The Dark Reality of AI: Why You Won't Be Able to Afford the Future ft. Ahmad Awais | TBT Podcast

Ahmad's LinkedIn:   / mrahmadawais   Connect with me: https://muzamilhasan.com Personal Branding Audit: https://muzamilhasan.com/audit My Instagram:   / muzamilhasan   The world of software engineering is changing faster than we realize, and the AI tools we are building might be leading us into a massive financial bubble. In this episode of Thought Behind Things, Muzamil sits down with Ahmad Awais, the founder and CEO of Command Code, to uncover the reality of the global AI race. Ahmad shares his incredible journey from an electrical engineering student in Multan to an award-winning open-source developer who contributed to the NASA Mars Ingenuity Helicopter mission. We do a deep dive into the underlying tokenomics of AI models, why API inference costs are artificially inflated, and how open-source platforms are fundamentally disrupting the monopolies of Silicon Valley tech giants. Ahmad also sheds light on his frontier coding agent, Command Code, and the lack of branding and community support for Pakistani builders on the global stage. If you want to understand the true cost of the AI boom, how developers are adapting, and what the future of software looks like, you cannot afford to miss this conversation. Topics Covered: Ahmad's unconventional path from Multan to Silicon Valley •⁠ ⁠The truth behind AI tokenomics and API inference costs •⁠ ⁠Why the current AI landscape resembles the dot-com bubble •⁠ ⁠How open-source models are challenging closed ecosystems •⁠ ⁠The branding problem for Pakistani tech talent on the global stage •⁠ ⁠How Command Code is making coding agents accessible to the next billion developers