Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Ravi Pratap Maddimsetty lives in Bangalore with his family. Early on, he joined startups where his friends worked, in order to get to know the landscape of how they functioned. He fell in love with the tech, team and early innings of building a business - so much so, that he eventually started his own. He has been an entrepreneur for 15 years - or in the woods, as he says. But outside of tech, he's married with 2 girls. He loves spending time with his family, playing tennis, being outdoors or skiing.Ten years ago, Ravi was riding the wave of smartphones, tinkering with numerous technological solutions to connect users to their world via their smartphone. After moving through beacons, NFC, GPS and others - they started to think about how they could use the camera, which was on every device, to read QR codes.This is the creation story of Uniqode.SponsorsMailtrapSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.uniqode.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ravipratapm/ Our Sponsors: * Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORY * 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

Transcribed - Published: 29 April 2025

Shai Horovitz grew up on a farm in Israel, 1.5 hours north of Tel Aviv. He was drafted into the army, in a unit that focused on technology - and in 2013, he moved to the states and joined a startup. And - he loved it, eventually leading the team in building the business in Japan. Outside of tech, he loves to travel with his family and 3 kids. He is also a self proclaimed foodie, and enjoys sports - spending 11 years in Boston rooting on the Celtics.The team at Shai's current venture was attempting to shift left the solving of security issues in production. Now, they are entering into a new era - in building the agentic cybersecurity team of the future. Two years ago, he joined to lead the charge.This is the creation story of Jit.Sponsors MailtrapSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.jit.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/shai-horovitz-855a3a49/ Our Sponsors: * Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORY * 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

Transcribed - Published: 24 April 2025

The Gene Simmons of Data Protection: Protegrity's KISS MethodToday, we are releasing another episode from our series, entitled The Gene Simmons of Data Protection - the KISS Method, brought to you by none other than Protegrity. Protegrity is AI-powered data security for data consumption, offering fine grain data protection solutions, so you can enable your data security, compliance, sharing and analytics.Episode Title: Are You Ready For the GenAI Data Frontier? Exploring GenAI SecurityIn this episode, we talk with Anthony Cammarano, CTO & VP of Engineering, as he breaks down and simplifies GenAI for companies struggling in the new frontier. There is a flood of unstructured data pouring into workflows - thanks to GenAI - and traditional security methods aren't prepared to cover this expanded attack surface. The good news is that companies already have what they need to fix this, and it's a simple mindset shift.QuestionsWhat are some of the most common misconceptions or trends about GenAI, as it relates to data protection and privacy, that organizations face today?What are the primary business challenges facing the adoption of GenAI today?How do modern GenAI systems create data security vulnerabilities and what are the potential risks?What is crucial in the implementation of GenAI-security solutions, and how can it accelerate AI adoption?Can you provide examples of how attackers are targeting data during its use and the importance of securing this data?What are some best practices for robust data governance and how can organizations stay ahead in the rapidly evolving GenAI landscape?Linkshttps://www.protegrity.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ac56/ Our Sponsors: * 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

Transcribed - Published: 23 April 2025

Lucas Lovell grew up in Adelaide, Australia, before eventually landing where resides now, in London. He studied law, but he eventually decided that he didn't want to become a lawyer. During his time in law school, he and his crew built an app - and he was hooked on the wild ride that tech is. Prior to London, he spent 4 years in Paris, and indeed loves to travel. He also enjoys skiing, and when asked about snowboarding, he said he tried - but eventually reverted back.Four and a half years ago, Lucas joined a company solving end to end payments, while being the merchant of record. What was missing from the platform was some function around invoicing - which started him on his journey of product creation.This is Lucas' creation story at Paddle.SponsorsMailtrapSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.paddle.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucaslovell/ Our Sponsors: * 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

Transcribed - Published: 22 April 2025

David Young spent many years in California, but lives in Colorado Springs now. He mentioned that things outside of work are very important to him, as they are the soil from which he brings fruit to bear in his work. He's married and loving living in the Rockies. He and his wife love to ski hike and camp - but most interesting, they are both endurance athletes. They run marathons, bike rides, and triathlons - in fact, David himself has run 10, which includes a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, then a marathon - all in succession. All in one day.David noticed that that problem with SaaS today is that it's expensive, and adds up as you compile solutions. Right alongside that, open source software is free - but requires more setup and maintenance to keep it up and running. He decided that there must be a better way to purchase software, while getting the best price on a bundle of solutions.This is the creation story of Federated Computer.SponsorsMailtrapSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.federated.computer/https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidpaulyoung/ Our Sponsors: * Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.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

