meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

S6 E1: Stephen Blum, Pubnub

Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO

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

5.0217 Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Stephen Blum finds that his life outside of tech is tricky to define, given we are surrounded by tech everywhere. He was inspired to be a game developer at an early age, and he found it fun and exciting. In the gaming days, he really enjoyed the Legend of Zelda, Metroid - those adventures and the animation was fascinating to him. After a while, he found more excitement within the business world, and using technology to solve problems and profit. In fact, he finds it so much fun, that what he loves to do outside of work and business... is just chill. He likes it when there is no plans. Stephen likes to support and invest in earlier stage AI and API companies. He has 18 different companies he has invested in, and he wants to continue expanding that portfolio, and into crypto as well - specifically arbitrage through API's, which he finds particularly fun and lucrative. One of the tricks he found is to make all trades simultaneously within the same wallet. In their inception, they were trying to solve a problem... by simply creating a button to order a taxi. In the process of building that, they figured out they needed tech to allow more than one party to participate. And their product vision clicked. This is the creation story of Pubnub. 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

The design was intended to build and scale.

0:05.0

But initially, you know, as we were, we didn't want to waste a bunch of money just by throwing servers up and saying, here we go.

0:12.5

And we can just handle any load immediately.

0:15.0

We didn't autoscale, right?

0:17.3

That's a big part of modern cloud and APIs.

0:20.6

It's ability to autoscale. It was all been manual, and we have to sort of predict. And the challenges with messaging infrastructure and our latency being, you know, under 30 milliseconds, pretty much everywhere. How do we, you can't, you can't launch a server in 30 milliseconds.

0:38.3

My name is Stephen Blum, CTO, co-founder at PubNub.

0:47.6

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.

1:02.2

I'm your host, Noah Laphart, and today how Stephen Blum

1:06.0

built the platform that powered virtual spaces with real-time integrated communication.

1:13.5

All this and more.

1:15.1

On Code Story.

1:20.1

Stephen Blum finds that his life outside of tech is tricky to define, given we're surrounded

1:25.2

by tech everywhere.

1:26.6

He was inspired to be a game developer at an early age, and he found it fun and exciting,

1:31.2

and in those days, he really enjoyed the legend of Zelda and Metroid.

1:35.0

Those adventures and the animation was fascinating to him.

1:38.8

After a while, he found more excitement within the business world and using technology to solve

1:42.8

problems and profit.

1:44.8

In fact, he finds it so much fun that what he loves to do outside of work and business is just

1:50.3

chill.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

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.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.