now, So What Stands Out?09:23 The Online Mood Hoover: Positivity vs Ranting12:22 The Blitz Round: Yes or No13:06 Why AI Made Both Hiring and Getting Hired Harder14:48 Just Another Hype Cycle? The 12-Month Window16:11 When Engineers Burn More in Tokens Than Their Salary17:53 Eight-Stage Interviews: Would You Even Want That Job?20:36 Can Bullshit-Free Recruitment Scale?22:06 CVs After AI: Rejecting the Quick-Appliers, Rewarding the Extra Mile25:25 One of 200 Applicants Picked Up the Phone. He Got the Job27:06 Glasgow AI and the Return of Offline Networking29:10 The Undercurrent of Real People on LinkedIn31:18 How Fraser Actually Uses AI (and How It Argued Back)37:38 Fraser Flips the Script: The Most In-Demand Skill in Five Years43:21 Juniors vs Seniors: The Oil and Gas Warning46:11 Asking About Training Without Entitlement47:17 Question from Evan Marshall: When Are We Getting Robots?52:14 Question for the Next Guest: Top Five Movies52:45 Movie Recommendations: Her, Ex Machina, Transcendence54:24 ClosingFind Fraser at: • LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/fraser-merrifield-7b54524/ • Form Careers - https://weformcareers.com/ • Glasgow AI Meetup - https://www.meetup.com/meetup-group-xnqxwqzu/Find me (Nune) at:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nisabek/ Substack: https://www.thoughtfultechnologist.com/Envimate: https://envimate.com/

In this episode of Root Cause we sit down with Evan Marshall, co-founder and CTO of Ito.ai, to get to the root cause of where the honest answer sits on the AI adoption spectrum, somewhere between the teams that won't let AI near their codebase and the ones that let it ship with barely a human in the loop. Most of us are somewhere in the middle, moving around and quietly wondering if we've got it right. This conversation is meant to help you gauge where you actually are, and where you want to be. Evan studied computer science at MIT and spent four years building privacy infrastructure for zero-knowledge blockchains, where a slipped bug is a disaster. That experience pushed him toward quality: he now builds a QA agent that actually runs your application and checks the code before it merges.We dig into the pressure on Bay Area companies to claim a "software factory" while their engineers might still be shipping like everyone else, why free code generation can at most double you if coding was half your job (and it never was), and the plastic age of coding, where code is generated to be thrown away. Evan shares what a sane monthly AI spend actually looks like and his advice for integrating AI into your software development lifecycle: treat the SDLC as an optimization problem, because once generation is free, the bottleneck moves to verification and quality control. And when someone says "I can just do that with Claude Code", the work that follows is environments that have to heal themselves, caching that breaks on the next migration, and memory layers. As Evan puts it: we spent the tokens so you don't have to.00:00 Pre-show Banter and the Cats00:59 Introduction of the Episode and the Guest03:00 Is the Bay Area Really an AI Echo Chamber?05:45 The Pressure to Claim a Software Factory07:36 How Much Does AI Actually Speed You Up?10:23 How Ito Uses AI in Its Own Engineering14:13 The Plastic Age of Coding15:53 Can the Software Factory Be Productized?18:39 Subscriptions vs API: The Real Cost of Tokens20:19 Open Models and Switching Between Them21:25 Are the Models Plateauing?22:59 "I Can Just Use Claude Code": Where the Hard Parts Hide26:19 The Bottlenecks You Don't See: Environments, Caching, Memory28:55 Will QA Engineers Be Replaced?31:39 Replicators, Waymos, and 3D Printers: Why Change Takes Time36:49 Why SaaS Isn't Dead and How Much You Should Spend39:23 Advice for Integrating AI into Your SDLC42:50 Question from Barry O'Reilly: Building a Computer in 182244:31 Shared Reality, Social Media, and Cooperation50:25 Book Recommendations53:54 Question for the Next Guest and ClosingFind Evan at: • LinkedId: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan--marshall/ • his startup - https://www.ito.ai/Find me (Nune) at:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nisabek/ Substack: https://www.thoughtfultechnologist.com/

