How Kong Was Born: APIs, Hustle, and the Future of AI Infrastructure

The a16z Show

a16z

Science, Innovation, Business, Entrepreneurship, Culture, Disruption, Software Eating The World, Technology

4.4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Augusto Marietti, CEO and cofounder of Kong, has one of the most remarkable founder stories in Silicon Valley history. In this conversation with Martin Casado, Aghi shares how he went from a garage in Milan to building one of the world’s leading API infrastructure companies, surviving years of rejection, living in the U.S. on $1,000 a month, and raising his first $50K while sleeping on Travis Kalanick’s couch. They talk about the near-death moments that defined Kong’s journey, the seven-year grind before breakout success, and how APIs became the “assembly line of software.” Aghi also explains how Kong evolved into the backbone of modern API and AI connectivity, and why the coming wave of AI agents will make APIs more essential than ever.

Transcript

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0:00.0	He opens a closet and there's like all the bananas falling off because one guy is only eating huge bananas.
0:06.0	He opened another closet, there's another mattress with other guys sleeping in a second closet.
0:10.0	Say, okay, this is real.
0:12.0	We had no money. We just take 600 bucks last left to go to United Flight.
0:17.0	And we had 90 days to just make it or break it.
0:20.0	We knew that if we couldn't race, we wouldn't go back to Italy, broke, and that was it.
0:24.5	I think a lot of people don't know or maybe don't appreciate how fast Kong grew when it actually
0:30.5	happened.
0:31.0	So there was seven years of starvation, right?
0:33.6	I mean, it was basically wasn't working.
0:35.7	Every year we do the Founders Award.
0:43.3	The Founders Award is 2,555 stock to the best employee of the company. Why that?
0:45.3	It's 255 days of struggle.
0:47.3	It's just symbolic.
0:49.3	But to remember seven years of struggle, every year is a ritual.
0:52.3	What if the backbone of modern software was forged on $1,000 a month in a borrowed couch?
0:58.5	Today's guest is Augusto Aghi Marietti, CEO and co-founder of Kong.
1:04.3	He joins A16Z general partner, Martine Casado, to trace an improbable path from a garage
1:09.1	in Milan to build a more of the world leading API platforms.
1:12.9	We get into the seven-year grind before breakout, the near-death moments that forced reinvention,
1:17.9	and how APIs became the assembly line of software.
1:21.1	Augie also explains how Kong sits on the flow of everything, from microservices to AI agents,
	...

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