The API Experience Podcast

In this episode, Mike and Matt look back on season 2, capturing some of the best and most insightful moments from each show. Topics include optionality, MCP, API discovery, and more.

In this episode, Markus Müller joins Mike and Matt to share the lessons organizations can learn from the world of APIs that can be applied to their adoption of the Model Context Protocol (MCP). The conversation covers tool discovery, agent governance, and AI protocols beyond MCP.

In this episode, Mike, Stephen, and Matt are joined by Dr. Carliss Baldwin, Professor Emerita at Harvard University, Author of Design Rules Vol. 1 & Design Rules Vol. 2. Dr. Baldwin shares the story of how she originally connected the financial concept of option theory to modularization of technology, where options thinking could be applied in the post-AI world, and why complementarity is an equally important concept when analyzing digital ecosystems.

In this episode, Ken Han and Baljeet Malhotra of Teejlab join Mike and Matt to discuss how to manage the spectrum of risks for APIs, how risk management relates to API discovery, and what new risks–and rewards–the explosion of AI technologies is creating in the world of APIs.

In this episode, Mike, Matt, and guest co-host Stephen Fishman sit down with Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media. Tim recalls the origins of the API Economy and "Web 2.0", assesses the impacts of AI on the current digital landscape, and envisions the future of APIs–including MCP, open ecosystems, and the emergence of semantic networks.

In this episode, Mike and Matt continue their discussion on the post-GenAI API landscape. This time, they dive deeper into API protocols as well as predicting what the impact of AI will be on API security, traffic management, and the API economy as a whole.

In this episode, Mike and Matt speculate about the future of APIs in the post-GenAI world. They challenge conventional wisdom regarding API protocols, development lifecycles, discovery mechanisms and more with an eye to what organizations can do right now to prepare. Also tulips. :-)

In this podcast, Diana Montalion–author of Learning Systems Thinking and the upcoming Knowledge Flow–does a deep dive into the essence of information and knowledge, how they relate to context and action, and the role APIs play in allowing knowledge flow in digital ecosystems. Connect with Diana at https://montalion.com/.

In this episode, Mike and Matt explore two of Mike’s most recent pieces of writing, which both explore how to design for unknown and emergent systems. The first article covers the concept of innovation, and its relationship to emergent systems. The second brief article calls out a new perspective in design: catering to machine clients rather than humans.

Description: In this episode, Mike and Matt make the case for why following the best practices of API strategy and implementation is the best path to readiness for implementing AI Agents. Along the way, they talk about where agentic technology can best be applied first, what some of the big blockers will be, and how well-defined, well-designed APIs can provide the foundation.

In this episode, Kin Lane joins Mike and Matt to share his experience as a builder and leader in the global API community, to recount some of the biggest lessons he has learned along the way, and to discuss what he sees in the future for APIs.

In this episode, Mike and Matt welcome Christian Posta, Field CTO at solo.io, to share his insights on the role of APIs in the AI Agent space, the framing of APIs as agentic capabilities, and the enterprise readiness of Model Context Protocol (MCP).

In this episode, Mike and Matt are joined by Alli Deacon of GraceBlood LLC. Alli shares her unique path into the application integration business, her experience incorporating APIs into a world of EDI and ERP's, as well as some of the unique business challenges she has faced and solved in sorting out increasingly complex supply chains for her customers.

In this episode, Mike talks to Matt and Stephen Fishman about their new book, Unbundling the Enterprise. They dig into what the authors learned about the business side of APIs from interviewing experts from more than 20 organizations. Unbundling the Enterprise - https://itrevolution.com/product/unbundling-the-enterprise/ Design Rules by Carliss Baldwin & Kim Clark - https://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/1856/Design-Rules-Volume-1The-Power-of-Modularity The Yegge Rant - https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse452/23wi/papers/yegge-platform-rant.html

In this inaugural episode for Season 2 of the API Experience podcast, Mike and Matt discuss the API-related topics they feel will have the most significance in 2025. They cover the business value of APIs, the intersection of AI and APIs, new API standards, and many more topics.

In this episode, Mike and Matt look back on and share clips from all the great API Experience Season 1 episodes.

In this episode, Matt and Mike talk with Markus and Marilena Mueller of APIIDA about the new challenges organizations face in managing APIs, and the new techniques needed to meet those challenges.

In this episode, Matt and Mike talk with Sanjay Nagaraj, co-founder and CTO at Traceable.ai. Sanjay shares his experience in the API security domain, his background in AI, and insights on how those worlds come together. Read more from Sanjay in InfoWorld: https://www.infoworld.com/article/3709450/the-state-of-api-security-in-2023.html