In this episode of Root Cause we sit down with Barry O'Reilly, 25 years in software architecture, former chief architect at Microsoft, startup CTO, and the creator of Residuality Theory, to get to the root cause of what senior architects actually do when they say they run on gut feeling. When Microsoft asked Barry to teach junior architects how he did his job, he discovered he couldn't describe his own methods, and neither could any of the senior architects he asked. That frustration turned into two books and a PhD in complexity science. We dig into why a random simulation of stress produces architectures that survive events nobody predicted, why equirements and risk management quietly limit the very thinking they were supposed to support, why our industry spreads ideas through charisma instead of scientific proof, and whether an LLM can ever produce an architecture. If you've ever been told "that's just experience," this episode puts words on it.00:00 Cold Open: The Architect vs the Implementer02:06 Guest Introduction: Structuring the Magic03:00 Pure Mathematics: Help or Trap?06:20 Think Less, Do More? The Industry's Thinking Problem09:09 Why Software Isn't Developing as a Science12:26 Pop Culture, Gurus, and the Hype Machine15:09 "My Industry Is Low Stakes": Why Quality Still Pays17:54 Two Books That Decide If You're an Architect22:09 Creativity vs Craft: Naming the Magic25:39 Residuality Theory: The Marbles Analogy31:59 How to Start: The Naive Architecture and Random Stress36:35 Attractor States: Why Stressing Works39:30 All Architecture Is Stress44:14 The Trouble with Non-Functional Requirements48:49 Should Architects Become Domain Experts?52:02 Does This Apply to Small Systems and Startups?57:36 Answering the Critics: "We've Always Done This"01:01:28 Stressor Analysis: Architecture Never Stops01:04:57 Shared Language and Reflective Practice01:07:04 Has AI Made Code Cheaper?01:12:54 Can LLM Agents Do Residuality?01:18:43 The Walk Around the Problem Is the Point01:20:40 First Steps into Residuality01:25:18 Book Recommendations01:29:39 A Benign Pride: Fly Fishing at 34 Meters01:32:01 Question for the Next Guest and ClosingFind Barry at: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barry-o-reilly-b924657/ • Barry’s first book: https://leanpub.com/residuality • Barry’s second book: https://leanpub.com/architectsparadox • The intro talk you should watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MPUoiG6w_UFind me (Nune) at:* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nisabek/ * Substack: https://www.thoughtfultechnologist.com/

In this episode of Root Cause we sit down with Eric Lubow, a CTO who treats organizations like distributed systems, which means the root cause of a broken team is usually a design problem, not a people problem. Eric has spent more than 20 years building and repairing teams and platforms, from co-founding SimpleReach to running engineering through dozens of acquisitions at Thrasio, and he is now Chief Product and Technology Officer at Mapp. He is also a jiu-jitsu coach, and that shapes how he leads. We get to the root cause of what actually makes a team healthy, why becoming a manager means changing your definition of done, and why ceding control is the part nobody warns you about. We talk about leading AI agents the way you would lead a person, why silent heroes quietly turn into silent burnouts, and how to hire into a team instead of into a vacuum. Honest and specific, with none of the leadership-content platitudes, including the lonely parts of the job most people at the top never say out loud.00:00 Introduction: What Makes a Healthy Team03:05 Jiu-Jitsu, Languages, and a Healthy Ego08:23 Martial Arts, Balance, and "Everything Is Maintenance"13:12 Teams as Distributed Systems and Conway's Law16:38 The IC-to-Manager Transition: Ceding Control19:10 Delegation and a New Definition of Done22:24 Giving Away Your Legos23:49 Can You Learn to Be a Manager?25:21 Don't Just Become the Opposite of Your Bad Manager27:54 Leading AI Agents Like You Lead People31:55 Will AI Replace People? Force Multiplier, Not Replacement36:45 What Actually Makes a Team Healthy38:56 Adoption Curves and Why Teams Mimic Leaders42:06 A Culture of Sharing vs Shadow IT and Shadow AI47:41 The Hero Problem: Silent Heroes, Silent Burnout53:20 Burnout, Boundaries, and Trusting the Team55:33 Hiring Into a Team, Not a Vacuum1:02:15 The Loneliness of Leadership1:06:48 Why "I Don't Know" Is a Sign of Strength1:09:13 Book Recommendations: Sci-Fi and Leadership1:13:49 What Eric Would Tell His Younger Self1:15:45 The Most Benign Thing You're Proud OfFind Eric at: • Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eblubow/ • His blog: https://eric.lubow.org (which heavily influenced this episode) • Beyond the Belt podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@beyondthebeltpodFind me (Nune) at:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nisabek/ Substack: https://www.thoughtfultechnologist.com/