Transcribed - Published: 17 April 2025

The Gene Simmons of Data Protection: Protegrity's KISS MethodToday, we are releasing another episode from our series, entitled The Gene Simmons of Data Protection - the KISS Method, brought to you by none other than Protegrity. Protegrity is AI-powered data security for data consumption, offering fine grain data protection solutions, so you can enable your data security, compliance, sharing and analytics.Episode Title: Are You Smarter Than a Threat Actor? Maybe Your Current Methods Are ObsoleteIn today's episode, we are talking with Eve Rajca, Senior Solutions Engineer, as she dives into the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity. As threat actors become more sophisticated, its critical to reassess and simplify security strategies. She will explore outdated methods, which can leave your data vulnerable, and discuss the importance of adopting straightforward security methods.QuestionsWhat are some common signs that an organization's current cybersecurity methods might be outdated?How have threat actors evolved in their tactics over the past few years?Can you explain the concept of "security through simplicity" and why it's important?How can organizations balance the need for robust security with the need for simplicity?What role does employee training play in maintaining effective data security?Linkshttps://www.protegrity.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/iwonarajca/ Our Sponsors: * Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.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

Transcribed - Published: 16 April 2025

Kavitta Ghai realized at an early age that she thought different than everyone else. She grew up neurodivergent, with autism and ADHD but was a lucky kid, having parents that helped her see the silver lining in her learning challenges, making sure she had outlets in extracurricular activities. She is a creative person always looking to build something that doesn't exist. In her off time, she enjoys turning off all the tech, learning a new language, and reconnecting with the real, analog world.Kavitta and her co-founder found themselves frustrated with the classroom in college. For paying such an exorbitant amount of money, they were confused why the educational classroom was so ineffective. It came to a head - to the point, where Kavitta was going to change it or drop out of school.This is the creation story of Nectir.SponsorsMailtrapSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.nectir.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/kavittaghai/ Our Sponsors: * Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.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

Transcribed - Published: 15 April 2025

Darko Fabijan is originally from Serbia, and splits his time between their and the US. He got is first computer in 1994, and eventually started tinkering and playing with Linus. He went to university in 2003, and then started a company with a college friend, which was a rails consultancy. Outside of tech, he is married, with 2 kids - ages 3 and 9. The older one is into athletics, and the younger one is more into art. He enjoys spending time in nature with his family, and got into trail running a few years ago - recently running a 64km trail. He enjoys business books because he likes to see how other people "did it", when it comes to their successes and failures.In 2011, Darko was running his consulting shop with 7 or 8 people. As they were developing applications, they couldn't find anything for continuous integration where you just "signed up" and it worked. That was enough for them to get out there and build it on their own.This is the creation story of Semaphore.SponsorsMailtrapSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://semaphore.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/darkofabijan/ Our Sponsors: * Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.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

Transcribed - Published: 10 April 2025

The Gene Simmons of Data Protection: Protegrity's KISS MethodToday, we are releasing another episode from our series, entitled The Gene Simmons of Data Protection - the KISS Method, brought to you by none other than Protegrity. Protegrity is AI-powered data security for data consumption, offering fine grain data protection solutions, so you can enable your data security, compliance, sharing and analytics.Episode Title: Fortifying Your Data Defenses: The Conversation that Should have Happened Yesterday with Clyde WilliamsonIn this episode, we will be talking with Clyde Williamson, Senior Product Security Architect. Clyde is going to help us see how we've created a broken systems - and it's OK, we are willing to take the necessary steps to fix it. Business face immense pressure to safeguard data, ensure compliance, follow regulation, and make data easily available when needed. This is the conversation we should have heard yesterday, when it comes to our data.QuestionsWhy is consumer privacy more critical than ever in today's digital world, and what role do businesses play in protecting and consuming data? How that concern translates to regulatory requirements and changes for businesses. What does it mean to “future-proof” consumer data in terms of regulatory compliance, and why should businesses care? How can businesses effectively balance the need for data accessibility with the need to protect consumer privacy? What role does data de-identification play in helping businesses secure sensitive data while minimizing risk, and what are the tangible benefits? What are some common pitfalls businesses face when implementing privacy measures, and how can they avoid them? Can you provide an example of a company that improved consumer trust by adopting stronger data protection strategies? What are some emerging technologies in data protection and cybersecurity that are making, or will make, a significant impact? Can you share any real-world examples of data breaches that could have been prevented with better security practices? Linkshttps://www.protegrity.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/clyde-williamson-6211192/ Our Sponsors: * Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.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

