David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) is a Danish programmer, entrepreneur, and racing driver best known for creating Ruby on Rails - the open-source web framework that powered GitHub, Shopify, Airbnb, and thousands of other companies. As CTO and co-owner of 37signals (makers of Basecamp and HEY email), he is one of tech's most outspoken critics of venture capital culture, cloud computing excess, and hustle-culture mythology. A 12-time Le Mans competitor with a class championship in 2014, DHH is also a bestselling author (REWORK, Remote) and a prolific open-source contributor whose side projects routinely reshape developer culture.
Jacob Kaplan-Moss is one of the co-creators of Django, the Python web framework that powers Instagram, Pinterest, and thousands of other sites worldwide. After 25+ years building and leading software teams - from a Kansas newspaper where Django was born, to Heroku's security org, to 18F's government tech unit - he walked away from the tech industry in 2024, training as an EMT and volunteering with search and rescue. He remains a board member of the Django Software Foundation, publishes the 'jacobian' newsletter on engineering craft, and is known for his influential writing on hiring, documentation, and the 'programming talent myth'.