For engineering leaders who want to go deeper.
Raw conversations about agentic AI, engineering leadership, and the organizational changes that separate companies that compound from those that stagnate. Hosted by CodeVine co-founders Wells Burke and Dan Swartz.
No spam. One email when we launch. That's it.
Root Access is named for what it represents: getting beneath the surface of how engineering organizations actually work in the agentic AI era — not the sanitized conference talk version, but the real decisions, real tradeoffs, and real outcomes.
Each episode goes deep with an engineering leader, practitioner, or builder who has actually shipped something in this new era. No panels. No fluff. Just the root-level access most organizations keep private.
First four episodes recorded and ready. Publishing at launch.
The debut episode. Wells Burke on why the most dangerous thing in your engineering org right now isn't a bad hire — it's the knowledge walking out the door with your best AI-native developer.
The commercial case for getting ahead of Shadow AI before your CISO does. Dan Swartz on why blocking AI tools is the wrong instinct — and what actually works.
A deep dive into the Forward Deployed Engineer model that made Palantir's software actually stick. What it means to bring that model to agentic AI — and why software alone never changes behavior.
Most AI ROI decks are either too vague or too narrow. A sitting VP of Engineering walks through the three-layer model that got his $2.4M AI budget renewed — with a 14x return number he could defend.
Two decades building enterprise data and AI platforms. Wells has seen the gap between individual brilliance and organizational capability from both sides — as an engineer and as a builder of engineering organizations.
LinkedIn →Revenue leader who has scaled enterprise SaaS from zero to category-defining. Dan brings the commercial lens — translating engineering capability into business language that moves budgets.
LinkedIn →Our written editorial home. Practical long-form thinking on agentic AI, engineering leadership, and the future of software teams — no fluff, no thought leadership theater.
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