S12 E6: Michael Fester, 14.ai

Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO

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

5.0 • 217 Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2026

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Michael Fester grew up in Denmark, the son of a French mother and a Danish father. He was always interested in tech, math and the arts, initially wanting to go into design. However, he did research in number theory at Cambridge, and founded his first startup in Paris, which eventually was acquired by Sonos. Outside of tech, he enjoys reading, in particular the classics - like Dostoyevsky - and biographies - like that of Einstein. He enjoys eating and living healthy, and promotes this lifestyle at his current venture. Michael and his team noticed that despite the continual improvement of models, the process of maintaining systems using AI was tedious. Not only did this impact support operations, and building software for this area of a business, but negatively impacted the customers themselves. He and his wife wanted to build the new standard for how support operations are run. This is the creation story of 14.ai. 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	We're talking a lot about this idea of dog fooding, right?
0:03.5	In order to build really a great product, it's important that we are users of that product ourselves.
0:10.0	The thing is that now we're operating as the combination of software and service, which means that
0:18.0	actually our software is not so much in the hands of our customers, but our own,
0:23.6	meaning that we operate the software on behalf of our customers. So it's like a whole new
0:28.1	level of dog fooding because it's not just like we are also using the software that we sell
0:33.4	to our customers, no, we're actually operating that software. We're basically building this software for ourselves.
0:39.8	I'm Michael Fester.
0:41.0	I'm the co-founder and CTO 14 AI.
0:46.7	This is Code Story.
0:49.4	A podcast bringing you interviews with tech visionaries.
0:52.4	It's six months moonlighting.
0:53.7	There's nothing on the backhand. Who share what it takes to change in 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. A 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. Total waste of time. The stories you don't read in the headlines. It's not an easy thing to achieve, my idea. Took off the shelf and dusted it off and tried it again. Dry the ups and downs of the startup life. You need to really want it.
1:27.6	It's not just about technology.
1:29.1	All this and more on Code Story.
1:32.8	I'm your host, Snow at LabPart.
1:34.7	And today, how Michael Fester is building customer service without limits,
1:40.2	replacing the bulk of human work powered by AI.
1:46.6	Today's episode is brought to you by dot-tech domains, and this one hits close to home.
1:50.9	Back in 2016, I was building my startup and went hunting for that perfect.com and found next to nothing.
1:56.8	So I did what every founder does, settled.
1:59.7	Here's what I wish someone had told me.
	...

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