In this episode of Root Cause we sit down with Orel Zilberman, the solo builder behind WriteStack, the biggest tool out there for Substack creators. Orel spent 599 days shipping around ten products that made zero dollars, then picked one thing, stuck with it for six months, and turned it into a six-figure business. He has lived three versions of solo building in three years: before the current AI tooling, as it arrived, and now. We get to the root cause of what AI actually changed for one-person companies and what it didn't. Building got faster, but knowing what to build, and sticking with it long enough to find out if it works, is exactly as hard as it always was. Honest and unfiltered, including the messy parts most "become an entrepreneur" content leaves out.00:00 Introduction to Root Cause and Solo Building04:57 The Journey of Building WriteStack06:42 What is SubStack and WriteStack?09:28 "Why Bother" if the platform / big players will replace you13:14 "Why bother" if AI will replace all SaaS14:46 Knowing WHAT to Build and How to Distribute18:30 Finding the Right Idea to Stick With23:22 Learning from Opportunities and Failures26:10 Navigating the Cold Start Problem28:10 Leveraging AI Tools for Productivity30:49 The Future of Software Engineering in the Age of AI33:53 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs37:20 Being Better Than Most38:49 Book Recommendations and Lifelong Learning41:04 Reflections on Education and Career ChoicesFind Orel at: • His product - https://www.writestack.io/  • His journey - https://theindiepreneur.substack.com/  • Substack notes analysis - https://thewritingedge.substack.com/ • Substack profile - https://substack.com/@orelzilbermanFind me (Nune) at:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nisabek/ Substack: https://www.thoughtfultechnologist.com/

In this episode of Root Cause we sit down with Ia Mg - seasoned engineer, former CS and digital literacy teacher at the Free University of Tbilisi, and the author of the blog Bits Complicated - to get to the root cause of learning itself, and whether the machines we've built are about to make us better at it or worse.We dig into why everyone should understand technology even if they never write code, why domain knowledge has always mattered more than programmers wanted to admit, and what happens to learning when the answer is always one prompt away. Along the way: tech debt as a tax instead of a failure ("legacy as a service"), the "learning debt" that builds every time you accept a ready-made answer, why conversation-based coding is a process problem and not just an output problem, and why learning might be the most rebellious thing you can still do for yourself.00:00 Guest intro and episode goal02:45 Teaching Programming to Non-Coders04:13 The Importance of Technology Literacy09:41 AI and the Future of Programming16:10 AI as a Teacher of Programming22:16 Evaluating AI Responses in Learning26:49 Concerns About the Next Generation30:08 AI as an Abstraction in Programming33:40 Conversational Development vs. Traditional Coding37:34 Understanding Tech Debt42:09 Learning Debt in the Age of AI45:06 AI is the next social network?46:47 Embracing the Chaos of Innovation47:59 The Joy of Coding vs. AI53:22 Navigating the Job Market in Tech57:30 Book Recommendations01:02:08 Summary of the Discussion01:02:41 Learning as a Rebellious Act01:04:09 Practical Recommendation on using AI consciously01:06:21 Engineering is more than codingFind Ia at: Blog: https://iyamg.com/bitscomplicated/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ia-mgvdliashvili-0b459768/ Find me (Nune) at:Blog: https://www.thoughtfultechnologist.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nisabek/ 

