MS

Manik Surtani

Things Manik Says on Podcasts

Where to Find Them

Manik Surtani has been a guest on The New Stack Podcast (2 times) and Open Source Startup Podcast .

Recently: “The Future of Agentic AI: Why Open Standards and Interoperability Matter” on The New Stack Podcast (November 2026); “Why Block handed Goose to the Linux Foundation” on The New Stack Podcast (May 2026); “E171: How Companies Like Block Build Viral Open Source Projects” on Open Source Startup Podcast (April 2025).

What They Said

“I buy running shoes and I put all that stuff into an AI, and it helped me narrow down. So all of a sudden now, that replaces advertising. I'm not looking at a billboard. That's not influencing my decision anymore. It's a conversation with an AI that influenced my decision.” — Manik Surtani, The New Stack Podcast

Asked where the customer journey begins in agentic commerce, Surtani says discovery and persuasion now happen in conversations with AI, well before any purchase, which displaces traditional advertising.

The New Stack Podcast · 2026-11-03 Permalink → Listen →
The New Stack Podcast Around 22:06 into the episode
Manik Surtani

…exception of X402. X402 is the only protocol or project in that space that is under a neutral foundation. But X402 also only addresses a relatively small slice of Agentic commerce. There's a much, much broader field there that I think still needs to mature. And I'd love to see how that develops.

Nick Lucchesi

So I just want to ask about sort of where the user journey begins for Agentic Commerce. Like, I just want to have Codex buy plane tickets when they go on sale so I can go to Disneyland with my kid later this year. But like, where does that journey begin? How does it even know that I want that?

Manik Surtani

Yes, that's the interesting thing, right, about Agentic Commerce. It's no longer just going and buying the thing the way you'd think in terms of e-commerce. The journey starts way before that. How do you even know where you want to go? What made you even think you wanted to go on holiday? All of this stuff. Like that product discovery side of things all happens now with AI as well. Like a slightly different example, like buying shoes is one that everyone uses buying shoes as an example. It's an easy one that people understand, but it's also a really realistic one. And it happened to me. I was buying a new pair of running shoes and it's like I can go and look for the same pair of running shoes I'm replacing again. Or, you know what? This is, you know, this is the sort of running I do. This is what I like about my shoes. This is what I don't like about my shoes. What should I think about? And I put all that stuff into an AI. And it helped me narrow down. No, check this brand out. You might prefer this. Or narrowed it down to two or three things. So help me…

Nick Lucchesi

Wow. I am certainly sprinting to that future. Thank you so much, Monica. I appreciate it.

Manik Surtani

Was that pun intended? That wasn't fully intended. I like that. Very important.

Nick Lucchesi

All right. Well, thanks so much. Take care.

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
“I'm finding a lot of projects these days not wanting a fix. They'd rather just want your ideas and your feedback, because generating code is easy enough, and the maintainers can do that themselves. So what they tend to prefer is just talk to them and share your experiences rather than a pull request.” — Manik Surtani, The New Stack Podcast

Asked how a developer who finds a bug should bring it to the Agentic AI Foundation's projects, Surtani says the old answer was a pull request. Now that AI makes code cheap, many maintainers would rather have the conversation.

The New Stack Podcast · 2026-11-03 Permalink → Listen →
The New Stack Podcast Around 15:18 into the episode
Manik Surtani

…and seeing things play out. So a pattern that we might have said, or might have predicted perhaps, and we see a completely different pattern actually being used in real life. It's like, hang on, all that stuff you predicted, all that was wrong, clearly. You didn't need all that. So, yeah.

Nick Lucchesi

Let's just say a developer here has found something that breaks when two implements. Implementations meet, what's the most useful way for them to bring that experience to the work that the AAIF is doing?

Manik Surtani

Oh, just like any other open source project, to join the project, talk to the maintainers, talk to the community. Back in the old days of open source, right, you'd submit a pull request, you'd submit a fix, perhaps. I'm finding a lot of projects these days not wanting a fix, they'd rather just want your ideas and your feedback because generating code is easy enough, and the maintainers can do that themselves. So, what they tend to prefer is just talk to them and share your experiences rather than a pull request.

Nick Lucchesi

Beyond membership growth, how do you tell whether an open source project actually has a healthy community? And where does that community sort of need more support?

Manik Surtani

So, membership growth is only one aspect of the foundation. A much bigger, and in my opinion, more important aspect is the developer community. People who are actually using the code, who are downloading it, who are building on top of it, who are extending it, who are improving it. So, that's sort…

Nick Lucchesi

What's one practical thing you hope people do differently after hearing the news from the AIF, but also after this conference broadly?

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

Collections They Appear In

Hands-On Engineering Podcasts