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Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

S11 E8: Jesse Pollak, Base & Coinbase

Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO

Tech News, News, Business, Technology, Entrepreneurship, Careers

4.6216 Ratings

🗓️ 15 July 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jesse Pollak grew up in Washington, DC, attending a Quaker school through graduating in high school. He played competitive soccer, which was a huge part of his life. Eventually, he moved to SoCal to attend school at Berkley. He got the bug to start a company, and only lasted 2 years at school - before he ventured out on his own. Eventually, his company got acquired by Coinbase, which opened up a whole new world for him. Outside of tech, he is married with a 4 month old boy. He doesn't drink caffeine, but daily, enjoys a decaf cappuccino.

In December 2021, Jesse and his team were wondering in the desert for a while, trying to figure out what was next on-chain. After considering what AWS and Heroic was for Web 2.0, they figured out that in order to go build the apps that companies like Coinbase had, they needed a foundational layer in the ecosystem to fuel that development.

This is the creation story of Base.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This episode is brought to you by Paddle. Don't settle for less when you can have more M-O-R with

0:06.1

Paddle, your merchant of record. Eliminate the headaches of payments, grow your revenue everywhere,

0:11.1

and focus on what you do best, building your product. Get more revenue with less hassle at paddle.com.

0:18.8

Guys, I've got something cool to tell you about.

0:21.4

As an engineering leader, a manager, and an engineer myself,

0:24.4

I'm geeking out over a new product I'm just discovering

0:27.1

that helps me with each of these points of view.

0:29.8

The great team at SEMA, builders of the SEMA intelligence platform,

0:34.1

have been working on what they call the product roadmap radar.

0:38.5

It's this integrated solution that uses generative AI to observe your code and Jira in order to summarize, synthesize,

0:44.4

and make it easier to deliver your roadmap. It not only helps keep your roadmap on track,

0:49.3

but it helps reduce the time engineers spend in meetings. Cue all the engineers clapping.

0:56.0

The product roadmap radar is extremely easy to set up.

0:59.0

This only takes about five minutes, just enable your integrations and let AI do all the mapping for you.

1:04.0

My favorite part? I'm glad you asked.

1:06.0

The radar doesn't just tell you about your roadmap.

1:09.0

It suggests changes you need to make,

1:11.5

based on the code that's been written and the stories that have been addressed. No commenting,

1:16.2

no special setup, all generative AI. It gives you an outside view of your roadmap based on

1:21.8

the code and projects a target completion date based on outstanding work and activity. Again,

1:29.1

no comments, no special setup.

1:33.7

It even detects shadow work when development is being done but Jura isn't being updated.

...

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