Episodes

Paolo Amoroso is the author of the Leanpub book Space Apps for Android: Discover the Best Astronomy and Space Apps. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Paolo about his background, how he got interested in space and astronomy, big changes that have taken place in the way experts can popularize space and astronomy, SpaceX's big...

Diego Zamboni is the author of two Leanpub books, Learning Hammerspoon: Unleash the power of automation on your Mac and Learning CFEngine: Automated System Administration for Sites of Any Size. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Diego about his background, movin...

Alberto Brandolini is the author of the Leanpub book Introducing EventStorming: An act of Deliberate Collective Learning. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Alberto about his background, how he got into programming and eventually consulting, what the EventStorming process is and its relation to domain-driven design, the "dungeon mast...

Rafael Irizarry is the author of the Leanpub book Introduction to Data Science: Data Analysis and Prediction Algorithms with R. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Rafael about his background and how he got into statistics, the fascinating story of his participation in preparing a Harvard study on establishing a mortality rate f...

Michael Plöd is the author of the Leanpub book Hands-on Domain-driven Design - by example: Domain-driven Design practically explained with a massive case study. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Michael about his background and how he got interested in technology, the German hardcore punk scene in the 90s and the fanzine website Michael co-founded at the time, domain-dri...

Jaime González García is the author of the Leanpub book Boost Your Coding Fu With VSCode and Vim: Unleash the power of Vim in Visual Studio Code, boost your productivity and become an even more awesome developer. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Jaime about his background, growing up in a small village in Spain, studying in Sweden and his remarkabl...

Andriy Burkov is the author of the Leanpub book The Hundred-Page Machine Learning Book: Everything you really need to know in Machine Learning in a hundred pages. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Andriy about his background, what it was like studying computer science in a city with no electricity for three years, a little bit about the recent history and politics of Crimea, ...

Derrick Mwiti is the author of the Leanpub book Introductory Tutorials For Machine Learning: Kickstart your Career in Machine Learning. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Derrick about his background, the startup scene in Nairobi and elsewhere in Kenya, whether you need a Computer Science degree to start a career in machine learning, how he ...

Luc P. Beaudoin is the author of the Leanpub book Cognitive Productivity with macOS®: 7 Principles for Getting Smarter with Knowledge. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Luc about meta-effectiveness, postmodernism and the philosophy of science, cognitive productivity, his book, and the launch of his innovative new productivity app Hook.

This int...

Jonathan Boccara is the author of the Leanpub book The Legacy Code Programmer's Toolbox: Practical skills for software professionals working with legacy code. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Jonathan about his background, the gruelling examination process for getting into the French Grandes écoles, how to make presentations with great visualizations, the psychological a...

Sarah K. Peck is the author of the Leanpub book Pregnancy Affirmations: Words of Wisdom for Pregnancy, Birth, New Motherhood and the Postpartum Period. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Sarah about her background, her diverse career, her love of writing, the inspiration behind Startup Pregnant, some pretty serious politics, her book, and at the end, they talk ...

Leonardo Giordani is the author of the Leanpub book Clean Architectures in Python: A practical approach to better software design. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Leonardo about his background, studying telecommunications in Milan, the Amiga computer and its issues running DOOM, the importance of test-driven development in programming, clean software ...

Christoph Molnar is the author of the Leanpub book Interpretable Machine Learning: A Guide for Making Black Box Models Explainable. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Christoph about his background, what it takes to work on a Ph.D., his book and interpretability, as well as machine learning generally, some dystopian possibilities for the future, a...

Jay Hoffmann is the author of the Leanpub book The History of the Web, Volume I. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Jay about his background and career, starting and maintaining a popular newsletter, his book, the history of the web, the challenges the web presents to historians, some of the more interesting stories that he's researched, and at the end, they talk a littl...

Nathan Bransford is a freelance editor and media strategy consultant, an author, and a former literary agent for Curtis Brown. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Nathan about his background, studying English at Stanford during the dot com boom, work as a literary agent, getting published, and current issues facing the book publishing industry.

This interview was recorded on January 9, 2019.

This interview has been edited ...

