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Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

S12 E10: Dane Witbeck, Pinwheel

Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO

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

5.0217 Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Dane Witbeck grew up in Georgia, and has always had an entrepreneurial spirit. He was the kid selling ripped CD's in school, along with other odds and ends. He went to Georgia Tech to study engineering, and eventually went on to join a startup called Meshify, in the iOT place - which eventually was bought by a large insurance company. Outside of tech, he is married with 4 kids. He is involved in many entrepreneurial groups around Austin, and is the proud owner of a 1969 Ford Bronco - which he enjoys getting out of town in and camping. Post his prior startup, Dane was on the lookout for problems to solve. He observed his son's friend getting a hand-me-down iPhone, and it hit him that he was going to have to monitor this as his children got phones. As he started to dig into what was available, he realized there wasn't a good solution... and decided to build his own. This is the creation story of Pinwheel. Our Sponsors: * Check out Cash App and use my code CASHAPP10 for a great deal: https://click.cash.app/ui6m/mt82fpxl #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Cash App Green, overdraft coverage, borrow, cash back offers and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. * Check out Plaud AI and use my code CODESTORY for a great deal: https://plaud.ai Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Transcript

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0:00.0

What we ended up doing was first trying to build our own fork of Android.

0:09.1

It didn't go that well.

0:10.1

I spent about, I'd say, four to six months, something like that on trying to fork Android

0:14.0

into a completely open, just the open source Android project.

0:17.9

None of the Google layers included with it, tried to make that work.

0:21.9

And the real problem that we ran into was app compatibility. We lost compatibility with 25 to 30%

0:26.8

of apps that are using Google's non-open source proprietary software layer. That really led me

0:33.7

next to what our next solution was, which was mobile device management.

0:40.5

I'm Dane Whitbeck, the founder and CEO at Pinloof.

0:45.1

This is Code Story.

0:48.9

A podcast bringing you interviews with tech visionaries.

0:50.3

Six months moonlighting.

0:51.9

There's nothing on the backhand.

1:11.0

Who share what it takes to change an industry. I don't exactly know what to do next. It took many goes to get right. Who built the teams that have their back. The company is its people. The teams help each other achieve more. Most proud of our team. Keeping scalability top of mind. All that infrastructure was a pain. Yes, we've been fighting it as we grow.

1:11.9

Total waste of time.

1:14.7

The stories you don't read in the headlines.

1:16.6

It's not an easy thing to achieve, my dude. Took off the shelf and dusted it off and tried it again.

1:19.5

Dry the ups and downs of the startup life.

1:22.5

You need to really want it.

1:24.3

It's not just about technology.

1:25.6

All this and more on Code Story.

1:29.0

I'm your host, Noah Lab Park.

...

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