In this episode, Mike and Matt jump headlong into the concept of composability, for both software architectures and digital business. They trace the roots of composability way back to the early days of computing, and show the common thread that runs through the more recent movements around Service Oriented Architecture, Domain Driven Design, API First, and Microservices. There are many resources mentioned in this episode: Matt's Infoworld article on SOA and Microservices - https://www.infoworld.com/article/3080611/learning-from-soa-5-lessons-for-the-microservices-era.html Gartner on Composable Business - https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/gartner-keynote-the-future-of-business-is-composable David Parnas' paper introducing information hiding - https://www.win.tue.nl/~wstomv/edu/2ip30/references/criteria_for_modularization.pdf Mel Conway's paper introducing Conway's Law - https://www.melconway.com/Home/pdf/committees.pdf Djikstra on separation of concerns - https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD04xx/EWD447.html Alan Kay on message passing - https://wiki.c2.com/?AlanKayOnMessaging Rechtin on Systems Architecting - https://sdincose.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/TheArtOfSystemsEngineering_inaugural.pdf Dr. Carliss Baldwin's Design Rules - https://www.biblio.com/book/design-rules-vol-1-power-modularity/d/1573116839 Roy Fielding defining REST - https://ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm#sec_5_3_2 James Lewis & Martin Fowler defining Microservices - https://martinfowler.com/articles/microservices.html Jonathan Murray on Composable Enterprise - https://adamalthus.com/blog/2013/04/04/the-composable-enterprise/

In this episode, Matt and Mike talk with Audrey Kolski, API Product Management Consultant for The API Collective, about how to treat APIs as products. Audrey shares her experience working on high scale API products, and her opinions on the best way to productize APIs and get value from them.

Data is at the center of the AI revolution, and has always been the foundation of web APIs. In this episode, Swagata Ashwani--Principal Data Scientist at Boomi--joins Mike and Matt to share her expertise and experience on data science, showing the most important areas where APIs and data intersect.

On this episode, Mike and Matt are joined by Aden Forshaw, CEO of That API Company. Aden shares the story of how a personal hack project turned into an API product that is now used by countless individuals and organizations to learn the API space. Within that story, there are many lessons about managing the lifecycle of an API, and especially how to build and nurture an API community. Which is more popular: the Cat API or the Dog API? Have a listen to find out! For the full story of the Cat API, check out the blog here: https://thatapicompany.com/the-cat-api-a-different-measurement-of-success/ For all API Experience episodes, check out our homepage here: https://boomi.com/boomi-podcasts/

In this episode, Matt and Mike share festive wishes for the global API community, and Mike recounts what he experienced and learned at the API Days Paris event earlier in December. He covers the diversity of topics, the growing diversity of the API community itself, and articulates some of his main observations around API protocols, API product maturity, and the unavoidable elephant in the room: AI. Happy holidays to all our listeners!

Much of the guidance we give and receive in the tech industry–and especially in the API community–assumes constant, limitless access to the World Wide Web, or at least to high speed, high scale corporate networks. But what if web access is heavily constrained, or if there is no access at all? In this episode of the API Experience, Matt and Mike welcome Nelly Cheboi and Tyler Cinnamon, founders of Techlit Africa, to share their story of bringing digital information and education to children who might not otherwise have access to the web or even to computers, and the amazing outcomes that access has created. NOTE: Nelly was awarded CNN Hero of the Year in 2022.

In this episode, Mike and Matt dive into the hottest topic in tech: Artificial Intelligence. Using the recent OpenAI Developer Keynote as a springboard, they dive into the role of APIs in the AI ecosystem, especially GenAI. They cover the emergence of AI-driven Agents and API-powered Actions, note some significant historical references, and there's even a mention of everyone's favourite AI pioneer, Clippy.

In this episode, Matt and Mike sit down with their friend Erik Wilde to talk about the past and future of API Management. Erik shares insights from his recent talk and article, "Quo Vadis, API Management?" The discussion covers the relationship between web best practices and APIs, the importance of having a business perspective on APIs, and the idea of cultivating an API landscape.

In this episode, Matt and Mike are joined by Claire Barrett, Director at APIsFirst, Co-Founder of the API Collective, and Leader of the Women in APIs community. Claire shares her expertise on API strategy, details the areas where people can make the biggest difference, and illustrates these insights through her own experiences working with organizations around the globe. The episode touches on organizational practices, API-specific roles, and new business models such as embedded banking.

On this episode, Irakli Nadareishvili, Managing Director, Global Banking Platform at JP Morgan Chase, joins Matt and Mike to share his guidance on grouping APIs into meaningful platforms, and optimizing those platforms to handle the biggest barrier to scalability: change over time. Check out Irakli's talk on the same subject from API Days (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pZ4vTDhQGY) as well as his blog on the topic (https://www.freshblurbs.com/blog/2023/08/25/api-platforms-scale.html).

In this episode, Matt and Mike are joined by Emily Canon, API Product Manager for PEXA. Emily shares her experiences in becoming an API Product Manager, talks about her day-to-day responsibilities, and highlights the key focus areas for her role. To learn more from Emily, read her article, "What Does an API Product Manager Do?" The episode also briefly features Emily's cat, Louie. Listen now!

In this episode, hosts Matt McLarty and Mike Amundsen introduce listeners to the API Experience Podcast. They take a look across the digital landscape and identify four key focus areas that are currently impacting the world of APIs. First and foremost is the explosion of generative AI, and how it intersects with the API economy. Secondly, they delve into the often overlooked topic of API security. Thirdly, they examine the impact of industry regulations on APIs, and the maturation of business on the web. Lastly, they discuss the frontiers of APIs, where APIs are being used in unexpected places by unexpected parties. Listen and subscribe now!