Podcast Ruined by a Software Engineer · Perry Tiu

The Art of Chunking with Dr. Alexander Kihm | Ep. 59

January 16, 2026·1 hr 59 min·5 clips

Starting with the Lego bricks at three, then first computer at five, disassembled it at six.

Perry starts with honest confusion. The topic is chunking and AI, with RAGs and LLMs floating around, and he plays the software person trying to figure out what Poma AI actually changes. Alex answers through the product. Poma is chunking technology for large libraries of data, including JSON, PDFs, and images, built to give applications cleaner context to work with. The metaphor is all engine: less gas, cleaner structured power, and useful in whatever vehicle the builder wants to make. Then Perry pulls the story backward. He asks how Alex got from an engineering degree to economics PhD work, the German Aerospace Center, Volkswagen, and a lawyer with an online services problem. That is where the episode loosens up. Alex calls the mix strange and personal, and says that, at the end of the day, it fits who he is. He sounds proud of the mismatch. The career thread moves through study, discipline, research, and the urge to explain how things work and how they feel. Perry keeps widening the frame, catching the overlap between software, academic work, and the lawyer who needed a better process. The lawyer directory anecdote has teeth. Around 2000, Alex saw the online lawyer directories already out there and decided a copycat was not worth building. That choice becomes the hinge. He jokes about being arrogant by design, while admitting the first nine players got rich anyway. The missed chance is funny, but it also says something real about timing, judgment, and ego in an early career. So the chunking conversation turns biographical. The episode is about how Alex's current AI tool sits beside old online service ideas, academic detours, and a long habit of making messy information usable.

As heard by us

A practical founder story that turns chunking into a concrete AI problem.

This episode follows a messy career path and turns it into product logic. An engineering degree, an economics PhD, time tied to the German Aerospace Center, and an abandoned idea for a lawyer directory all feed into a company built around chunking.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

See how a rejected lawyer directory became an AI chunking company.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Podcast Ruined by a Software Engineer