Transcribed - Published: 9 April 2025

Gino Ferrand is originally from Peru, and moved to the United States when he was 12 years old. Now, he lives in Seattle, and is enjoying all that the Northwest has to offer. He's very much into sports, specifically soccer, and plays in an indoor league with a great community. He loves to travel, and gets to often with the world he does. And when it comes to food, he is very evangelistic about Peruvian food, and encourages people to try every chance he gets.Gino attend the University of San Diego, and was really into startups. He was building mobile games for the iPhone in 2012, while living back in Peru for a short time. He hired a few engineers from back home, and this started him on the journey of understanding the great talent in South America.This is the creation story of Tecla.SponsorsMailtrapTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.tecla.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ginoferrand/ Our Sponsors: * Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.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

Transcribed - Published: 8 April 2025

Ivan Poupyrev grew up in the Soviet Union, studying rocket science. He moved to the US in 2013 to pursue the early days of VR. He has worked at Disney and Google, and has been focused on merging the physical and digital world for many years. Prior to this latest revolution, Ivan was one of the skeptics towards the idea of AI. But at Google, he was convinced by one of his now co-founders, the value in this tech.Nick Gillian has been working in real time Machine learning for nearly 2 decades - but path here was a bit different. His background is in music and audio engineering - think the math behind amps, studios, mixers, etc. During his masters studies, he fell in love with sensors, and participated in early development and advancement of this tech alongside machine learning. He built a toolkit, which eventually got the attention of Ivan.Ivan was working at Google, and one of his team members began utilizing the toolkit built by Nick. Upon discovering this, Ivan reached out to Nick to see if he wanted to join the top secret team - and eventually, Nick convinced Ivan of the power of machine learning and AI.This is the creation story of Archetype AI.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.archetypeai.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-poupyrev/https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-gillian-b27b1094/ Our Sponsors: * Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.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

Transcribed - Published: 3 April 2025

The Gene Simmons of Data P rotection: Protegrity's KISS MethodToday, we are kicking off a new series on the podcast, entitled The Gene Simmons of Data Protection - the KISS Method, brought to you by none other than Protegrity. Protegrity is AI-powered data security for data consumption, offering fine grain data protection solutions, so you can enable your data security, compliance, sharing and analytics.Episode Title: KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid): A Data Security Dilemma with James RiceIn this episode, we are talking with James Rice, VP at Protegrity. He is going to help us strip away the nonsense, when it comes to securing data, and help us understand why we don't need a fortress... just a kill switch. While companies throw billions at firewalls, AI driven threat detection, and fortress like defenses - attackers still find their way in. James reminds us to keep it simple, with Protegrity's KISS Method which stands for Keep It Simple Stupid - and how when data is useless to attackers, breaches become mere inconveniences instead of existential threats.Questions:What exactly is the KISS method, and how does it apply to cybersecurity?Why are traditional cybersecurity approaches failing to stop breaches?What are some of the biggest myths about security that lead businesses to waste money on ineffective defenses?How do encryption, tokenization, and de-identification work together to make stolen data useless?Can you share an example where a company’s focus on complex security backfired, and how a simpler approach could have helped?What’s the biggest pushback you hear from companies hesitant to adopt a simpler, data-first security model? If a company wanted to implement the KISS method tomorrow, what are the first three steps they should take?Linkshttps://www.protegrity.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesrice1/ Our Sponsors: * Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.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

Transcribed - Published: 2 April 2025

Ivan Poupyrev grew up in the Soviet Union, studying rocket science. He moved to the US in 2013 to pursue the early days of VR. He has worked at Disney and Google, and has been focused on merging the physical and digital world for many years. Prior to this latest revolution, Ivan was one of the skeptics towards the idea of AI. But at Google, he was convinced by one of his now co-founders, the value in this tech.Nick Gillian has been working in real time Machine learning for nearly 2 decades - but path here was a bit different. His background is in music and audio engineering - think the math behind amps, studios, mixers, etc. During his masters studies, he fell in love with sensors, and participated in early development and advancement of this tech alongside machine learning. He built a toolkit, which eventually got the attention of Ivan.Ivan was working at Google, and one of his team members began utilizing the toolkit built by Nick. Upon discovering this, Ivan reached out to Nick to see if he wanted to join the top secret team - and eventually, Nick convinced Ivan of the power of machine learning and AI.This is the creation story of Archetype AI.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.archetypeai.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-poupyrev/https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-gillian-b27b1094/ Our Sponsors: * Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.com Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Transcribed - Published: 1 April 2025

