Python documentary companion pod (Changelog Interviews #656)

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5d ago 1:54:19

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Our friends at Cult.Repo launched their epic Python documentary on August 28th, 2025! To celebrate, we sat down with Travis Oliphant –creator of NumPy, SciPy, and more– to get his perspective on how Python took over the software world.

Stick around for the twist ending! We set aside Python and dissect Travis’ big idea to make open source projects financially sustainable through direct investment.

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Featuring:

Travis Oliphant – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
Jerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

Show Notes:

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Chapters

1. This week on The Changelog (00:00:00)

2. Sponsor: Depot (00:01:05)

https://depot.dev

3. Start the show! (00:03:17)

4. Python dramas (00:04:28)

5. Python as ecosystem (00:06:24)

6. Come for the language... (00:09:00)

7. Dongle gate (00:11:46)

8. Coming to Python (00:12:52)

9. The SciKits emerge (00:22:35)

10. Key language features (00:25:35)

11. How features get in (00:27:53)

12. NumPy's story (00:30:09)

13. Why not Ruby? (00:32:39)

14. Early adopters (00:38:01)

15. Sponsor: Auth0 (00:41:28)

https://auth0.com/ai

16. Someone had to do NumPy (00:42:56)

17. NumPy's success (00:44:22)

18. Based on a true story (00:45:27)

19. Python in industry (00:46:27)

20. Goldman Sachs messed up (00:48:29)

21. The pain of closed source (00:50:58)

22. Community demand (00:53:00)

23. Google Borg / K8s (00:56:56)

24. Corporate constraints (00:57:47)

25. Open source as resumé (01:00:58)

26. Thoughts on Mojo (01:04:12)

27. FairOSS (01:14:11)

28. Incentives (01:22:46)

29. Are you doing this? (01:24:51)

30. Impedance mismatch? (01:25:27)

31. Imagine it running (01:26:39)

32. Selling the idea (01:28:32)

33. Scrutinizing FairOSS (01:32:17)

34. Clear next steps (01:36:49)

35. Public benefit corps (01:38:31)

36. Drumming up interest (01:41:57)

37. Raising the stakes (01:43:29)

38. tea.xyz (01:45:43)

39. Adam shares Adam shares an idea (01:46:50)

40. Adam shares another idea (01:48:15)

41. Wrapping up (01:52:23)

42. Closing thoughts (01:52:38)

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