The MCP Myth: Do You Really Need a Unified Agentic Protocol?

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The MCP Myth: Do You Really Need a Unified Agentic Protocol?

Hosted by Yan Wang, PhD

716 students

What you'll learn

Why was MCP created in the first place?

Understand the hidden business and technical motivations behind the push for a unified protocol in the LLM ecosystem.

How can you strategically leverage MCP?

Gain practical insights into making informed choices about MCP adoption based on real-world trade-offs.

When should you actually avoid MCP?

Discover scenarios where adopting MCP could slow you down rather than accelerate your development.

Why this topic matters

It’s easy to assume “one protocol to rule them all” must be the answer. But adopting a standard like MCP requires stepping back first: why was it created, whose interests does it serve, and does it align with your actual business goals? By tracing the history of the industry’s scramble for standards, you’ll gain the foresight to decide if it truly solves your problems—or introduces new ones.

You'll learn from

Yan Wang, PhD

Staff Applied Scientist @ Samsara

Yan Wang has devoted his passion into building working solutions to complicated engineering problems since he got his PhD degree in Columbia University. With emphasis on tailored mechanism, continuous innovation, and specialized tools, Yan consistently delivered algorithms and systems to Photoshop, Bing, and Pinterest, which have benefited millions of people and got widely reported by global media. Yan also contributed to pushing the boundary of science by publishing ~40 papers on top conferences/journals and inventing ~20 US patents.

Previously at