Mark Hinkle, my AI Confidential co-host, recorded this episode from a van parked on a mountain in Pennsylvania. It reminded me of hitchhiking from the Florida Keys to a remote Pennsylvania cabin when I was 18 years old. It involved a van, a self-proclaimed witch, and a Hell’s Angel. I share this story during the podcast, but this episode isn’t about questionable travel choices. It’s about Marco Palladino, co-founder and CTO of Kong.
Marco’s story is the American (and Silicon Valley founders’) dream. Two Italian immigrants land in San Francisco with nothing. They built an API marketplace (Mashape) and ended up open-sourcing their internal platform. They then grew Kong into the leading independent API management company, now worth billions ($2B). From flooded basement offices to owning the API gateway, service mesh, ingress controller, and now AI gateway markets. It’s a terrific episode.
The headline from our conversation: “Agents are the new API client.”
Marco explains:
- APIs have powered modern software, from SOAP to REST to gRPC.
- Now, autonomous agents are the primary consumers—not human developers.
- These agents need governance, security, observability, and performance from the start.
We also covered:
- Why smaller, specialized models often outperform massive general-purpose ones.
- Why a trust layer is critical as agent use grows.
- How unprotected “AI exhaust” can leak competitive secrets.
If you care about the future of AI infrastructure—or a great founder story—listen to the full episode.
Aaron Fulkerson 