Refactored in prison (Interview)

The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source

Preston Thorpe joins us from inside prison, where he awaits a hopeful release within the next 12 months. His journey has been anything but easy—marked by hardship and uncertainty. But over the past few years, Preston has undergone a profound transformation. He’s refactored not just his skills, but his identity. Today, he proudly calls himself a software engineer and an open source contributor. In this episode, Preston shares his story of redemption, resilience, and what comes next.

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Sponsors:

• Retool – The low-code platform for developers to build internal tools — Some of the best teams out there trust Retool…Brex, Coinbase, Plaid, Doordash, LegalGenius, Amazon, Allbirds, Peloton, and so many more – the developers at these teams trust Retool as the platform to build their internal tools. Try it free at retool.com/changelog
• Depot – 10x faster builds? Yes please. Build faster. Waste less time. Accelerate Docker image builds, and GitHub Actions workflows. Easily integrate with your existing CI provider and dev workflows to save hours of build time.
• Outshift by Cisco – AGNTCY is an open source collective building the Internet of Agents. It’s a collaboration layer where AI agents can communicate, discover each other, and work across frameworks. For developers, this means standardized agent discovery tools, seamless protocols for inter-agent communication, and modular components to compose and scale multi-agent workflows.

Featuring:

• Preston Thorpe – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn
• Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
• Jerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

Show Notes:

• Preston Thorpe - My Story
• Preston Thorpe - About
• GitHub – PThorpe92
• Unlocked Labs
• exa – Replacement for ls
• eza – Modern replacement for exa
• micro – Terminal-based text editor
• The Stanford Prison Experiment

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Bab

1. This week on The Changelog (00:00:00)

2. Sponsor: Retool (00:01:07)

https://retool.com/changelog

3. Start the show! (00:03:57)

4. How did you end up here? (00:07:04)

5. Access and distrobution (00:10:28)

6. Dr*g flow (00:14:02)

7. Multiple offenses (00:20:14)

8. Sponsor: Depot (00:35:53)

https://depot.dev

9. First steps to writing software (00:38:14)

10. Your choice is your superpower (00:43:33)

11. The best life hack? (00:45:49)

12. You've made a choice. They can make a choice. (00:47:45)

13. Getting into open source (00:51:17)

14. Contributing to `exa` (01:00:05)

15. Sponsor: Outshift by Cisco (01:04:33)

https://agntcy.org

16. Applying new skills (01:05:37)

17. You seem to be on the tip (01:14:02)

18. Plans for next? (01:17:04)

19. Scared of what's next? (01:18:19)

20. Thanks to Prime and others (01:19:55)

21. The humans in our loop (01:23:02)

22. Thoughts on prison reform (01:25:17)

23. The Stanford Prison Experiment (01:29:49)

https://www.prisonexp.org

24. Wrapping up (01:39:11)

25. Closing thoughts and stuff (01:40:35)