It Ships While You Sleep. The AI Agent OS a Former Google Engineer Built After Leaving Google.

This week we sat down with David Petrou, CEO of Continua, to demo Wheely — an agent development operating system built for developers running multiple AI coding agents who are hitting the wall of mental overhead. David spent 18 years at Google, was on the founding teams of Google Glass and Google Goggles, and left when ChatGPT launched. We also covered the foldable iPhone, Android vs Apple for AI agents, Fable 5.1, Anthropic vs OpenAI on developer experience, and whether new programming languages designed for agents are coming.

We cover:

• What Wheely is and why David calls it an agent development operating system
• 18 years at Google, Google Glass, Google Goggles, and why he left to start a company
• The pivot from social AI to building the OS layer for multi-agent coding
• Why token costs dropping does not solve the human attention problem
• How Wheely decomposes problems, allocates agents, and knows when to interrupt you
• Why Git and GitHub were designed for humans and need to be rethought for agents
• How agent coding can modernize legacy code and rebuild bloated React frontends
• Who Wheely is actually built for and why the middle space is the opportunity
• Why new programming languages designed specifically for agents could unlock major efficiency gains
• Apple vs Android for AI — best hardware vs best OS for agent use cases
• How Android can disintermediate apps by running them simultaneously off screen
• Fable 5.1, Gemini 3.8 Flash, and the honest developer take on Anthropic vs OpenAI
• The coevolution of models, harnesses, and programming languages
• Whether the foldable iPhone matters if agent coding eliminates the need for extra screen real estate

If you are building with AI agents, working in dev tools, or want to understand where the agent coding stack is heading, this episode is for you.

Find David and Wheely:

Website: wheelie.dev

Twitter: x.com/dpetrou

New episodes every Friday at BuiltThisWeek.com

TIMESTAMPS

[00:00] Intro

[01:07] Meet David — CEO of Continua and creator of Wheely

[01:56] Google Glass, Google Goggles, 18 years at Google

[02:40] Why he left Big Tech when ChatGPT launched

[05:18] The previous product — social AI for group chats

[06:36] When coding agents changed everything

[08:03] How building for agents internally became the real opportunity

[08:56] Who Wheely is built for

[09:46] What happens when you run 4 agents at once

[10:17] Human attention is the scarcest resource in agent coding

[11:16] How Wheely works — decompose, allocate, optimize, interrupt only when needed

[13:05] The space between Claude Code and Lovable

[14:05] Modernizing legacy code and greenfield agent projects

[15:18] Why React is bloated and agents can rebuild frontends better

[16:11] News — Apple foldable iPhone coming Q3

[17:29] Apple unified memory vs Android open OS for AI agents

[18:27] Android disintermediating apps with off-screen agent execution

[20:24] Will the foldable iPhone matter if agents take over development

[20:48] Fable 5.1 launch — honest developer take

[22:10] Anthropic vs OpenAI on developer experience and harness access

[23:17] New programming languages designed for agents

[25:19] The coevolution of models, harnesses, and programming languages

[25:40] Where to find David and Wheely

[25:55] Wrap up

#AI #AIAgents #Wheely #DevTools #GoogleGlass #BuildWithAI #BuiltThisWeek #Anthropic #Fable #Apple #iPhone