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Brad Axen spent his PhD running experiments at CERN before spending the last ten years at Block, where he wrote the original code for Goose, one of the earliest open-source AI agents. These days he leads AI capabilities across the company, including the internal bots that now run parts of Cash App, Square, and Block's own engineering org.
In this episode, he tells Liam Lawson about a pattern showing up across offices right now: someone asks a question, gets sent to "ask their agent," and ends up copying answers back and forth between coworkers. Brad calls it "meat proxy," and it's part of why Block built Buzz, a workspace where AI agents sit in the same conversation as the humans, instead of behind each person separately.
Also available on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.