Casey Muratori’s animation system powered games in franchises like Baldur’s Gate, Elder Scrolls, and Age of Empires. But what makes this conversation particularly valuable isn’t just his technical credentials—it’s his willingness to challenge tech’s sacred cows. We cover how a high school kid ended up at Microsoft witnessing the chaos that led to DirectX, his infamous critique of “clean code” and why object-oriented domain models often solve the wrong problem, and his “drill-down interview” technique that actually reveals whether candidates understand their own code. I even let him interview me on the spot about the ticketing system I built at Amazon.
The AI discussion is where things get interesting. Unlike most people in tech, Casey genuinely doesn’t care about LLMs—not because they’re overhyped, but because he fundamentally enjoys the act of programming itself. To him, having AI write code is like having someone else play piano for you. But he does care deeply about the IP theft iss…
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