David Khourshid
Creator of XState, founder of Stately. Speaks on AI agents, state machines and React state management.
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Short bio
David Khourshid is the creator of XState, the most popular state machine and statecharts library for JavaScript, and the founder of Stately (stately.ai). He speaks and teaches on event-driven modeling, visual diagramming and state machines as the foundation for reliable UIs and AI agents. When heâs not at a computer keyboard, heâs at a piano keyboard.
Medium bio
David Khourshid is a software engineer, the creator of XState and the founder of Stately, a platform of tools and services for visual software modeling. XState has over 30,000 stars on GitHub and roughly 3 million npm downloads per week. Before founding Stately in 2021, David was a software engineer at Microsoft working on Visual Studio Live Share. He has taught five courses on Frontend Masters, watched for 37,790 hours, and has spoken at conferences including JSConf, React Advanced London, React Summit, ReactiveConf, YOW! and Agent Conf. A trained pianist, he lives in Orlando, Florida.
Long bio
David Khourshid is a software engineer, the creator of XState and the founder of Stately, a platform of tools and services for visual software modeling. XState has over 30,000 stars on GitHub and roughly 3 million npm downloads per week. Before founding Stately in 2021, David was a software engineer at Microsoft working on Visual Studio Live Share. He has taught five courses on Frontend Masters, watched for 37,790 hours, and has spoken at conferences including JSConf, React Advanced London, React Summit, ReactiveConf, YOW! and Agent Conf. A trained pianist, he lives in Orlando, Florida. His talk âGoodbye, useEffectâ has been viewed more than 500,000 times on YouTube. He is a longtime advocate for event-driven modeling and visual diagramming as the foundation for reliable user interfaces and, increasingly, AI agents. Through workshops and advisory work he helps engineering teams model complex logic as state machines and statecharts so it is easier to understand, test and change.
By the numbers
Signature talks
Goodbye Slop; Welcome Determinism
Agent rules hidden inside a long prompt become harder to inspect, test and trust. Explicit state machines make agent behavior observable while leaving room for models to handle the flexible work. For: ai engineering, product & platform teams.
Goodbye, useEffect
From fetching data to fighting imperative APIs, side effects are one of the biggest sources of frustration in React. A better mental model for effects, and where they really belong. For: react & frontend teams.
Goodbye, useState
useState is fine for simple component state, until it isnât. Patterns for state management that scale with your app instead of against it. For: react & full-stack teams.
Stop Drawing Pointless Arrows: Taming Complexity with Diagrams
Diagrams that actually mean something: using statecharts to make complex behavior visible, reviewable and executable. For: architects, staff engineers, product.
Making State Management Intelligent
Managing state is complicated, and humans are even more complicated. Adaptive, intelligent interfaces built on explicit models of behavior. For: frontend & ux engineering.
Selected past events
JSConf Iceland (2016, 2018), CSSconf EU 2017, CSSConf Budapest 2019, CSSConf Australia, dotCSS 2019, React Rally (2017, 2019, 2023), ReactiveConf (2018, 2019), React Finland (2018â2022), ReactNext (2019, 2021, 2022), React Summit Remote 2021, React Advanced London 2022, Reactathon (2022, 2023), RenderATL 2022, React Miami 2024, React Conf AU 2020, React Alicante (2019, 2022â2024), React fwdays 2021, Nordic.js (2017, 2019), HolyJS, Uphill Conf 2019, Craft Conference (2019, 2024), Ăredev 2022, JSHeroes 2023, Infobip Shift 2021, RxJS Live (2019), DevFest Florida (2017, 2019), FEDC Taiwan 2018, JSDC Taiwan, Effect Days 2024, YOW! Australia 2024, Agent Conf (2020, 2023, 2026), Algolia DevBit 2025, Beyond the Prompt 2026.
Handles
X (Twitter) @DavidKPiano, GitHub davidkpiano, YouTube @DavidKPiano, LinkedIn davidkpiano, Stately stately.ai
Booking
Fees and rider: davidk.dev/speaking. Inquiries: davidk.dev/contact or david@stately.ai.