Agents & Crumbles
Where agentic engineering meets real-world strategy.
A podcast for founders, CTOs, and engineering leaders navigating the agentic AI era. Each episode unpacks a real challenge in AI strategy, agentic engineering, or the shifting landscape of software development. Solo episodes deliver deep technical insight. Guest conversations bring operator-level experience from people building and shipping AI-native products.
Agents & Crumbles
with Krishna Halaharvi
About the Host
Hosted by Krishna Halaharvi, an AI-First Fractional CTO with 13+ years building engineering teams at enterprise scale. Krishna brings an opinionated, practitioner-first perspective grounded in real experience scaling AI systems, establishing governance frameworks, and leading engineering organizations through the shift to AI-native development.
What We Cover
Every episode maps to one of four content pillars that connect directly to the challenges engineering leaders face today.
Agentic Engineering
Agent design patterns, tool-use, planning, memory, multi-agent orchestration, and building reliable agent pipelines for production.
AI Strategy & Enablement
AI readiness assessment, adoption metrics, build vs. buy decisions, governance frameworks, and ROI models for AI investments.
The Shift in Software Engineering
AI-augmented development, team structures for AI-native orgs, the evolving CTO role, and platform engineering in the age of agents.
Fractional CTO Playbook
What a fractional CTO actually does in week 1, building governance from scratch, pricing, positioning, and real engagement stories.
Episode Format
Two distinct formats, each serving a different purpose. Every episode features “The Crumble” — what old assumption is breaking apart because of this topic.
Solo Episodes
15-25 minutes
Deep dives into frameworks, original thinking, and unfiltered takes on industry shifts. This is where signature concepts like the AI Readiness Matrix get introduced and real architectural decisions get broken down.
Guest Episodes
30-45 minutes
Conversations with AI/ML engineering leaders, startup founders, developer tool builders, and enterprise AI leaders. Operator-level stories from people building and shipping AI-native products.
First Episodes
The first three episodes are designed to establish the show premise, demonstrate deep technical credibility, and give listeners immediate value.
Why Every CTO Needs an Agentic Strategy
A Series B startup built a demo agent in a hackathon, got their board excited, and then spent 6 months unable to get it to production. What went wrong? They had a technology project without an agentic strategy.
Vector Databases Are Not Your Strategy
Every pitch deck in 2026 mentions vector databases. But companies spend months optimizing their embedding strategy when their real problem is that their data is garbage.
AI Adoption Metrics That Actually Matter
A CEO asked me last month, "How do I know if our AI investments are working?" Their team had shipped 4 AI features and had no idea if any of them were actually moving the needle.
Be the first to listen.
Agents & Crumbles is currently in production. Subscribe to the newsletter to get notified when the first episode drops, plus weekly insights on AI strategy and agentic engineering.