Podcast: Stellar Work
Episode: #55 Allen Holub About The Evolution Of Agility And Its AI Future
Pub date: 2026-03-30

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Summary

Agility was supposed to change everything. And it did — just not always in the way we hoped. In this episode, Ben sits down with Allen Holub to talk about how agile methodology shaped the software industry, where it went off the rails, and why AI might be repeating the same mistakes. From the original promise of the Agile Manifesto to the certification industrial complex, and from developer empowerment to the next wave of AI-driven disruption, this is a candid, no-holds-barred conversation about what went wrong and what it takes to actually get it right.

Allen Holub is a software development thought leader, consultant, trainer, and author who helps organizations become more effective at creating software. With a career that started building robots and writing compilers, Allen has since served as CTO for early-stage startups, Principal Architect for a medium-sized one, and Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Mills College where he taught what he calls "real agile," not the Agile-industrial-complex version. He's worked with hundreds of companies from startups to large enterprises, engaging at every level from CEO coaching to mobbing with individual teams. Allen is widely published, with bestselling books like Taming Java Threads and Compiler Design in C (used as a textbook at Berkeley, CalTech, MIT, and IIT), and was a contributing editor at Dr. Dobb's Journal and JavaWorld. He co-moderates the 200K+ member Agile and Lean Software Development group on LinkedIn and is a sought-after international speaker many of his talks are available on YouTube. A dual US-EU citizen, Allen continues to consult and train on both agile process and software architecture, with a focus on building flexible systems that can evolve gracefully over time, with and without AI.

Allen on Linkedn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenholub/

Allens Mail: allen@holub.com

Allens Website: https://holub.com/

Allen on Mastodon: https://mstdn.social/@allenholub

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