Irina Nazarova, CEO @ Evil Martians | Building Better Software With Rails

Irina Nazarova runs Evil Martians, one of the most respected Ruby on Rails agencies in the world.

In this episode of CTO Confidential, Mike and Irina discuss her journey from C++ engineer to CEO, why Rails is experiencing a renaissance with AI, and how Evil Martians monetizes open source projects like AnyCable while running a successful consultancy.

Topics covered:

Why imposter syndrome affects almost everyone in tech

The Rails renaissance driven by AI and agentic coding

Dynamic languages vs typed languages for fast experimentation

How AnyCable monetizes open source infrastructure

Positioning agencies around customer verticals, not tech stacks

Why durable streams and WebSockets matter for real-time apps

How StackBlitz became Bolt.new using web containers

Building sustainable businesses around open source

If you're a CTO, agency owner, or engineer trying to understand how to build sustainable businesses around open source, this conversation gives you the blueprint.

Build with Rails. Build with agentic coding. Be more ambitious.

https://evilmartians.com/

https://anycable.io/

https://sfruby.com/

https://imgproxy.net/

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