At the time of writing (June 2025), the prevailing view in the software industry is that LLM-powered AI is either completely useless or will imminently destroy all software engineering jobs. As you might expect, the reality is somewhere in between. In this post, I’ll share my journey with LLM tooling, from reviewing an early, internal alpha of GitHub Copilot to my current daily usage of Cursor, ChatGPT, and the latest Copilot offerings. My perspective is that of a startup founder (of Workbr...| Mike McQuaid
I left GitHub after 10 years to cofound Raise.dev. After an early failed experiment building IoT developer tools, we pivoted and built Workbrew: an enterprise-friendly layer over Homebrew, a project I’ve maintained since 2009 and led since 2019. Two years in, we’ve raised VC funding, built a remote team, and have happy, paying customers. Here’s what I learned so far.| Mike McQuaid
I’ve worked on a few Ruby apps in my career at varying scales (Homebrew, AllTrails, GitHub, Workbrew) and there’s been a consistent theme: Ruby is great for moving fast (and breaking things).| Mike McQuaid