S12 E20: Ofir Stein, Apono

Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO

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

5.0 • 217 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2026

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ofir Stein is based in Tel Aviv, Israel, born and raised in Jerusalem. He spent many years in the Israeli air force, in infrastructure and security, before he moved to Tel Aviv. He's a tech guy through and through, bragging about his raspberry pi setup at home, which adjust the AC settings based on the temp outside. Outside of tech, he is married with a daughter and a dog. He's connected and close to his family, which he notes is how he refreshes and reloads as a founder, alongside playing tennis from time to time. Ofir and his cofounder started interviewing CISO's and security professionals on how they feel about access management. The found out that this was the first line of attack for bad actors, but from a business standpoint, access management is a slow to value feature. They decided to build a platform that was based on just in time access, over the slow to value setup plaguing the industry. This is the creation story of Apono. 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

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by The Built. A new podcast from the guys behind Cincera,
0:04.7	Michael Sullivan and Ian Myers. They built their company by figuring out clever solutions to a few
0:09.8	important ad tech problems in their industry. And that's exactly what this show is about.
0:15.2	Mike and Ian interview some of the smartest tech minds in the biz to hear about how they
0:19.8	identified opportunities, solve their hardest challenges, and grew their businesses in the biz to hear about how they identified opportunities, solve
0:21.6	their hardest challenges, and grew their businesses in the process. Listen to The Build with
0:27.1	Michael Sullivan, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:34.0	What I believe in is that there is a trade-off that we all know between putting a band-aid on a solution, right, if I want to solve something, right?
0:43.9	I can put a band-aid, do something very fast, band-aid.
0:47.2	It's like the bad way to describe it, but there is like a key approach, right?
0:51.4	Keep it simple, stupid.
0:53.0	But you can also do it scalable and a good
0:55.9	solution that a lot of the time this is a good way to say that overengineering is the second
1:01.7	piece, like if you do that. So you always move between do I do it in scalable and good
1:07.2	architectal way or I'm doing that kind of over-engineering, or I need to look
1:12.3	on the kind of kiss approach.
1:14.6	My name is Afir-Stain.
1:16.0	I'm the CTO and co-founder at the Pono.
1:20.9	This is Code Story.
1:23.6	A podcast bringing you interviews with tech visionaries.
1:26.6	Six months moonlighting. There's nothing on the backhand. Who share what it takes to change in industry. I don't exactly know what to do next. She 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. Yes, we've been fighting it as we grow. Total waste of time. The stories you don't read in the headlines. It's not an easy thing to achieve, my view. Took off the shelf and dusted it off and tried it again. To ride the ups and downs of the startup life. You need to really want it.
2:01.9	It's not just about technology.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 19 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.