Chris Bach: The Origins of Decoupled and Composable Web Architectures – Episode 203

Chris Bach Over the past ten years, Chris Bach has been at the forefront of the transformation of web development. Chris coined the term "Jamstack," which refers to one of the first conceptions of a composable web architecture (the acronym JAM accounts for the JavaScript, APIs, and markdown that make up a simple decoupled web system). He also founded Netlify, a company that supports these new architectures and which now serves tens of millions of customers. We talked about: his role as the co-founder of Netlify the origin story of Netlify and decoupled web architectures how the JAMstack movement arose in the tech ecosystem of ten years ago how phone app stores set the stage for decoupling apps from data the technical developments that permitted the development of this new ecosystem: cloud computing, APIs, Git, static site generators, more capable browsers, etc. their development of the open-source developer community that supports the JAMstack ecosystem the emergence of headless CMSs alongside the JAMstack ecosystem how his 14-year experience in digital agency work informed his work at Netlify how issues like performance, security, and scalability show up in the JAMstack world the benefits of decoupling back-end services and front-end web presentation the advantages that composable architectures offer: simpler migrations, quicker time to market, reduced operational costs, etc. the evolution of his conversations with enterprise clients over the past 10 years how composable architectures permit better decision making and quicker action around adopting new technologies like generative AI how generative AI is changing content marketing and his thought that less content of higher quality will be crucial going forward Chris's bio Chris Bach. Serial entrepreneur, unicorn founder (Netlify), co-creator of the "Jamstack" terminology, featured as a "2024 top 60 angel investors that back B2B startups" by Business Insider, and outside of 50+ angel investments he sits on 15 advisory and executive boards. He also an advisor for TUM (Technical University of Munich), Copenhagen University, and the Danish Innovation Center. Danish but lives in Silicon Valley. Connect with Chris online LinkedIn Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/88Cr6nh6xjc Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 203. Ten years ago, web development was in a very different place. New technologies like cloud computing, APIs, Git repos, static site generators, and headless CMSs were emerging, but how they might all work together wasn't yet clear. Into this primordial version of the modern web stepped Chris Bach. Chris co-founded Netlify, an innovative development platform which has been instrumental in creating the web's new decoupled and composable architectures. Interview transcript Larry: Okay, here we go. Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 203 of the Content Strategy Insights Podcast. I am really excited today to welcome to the show Chris Bach. Chris is the co-founder at Netlify, a web services company, a development platform where probably most of the stuff you look at on the web is happening over there. He's also an advisor to a lot of other companies, an investor. He sits as an executive on a number of boards. So welcome, Chris. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days. Chris: Thanks for having me. Yes, I am the co-founder of Netlify, as you said, a developer platform. We run a lot of site stores, applications, and so on. For the last three and a half years, I've been CSO there, so a little less operational. And then I actually just stepped out of my full-time role there. So now I still sit on the board. I continue my work as an advisor, as an investor, and as a board member. Also looking at a little bit of climate tech, which is a little outside the scope of today's conversat...