Talks
I speak about infrastructure, observability, and the agent systems built on top — usually with more technical detail than keynote fog. Recent stops include ElasticON and AWS re:Invent.
Past
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Agent Infrastructure and Tool Transformation
Talked with the CodeRabbit team about the realities of building infrastructure for autonomous agents, why most OpenAPI tool dumps fail, and how we're approaching the problem with FastMCP.
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FastMCP, Production Realities, and Why Tools Break
Joined FastMCP creator Jeremiah Lowin to discuss why I became a core maintainer, the challenges of stateful loops, and how we're building the layer that makes sure agents actually see the right data from 1,200 potential tools without hallucinating.
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Launching Elastic Serverless
Led Elastic’s largest product launch in a decade, Elastic Serverless, on the AWS re:Invent stage. Covered the shift to fully serverless Elasticsearch, the ingest pipeline behind it, and what customers no longer need to think about.
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Observability Roadmap
Regular keynote speaker at Elastic’s flagship conference. I cover the Observability roadmap, GenAI integration, Search, and Security wherever the Ingest portfolio is shaping what Elastic ships next.
Topics I'll happily go deep on
- Model Context Protocol, production MCP, and tool transformation
- Agent infrastructure — how agents actually consume observability signals
- OpenTelemetry, EDOT, and the serverless ingest story
- Running an open-source portfolio inside a public company
- Security-minded AI: trust boundaries, tool surfaces, and what I learned as a CTO
Inviting me to speak? Email bill@strawgate.com with the event, the format, and the audience you're expecting. I prefer 20–40 minute talks, rooms that like technical detail, and venues within two time zones of Madison.