In this episode of Root Cause we sit down with Adrian Hornsby — former AWS Principal Engineer, founder of Resilium Labs, and author of Why We Still Suck at Resilience — to get to the root cause of what's quietly breaking inside engineering organizations as AI absorbs more of the thinking. We dig into the gap between how we imagine our systems work and how they actually work, why that gap is where all the real learning lives, and what happens to a team when the thinking itself gets delegated to something that sounds confident but doesn't know which walls are load-bearing. 00:00 Pre-show Banter and the Dog01:08 Introduction of the Episode and the Guest05:00 What's Wrong with the Name of the Show07:35 The Importance of Learning from Successes09:53 Defining Work as Imagined and Work as Done13:43 Leading vs Being Hands-On28:49 Learning From the Gap30:39 Chaos Engineering31:31 Load Testing32:50 Game Days34:00 ORRs - Operational Readiness reviews34:41 Learning From the Incident36:25 How AI has Affected the Gap41:57 Navigating the Complexity of AI Delegation43:45 Skill Atrophy and the New Generation of Engineers47:12 Building Tools That Keep You Smart52:18 We Need a Crisis to Slow Down58:30 Building Intuition in AI-Driven Systems01:03:17 The Human Touch in Technology01:07:32 Facing Fears and Embracing Change01:16:28 Question for the Next Guest and ClosingAdrian has generously decided to run a discount with the promocode “rootcausebynune” - for the first 30 copies you can buy his book for as low as 14.99 - that’s over 70% discount over the suggested price!https://leanpub.com/whywestillsuckatresilience/c/rootcausebynune Find Adrian at:Resilium Labs: resiliumlabs.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adhorn/ Substack: https://newsletter.resiliumlabs.com/Find me (Nune) at:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nisabek/ Substack: https://www.thoughtfultechnologist.com/ 

In this very first episode of Root Cause we sit down with Marc Babin - an award-winning digital marketing professional and creator of over a dozen of podcasts - to get to the root cause of personal branding - why it matters more than ever and how a busy professional who doesn't like the empty talks can survive the content noise and still make themselves visible.00:00 Show and Guest Introduction02:54 The Value of Authentic Content in a Noisy World06:18 AI and Content: Good Authentic Content is King09:47 Reel-Thinking vs Podcast Creation13:57 Creating Engaging Content in Niche Markets18:14 Sales vs. Marketing: Building Trust Through Content22:02 The Long Game in Content Creation25:48 Personal Branding in the Digital Age28:28 Setting Up for Success in Content Creation33:05 Overcoming Perfectionism in Content Creation38:27 Embracing the Silence of Early Content43:29 Navigating Privacy and Online Presence48:36 The Discomfort of Starting53:14 The Root Causes of Expert Silence57:53 How to Start Creating Content01:00:30 Question for the Next Guest and ClosingFollow Marc Babin:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/babinmarc/The Podcast Blueprint Website - https://www.yourpodcastblueprint.com/The Podcast Blueprint LinkedIn Page - https://www.linkedin.com/company/podcast-blueprint/Additional Material mentioned in the episode:The Podcast Consumer 2025 report from Edison Research - https://www.edisonresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/The-Podcast-Consumer-2025-revised-FINAL.pdfRead People Like a Book: How to Analyze, Understand, and Predict People’s Emotions, Thoughts, Intentions, and Behaviors By Patrick King - https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/56199402-read-people-like-a-book