Sandy Maguire is the author of the Leanpub book Thinking with Types: Type-Level Programming in Haskell. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Sandy about his background, working at Facebook and Google, retiring at a young age and travelling, Haskell, his book, and at the end, they talk a little bit about his experience as a self-published author.

This int...

Brad Sams is the author of the Leanpub book Beneath A Surface: The Story of How Microsoft Overcame a $900 Million Write-Down to Become the Hero of the PC Industry. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Brad about his background, his work for the Blue Whale Web Media Group, being a tech journalist, the tricky business of handling leaks and anonymous sources, his book, and th...

David Vandagriff is known by people in the publishing industry as Passive Guy, his persona on his popular publishing industry blog, The Passive Voice.

In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with David about his background, how he got into the law after studying speech and literature, his early innovations with desktop publishing in the preparation of legal documents, his work in advertising and how he got into the tech wo...

Michael T. Lombardi is the author of the Leanpub course pwshop: A PowerShell 101 Workshop. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Mike about his background in tech, restorative justice and workplace conduct, what PowerShell is, the success of the PowerShell Conference Book in raising money for a scholar...

Orna Ross is an award-winning author and poet who founded the popular Alliance of Independent Authors, an influential professional association for self-published authors.

In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Orna about her background in publishing, the changing roles of literary agents, getting her rights back from a big publisher, the huge transformation in the self-publishing in the recent past, Self-P...

Guerric de Ternay is the author of the Leanpub book The Value Mix: Create meaningful products and services for your audience. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Guerric about his background, how studying law can help you in business, launching fashion brands, the profound ways marketing has changed in the last century, the unique insights he offers to marketers and product-bu...

In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Associate Professor Rebecca Giblin about her background, her e-lending and Author's Interest projects, DRM and creator compensation, the potential role unfair competition law could play in regulating dominant companies, and author compensation in relation the economics of library ebook lending and the book industry generally.

This interview was recorded on September 18, 2018.

The full audio for the interview is ...

In this special episode of the Leanpub Frontmatter podcast, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp interviews Don Tapscott, Chancellor of Trent University, for the Chancellor's Lecture series.

The interview was recorded before a live audience on November 16, 2018.

Don Tapscott is one of the leading authorities in the world on the way technology c...

Zsolt Nagy is the author of the Leanpub book The Charismatic Coder: The Software Developer's Guide to Social Confidence and Emotional Freedom.

In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Zsolt about his background, growing up in Hungary, Jordan Peterson and the importance of the "gotcha moment," online poker and AI, professional development tactics like how to ask fo...

Bill Kasdorf is a partner at the consultancy Publishing Technology Partners, where he provides guidance and insight regarding the publishing industry. He has worked with many well-known companies and institutions, from the scholarly press at Harvard, to the World Bank and the British Library, amongst many others.

In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Bill about his background and how he got interested in the worl...

Chris Fidao is the author of the Leanpub book Servers for Hackers: Server Administration for Programmers. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Chris about his background, how he got into programming, his entry into the world of books and screencasts and independently creating "info products," and at the end, they talk a little bit about his experience as a self-publis...

Sam Halliday is the author of the Leanpub book Functional Programming for Mortals with Scalaz. In this Q&A, which was conducted over email, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Sam about his background, his work, an amazing project to create educational materials in South Africa, the truth about what he thinks about open source, his book, and at the end, they talk a little bit about his experi...

Paul Redmond is the author of the Leanpub book Docker for PHP Developers: A guide to using Docker for PHP development. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Paul about his background, his work for Laravel News and his Bitpress project, his process for writing books, what it's like having a self-published book picked up by a conventional publisher, his book, a...

W. Jason Gilmore is the author of the Leanpub book Easy Laravel 5: A Hands On Introduction Using a Real-World Project. In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Jason about some of his favorite projects from the past few years, including the creation of a system for predicting what books a publisher should be publishing, and a couple of really cool services built using the Larav...

Kristine Kathryn Rusch is a bestselling and award-winning author who also writes a very popular blog on the business side of book publishing, which is an invaluable resource for authors in all genres.

In this interview, Leanpub co-founder Len Epp talks with Kristine about her background as a writer, journalism and politics in the US, the impact of war on the mail-order book business in the US in the ea...