Hal Berenson is the founder of Gaia Platform, a platform that supports software development for autonomous machines. He’s also a board member of Auger AI. Hal brings more than 45 years of tech experience to these positions, having held a number of different positions over the years, including VP of Relational Database Services at AWS, a distinguished engineer and general manager at Microsoft, and the president of True Mountain Group, LLC, among other roles. He also ran a Colorado farm with his wife for five years.

Join Corey and Hal as they talk about what Hal’s 45-year career in tech has been like, how new cloud features tend to be not fully baked when they’re initially released, how designing high-end features for enterprise customers hurts smaller shops, some moves Hal thinks stifled the growth of SQL Server, what Microsoft does to make sure it classifies employees and contractors correctly, what it was like being one of the oldest VPs at AWS, how Hal has “retired” three times and why he comes back, why Hal thinks some engineers get “stuck” at companies, and more.