From Human-Readable to Machine-Usable: The New API Stack

In this episode of the podcast, Ben Lorica interviews Sagar Batchu, co-founder and CEO of Speakeasy, about the company's mission to simplify API development and release for businesses. Sagar discusses how Speakeasy helps companies create usable and maintainable APIs, especially in light of AI and LLMs becoming major API consumers. He explains the evolution of API development, from homegrown solutions to more structured toolchains, and how Speakeasy fits into the development workflow by working with OpenAPI and CICD. The conversation covers the role of AI in accelerating API adoption, the importance of protocols like MCP (Model Context Protocol) for tool calling, and Speakeasy's role in helping companies build, curate, and host MCP servers. They also discuss security considerations for MCP servers, the potential for MCP to expand the API market by enabling non-technical users to interact with APIs through chat interfaces, and the future of agent-to-agent protocols. Sagar also shares insights on the governance of MCP and what's lacking in tooling for developers building on agents and MCP servers.