S3 E4: Yoshi Yokokawa, Alpaca

Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO

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

4.6 • 216 Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2020

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Born and raised in Japan, Yoshi Yokokawa started his career at Leimen Brothers in the US. In doing so, he was exposed to the fragility of the economies, yet saw how all things were connected and potential for areas of automation - IE, where things didn't need a human hand. A marathon runner, triathlete and yoga teacher, he attempts to understand himself physically, spiritually and mentally. When he set out on a venture of his own, he originally started building deep neural net prediction models for trading funds and hedge funds. In doing so, he quickly figured out that in order to scale this quickly, his solution would need to work with existing brokerage firms and banks. It was at this pain point that he decided to pivot and build Alpaca, the best way for developers to trade US stocks through an API. Our Sponsors: * Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.com * Check out Red Hat: https://www.redhat.com * Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORY Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Transcript

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0:00.0	In order for us to build stock trading API, we actually had to be a registered, fully licensed
0:08.7	broker-dealer in order to actually do that. So MVP was actually pretty big because we first
0:17.1	had to get the broker-dealer license. It takes probably like one year.
0:21.2	We had to connect to the market itself.
0:23.9	We had to connect with other clearing houses
0:26.6	and stuff like that.
0:27.3	So the backend has to be complete in terms of the MVP.
0:32.3	So it's not really MVP.
0:34.5	It's a black and white working or not.
0:38.5	I am Yoshi Yokokawa.
0:40.6	I'm a CEO co-founder of Alpaca.
0:47.6	This is Code Story, a podcast bringing you interviews with tech visionaries who share in the critical moments of what
0:55.6	it takes to change in industry and build and lead a team that has your back.
1:02.3	I'm your host, Noah Laparte, and today, how Yoshi Yokokawa set his sights on being
1:08.3	the de facto API infrastructure for all financial assets.
1:13.5	All this and more on Code Story.
1:22.4	Born and raised in Japan, Yoshi Yokokawa started his career at Lehman Brothers in the U.S.
1:29.0	In doing so, he was exposed to the fragility of the economies, yet saw how all things were
1:35.7	connected and saw potential areas of automation. For example, where things didn't need a human
1:42.6	hand, they could be automated by a computer.
1:45.4	A marathon runner, triathlete, and yoga teacher, he attempts to understand himself physically, spiritually, and mentally.
1:53.2	When he set out on a venture of his own, he originally started building deep neural net prediction models for trading funds and hedge funds.
	...

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