Quinn Li started into tech well before college. In High School, she was into fashion and would take pictures of herself and her friends. She wanted to share these pictures, and found her way to Squarespace - which ultimately, led her getting into HTML and CSS - and the rest is history. Outside of tech, she plays a lot of tennis, and teaches Aerial. I had to ask what this was, and she explained it was the art form that you see in the circus, when people are climbing the sheets in the air, acrobatically.Quinn Li has been focused on productivity throughout her career. As she started to swing her focus to building connections at work through play. One of the games she and her team built went viral on TikTok - and they knew they were on to something.This is the creation story of Braid.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.trybraid.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/qloshea/ 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

Transcribed - Published: 27 March 2025

Alberto Simon is an immigrant from Mexico, moving to Florida with his small family when he was very young. At a young age, he got interested in computers, through gaming and building his own computers. In college, he briefly studied mechanical engineering, but quickly switched over to MIS. Post that, he joined an adtech startup, caught hold of the rocket, and built the professional skills he still utilizes today. Outside of tech, he enjoys dancing, specifically salsa and machata, and participates in CrossFit. For both things, he enjoys the challenge, working hard towards goals, and seeing progress.Alberto and his co-founders had worked in the startup world for quite some time. They noticed the trends of platforms leading the charge on portfolio management, without advisors, alongside the democratization of investments in things like real estate, crypto, etc. They decided to move forward in removing the opaqueness from investment in art.This is the creation story of Masterworks.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.masterworks.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertosimon 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

Transcribed - Published: 25 March 2025

Don Gossen is Canadian, but at this point, in name only. He lives in Portugal with his wife and 2 daughters. He grew up all over the world, and his career has afforded him to travel the globe. He's been in the machine learning space for 20 years, but spent his early days in statistical modeling - which was fun to setup, but boring to operate. For fun, he enjoys traveling and skiing, in particular off trail - and anywhere in Japan during the winter.In 2016, Don caught the crypto bug, but not from the speculative component. He was fascinated with the providential integrity that is found in the blockchain. This culminated with 20 years of experience in deep tech, and led him down the path of AI agent payments.This is the creation story of Nevermined.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://nevermined.app/https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-gossen-40ab96/ 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

Transcribed - Published: 20 March 2025

Shmuel Kliger is a self proclaimed old man. He was born in Israel, and served in the army for 6 years. It was in the army where he obtained his passion for the space, from which he got his bachelors, masters and eventually, his PhD. Outside of tech, he is married with 4 kids and 2 grandchildren. He met his wife during grad school, and they now live in New York. When asked what he did for fun, he laughed and said that he enjoyed living in the "best city in the world", with everything at his fingertips.When his past venture winded down, Schmuel found himself at the center of an idea that was the culmination of all his years in technology. To build something that could not only process large amounts of observability data - but could make sense of it, and take appropriate action.This is the creation story of Causely.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.causely.ai/https://www.linkedin.com/in/shmuel-kliger-1a91963/ 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

Transcribed - Published: 18 March 2025

Hello Listeners.Today is going to be a special episode, a bit out of the ordinary to our normal programming. I'm participating in Podcasthon, which gives Code Story the opportunity to dedicate one episode to a charity of choice. Hundreds of podcasts are participating in this, releasing their episodes simultaneously in a coordinate effort, with the goal of creating a massive and international wave of inspiring audio content.Whats the point? The point is to raise awareness for a huge number of charities worldwide.The charity I've chosen is the American Cancer Society.The American Cancer Society is fighting cancer through research into cures and support for existing patients in their family. This not for profit organization, and is enabled to do its work through donations, grants and other sources.If you feel led to help fight cancer and support patients, go to the cancer.org website and click Donate. You can even give in Honor & Memorial of someone who's life has been impacted by cancer.If you want to learn more, go to cancer.org. That C A N C E R.org.Big thanks to the American Cancer Society for the work they do, and to Podcasthon, for coordinated this effort for charity.And thanks again for listening.SponsorsPodcasthonLinkshttps://www.cancer.org/ 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

