The Next Era of Observability: Founders’ Reflections
Join Honeycomb Co-founders, Christine Yen and Charity Majors, as they revisit their most controversial takes from 2016.
"We were right about everything (except the parts we were wrong about)."
Join Honeycomb Co-founders, Christine Yen and Charity Majors, as they revisit their most controversial takes from 2016—the ones that made people uncomfortable, the ones that became industry standard, and the ones we're still defending (or backing away from). You’ll see what we got right, what we got wrong, and what we’ll do next.
AI has changed how software behaves, but not what it takes to understand it. Systems are now nondeterministic by design, unfold over time instead of single transactions, and generate real cost with every interaction. When something goes wrong, leaders need context and clarity, not more dashboards.
In this fireside chat, we explore why AI makes observability more urgent: why uncertainty is now the operating model, why tokens are the new unit of compute, and why preserving context is essential for confident decision-making. We discuss how observability must evolve to reduce cognitive load, support human judgment, and help leaders steer increasingly complex systems. As Christine puts it: “The future of software isn't human or AI, it's human plus AI, connected by observability.”
What we cover
- 2016 reflections: Looking back on controversial takes about the monitoring industry when Honeycomb was just starting out
- 2026 predictions: Looking forward to where the observability industry is headed and how Honeycomb is building for the future, specifically how the platform is evolving to support new AI-first imperatives
- AMA: Charity and Christine answered a bunch of hard questions, both live and pre-submitted.