S5 Bonus: Mahmoud Abdelkader, Very Good Security (VGS)

Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO

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

5.0 • 217 Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2021

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mahmoud Abdelkader immigrated to the United States from Egypt, from a city 100 km east of Cairo, on the Suez Canal. He was 8 years old when he moved to New York City, and later in life, he moved to Maryland, which is where he really started to get into gaming... er... computers. He used to play World of Warcraft and Age of Empires a lot, and through his gameplay, he was led down a path of reverse engineering hacks to aid him in winning. Eventually, he started learning high level languages, all in the pursuit of building game hacking systems. He got into real programming when he was 16, slinging some C++ and deciding that he wanted to be a computer engineer. Post college, he worked on Wall Street, which in his eyes, was where he really became an engineer. After working for a startup, he joined Y Combinator and built Balanced, a payments marketplace system, which eventually transitioned to Stripe. Outside of tech, he plays basketball, and used to weight lift and do long distance running. He likes to set goals, crush them - and then move on to the next thing, keeping a well rounded life. He used to ride motorcycles, but his wife put a stop to that... especially given they are expecting their 2nd child soon. Post his exit from Balanced, Mahmoud began listening to customer needs. What he heard people say was that they really wanted everything that he built in his former startup, minus the payments. Companies wanted the heavy lifting of data security taken off their plate, so they could focus on building their differentiated products. This is the creation story of Very Good Security, or VGS. 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	The MVP was a real like M, right?
0:05.0	It was a real M.
0:07.0	And so, first of all, like the first two deals that we closed, we had no product, right?
0:12.0	There was nothing even, like not a single line of code was built.
0:16.0	The way we did it was we were like, hey, listen, what's the value that you would lose if you didn't get this done?
0:21.6	It was such a problem, man.
0:23.6	And so they were like, listen, we just need to get this done.
0:25.6	So we were like, okay, you know, it's going to be n number of dollars.
0:29.6	And then they came back within 12 hours and like, okay, great.
0:32.6	And so like that's kind of like the MVP, the M. There's no code. My name is Mahmood Abdel Cater.
0:39.1	I am the CEO and co-founder of Very Good Security or VGS for short.
0:47.8	This is Code Story, the podcast bringing you interviews with tech visionaries who share in the critical moments of what it takes to change in industry
0:57.3	and build and lead, a team that has your back.
1:02.4	I'm your host, Noah Laphardt, and today, Helm Mahmoud Abducair recreated
1:06.3	recreated his shadow company to help you secure data in a very good way.
1:13.5	All this and more. On Coat Story.
1:21.3	Mahmoud Oblucator immigrated to the United States from Egypt, from a city 100 kilometers east of Cairo on the Suez Canal.
1:28.5	He was eight years old when he moved to New York City, and later in life he moved to
1:31.8	Maryland, which is where he really started to get into gaming, or computers.
1:36.5	He used to play World of Warcraft and Age of Empires a lot.
1:39.5	And through his gameplay, he was led down a path of reverse engineering hacks to aid him
1:43.9	in winning. Eventually,
	...

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