Transcribed - Published: 17 March 2025

Tyler Wells lives outside of Austin, TX. He moved there 4 years ago, but spent most of this time in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley. Outside of tech, he is married with a family. His 3 kids are heavily involved in sports and extracurricular activities, which keeps them all pretty busy. But, when he has time, he is into cooking. He thinks of it as a nerdy endeavor, eating at a fancy restaurant and going home to try to recreate the dish.At the sunset of his prior company, Tyler and his co-founders started digging into the AI Code Editor, Cursor, and how the agent side of things could increase the power and speed of coding. Through the shutdown, they decided to start something new.This is the creation story of Braingrid.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.braingrid.ai/https://propeldata.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerswells/ 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

Transcribed - Published: 13 March 2025

Anthony Eden is a gray beard in terms of internet time, being around when Netscape was released. He was studying music at the University of Miami, and decided to build a website to show off his music and other peoples work - and was hooked. Outside of tech, he grew up surfing, living in Hawaii, France and now Florida. He enjoys writing software for fun - when he has time - and playing board games with this kids - when they are around.In the past, Anthony was coming off of a failed startup. At the time, he was using a different vendor to manage domains and DNS - which he did not like at all. He decided to go forward and build a better solution, and one that is - you guessed it - simple.This is the creation story of DNSimple.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://dnsimple.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/aeden/ 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

Transcribed - Published: 11 March 2025

Andrew Lau is located in Boston now, but is a California native. He grew up in Oakland, and calls himself the odd duck who went west instead of east, like most people. He went to the north east for school, and stayed to be apart of the startup world, interestingly enough with his current co-founders. Outside of tech, he's married to an AP Calculus teacher, and has two daughters. He enjoys cooking and making new cuisine with his kids. Fun fact, he is a certified barbecue judge in Kansas City, and has come to Texas a time or two to tour the Texas Monthly list.Andrew met his current co-founders in 1999. Recently, they re-connected, recalling the successes and camaraderie they had during their startup days. They recalled that the act of leading engineering teams is hard - and they wanted to build something that makes that easier.This is the creation story of Jellyfish.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://jellyfish.co/https://www.linkedin.com/in/amlau/ 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

Transcribed - Published: 6 March 2025

Ayush Agarwal is a techy trying to code his way out of things. He graduated with a degree in Computer Science, but more importantly, he discovered entrepreneurship in college, inspired by his successful classmates. He spent years gathering experience in different startup verticals, including fintech. But outside of tech, he loves to play badminton, cricket, and hangout with friends. He is also big into Chess, which he mentioned enjoying Chess.com, as well as our recent interview with their CTO, Josh Levine.When Ayush met his now co-founder, they started to think through businesses and how much goes into setting up payments, taxes, etc. They started to dream about building this layer of payments, to enable builders to send and receive global payments easily, so they can focus on their core competencies.This is the creation story of Dodo Payments.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://dodopayments.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/aagarwal1012/ 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

Transcribed - Published: 4 March 2025

Josh Ho was into tech at a young age. In high school, which was around the time of bulletin boards and AOL online, he had to code a way to connect windows to the internet using TCP/IP. Outside of tech, he is married with a family. He notes that because he is in tech, people perceive him to be younger in age. He plays handball, and has been into the sport since he was younger.Prior to his current venture, Josh had a SaaS product he attempted to launch that didn't work out. While he was getting his car worked on at a dealership, he noticed patrons being referred to salesmen in real time - and he started to think, who manages this sort of thing for other businesses?This is the creation story of Referral Rock.SponsorsSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://referralrock.com/https://mojoho.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuajho/ 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

Transcribed - Published: 27 February 2025

Austin Vance grew up in Oklahoma, but takes residence outside of Denver, Colorado now. He is a father of 3 boys, who are also 3 in under - so he's quite busy. He loves woodworking, and teaching his oldest son how to ski. When it comes to food, he loves all of it in general - but has been drawn to asian fusion lately. And he enjoys reading business books, and sci fi - of which, Blade Runner was mentioned number one.Austin had several experiences with consulting firms, where they operated under traditional "land and expand" models. IE, increasing the footprint of their teams. He felt passionate about building a services company that was designed to deprecate itself - starting with the wide world of DevOps.This is the creation story of Focused.SponsorsSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://focused.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/austinbv/ 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

