Episode 34 / Aug 22, 2026

7 questions with Craig Kerstiens: AI is like 100 farm hands you don't have to feed

Craig Kerstiens, our first guest on the show, has been a leader at tech companies sold to Salesforce, Microsoft, and Snowflake. John asks him 7 questions about his story and how he uses AI.

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The conversation in writing

Show notes

Summary

Craig Kerstiens is an engineer and product leader who was part of three major database acquisitions over the last decade, which he says happened "all by accident."

John sat down with him at the Carolina Code Conference to ask 7 questions about his story and how he uses AI:

Give us your background story
What's a surprising hobby or interest you have?
Describe AI to someone in 1900
What is the most positive impact of AI?
What is the most negative impact of AI?
What's exciting to you when you think about AI several years out?
What are tips and tricks you would share as someone who works with AI everyday?

Key takeaways

AI is making engineering fun again
Anyone can build any kind of "personal software" they want, for only themselves
AI has entered mainstream use in enterprise companies
Whatever you do, do it the AI way first

Notable mentions and links

John interviewed Craig at the Carolina Code Conference in Greenville, South Carolina
You can learn about Craig Kerstiens on his website and his LinkedIn profile.
Craig worked at Heroku, which sold to Salesforce.
Craig was part of Citus Data, which sold to Microsoft.
Craig was Chief Product Officer at Crunchy Data, which sold to Snowflake.

Every word of the conversation

Transcript

Find a word or phrase

00:00:00,600 --> 00:00:15,840 [Eric Dodds]

[instrumental music] Welcome back to the Token Intelligence Show. John, number one, we're both wearing shorts. That's because it's August-

00:00:15,840 --> 00:00:16,170 [John Wessel]

It's so hot

00:00:16,170 --> 00:00:19,180 [Eric Dodds]

... in South Carolina. [chuckles] And...

00:00:19,180 --> 00:00:21,270 [John Wessel]

90, 97, I don't know.

00:00:21,270 --> 00:00:21,280 [Eric Dodds]

Yeah.

00:00:21,280 --> 00:00:22,180 [John Wessel]

It feels like 97-

00:00:22,180 --> 00:00:22,320 [Eric Dodds]

Yeah

00:00:22,320 --> 00:00:23,360 [John Wessel]

... even though it's only at 95, but...

Related conversation / Episode 33

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Explore this episode ↗

Token Intelligence

The conversation

Summary

Craig Kerstiens is an engineer and product leader who was part of three major database acquisitions over the last decade, which he says happened "all by accident."

John sat down with him at the Carolina Code Conference to ask 7 questions about his story and how he uses AI:

Give us your background story

What's a surprising hobby or interest you have?

Describe AI to someone in 1900

What is the most positive impact of AI?

What is the most negative impact of AI?

What's exciting to you when you think about AI several years out?

What are tips and tricks you would share as someone who works with AI everyday?

Notable mentions and links

John interviewed Craig at the Carolina Code Conference in Greenville, South Carolina

You can learn about Craig Kerstiens on his website and his LinkedIn profile.

Craig worked at Heroku, which sold to Salesforce.

Craig was part of Citus Data, which sold to Microsoft.

Craig was Chief Product Officer at Crunchy Data, which sold to Snowflake.