Transcribed - Published: 25 February 2025

Jason Schappert grew up in an entrepreneurial family. His Mom and Dad were always working together, and never had jobs. Jason's first job was working for his parents pest control company, where he crafted his understanding of what success looked like. Outside of tech, he is married with 3 kids, and is very into all of their sports. Fun fact, his kids enjoy doing their homeschooling in the office with their Dad, listening to calls and asking big questions - so business is actually what they do for fun. For 16 years, Jason grew and ran a business in aviation. After a successful exit, he and his wife Magda were considering what to do next. She quickly remembered all of the things Jason did behind the scenes to setup their personal finances for success, in the midst of a chaotic startup life. This is the creation story of Moola. 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

Transcribed - Published: 20 February 2025

Tameem Hourani was born in the Middle East, on a small island. He came to the states, Boston specifically, for school in 2006. He planned on 4 years of engineering, which turned into 19 years of life. He became a citizen of the US during COVID, and spent many years of his career at Wayfair, which he throughly enjoyed. But outside of tech, he is a new father and spends a lot of time with his newborn. He loves being in the ocean, scuba diving, kite surfing and along side that, collecting vintage watches. In the past, Tameem had been burned by consulting firms. He saw a gap in the industry, and when he left his prior role at Wayfair, he wanted to become a trusted, transparent technology partner - the one that he had longed for in his previous roles. This is the creation story of RapDev. 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

Transcribed - Published: 18 February 2025

Shahar Azulay has had many opportunities to get into tech throughout his life. He started digging into cyber security when he was 17 years old, where he learned the basics of deep tech that he still utilizes to this day. He's a startup guy, and has had the opportunity to be the first employee many times over. Outside of tech, he's married with 3 boys and a dog. He lives in the country side, and loves to spend time in nature and cook, as he was a semi professional chef at one point. Shahar and his co-founder are veterans when it comes to using observability platforms for their systems. They wanted to build a platform that balanced the needs of the system, with a lower cost of a fully functional platform. This is the creation story of Groundcover. 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

Transcribed - Published: 13 February 2025

Today, we are releasing another episode in our series entitled Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, sponsored by the City of Dubai. Dubai is the new global center of gravity, connecting the world in a way few places can. As a hub for trade, tourism, innovation, and finance, Dubai offers the ideal environment for startups and scale-ups to thrive. Entrepreneurs find a home here, whether in health-tech, fintech, AI, or renewable energy, supported by SME-focused programs that empower high-potential companies to scale globally. From flexible regulations to tax incentives, world-class infrastructure to access to global investors managing $1 trillion, Dubai understands what businesses need to scale fast. In this episode, we are excited to speak with Imad Gharzeddine, the visionary CEO and Co-Founder of Mamo, a pioneering fintech platform simplifying payments and empowering businesses in the MENA region. 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

Transcribed - Published: 12 February 2025

Simmi Singh grew up in Australia, when her parents migrated from India. She studied law and finance at university, and then went into investment banking during some tumultuous times. Eventually, she got interested in tech, and worked for teams at Intuit, Saavn, and Spotify, during the times of the Anchor acquisition and launching features around video podcasts. Outside of tech, she is married with 2 kids. She loves to travel, watch movies, and to do craft projects, as building is a key theme in her life. While Simmi was at Spotify, a prior colleague of hers approached her about a product he was building. When she heard the details of what was being built, she felt that it was the culmination of all of our professional experiences and she had to jump on board. This is the creation story of Hook Music. 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

Transcribed - Published: 11 February 2025

Nikita Shamgunov is a native of Russia, coming to the US for grad school in 2005. Eventually he worked at Microsoft on the SQL Server product. A fun fact - Nikita quit business school on the first day, and decided to join Facebook and find his future co-founder. All of this worked out, and he and his co-founder built SingleStore, which is one of the highest valued companies at YC. Outside of tech, he was a semi-professional athlete in Ping Pong, achieving the status of Top 10 in Washington State back when he was at Microsoft. Nikita completed his "tour of duty" at SingleStore, and post that, he joined a venture fund. He pitched incubating an idea of his at the fund, which was rolling up all Postgres instances in the world. He started to engineer an approach, the team, and the architecture - and did so in some very unique, and deliberate ways. This is the creation story of Neon. 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

Transcribed - Published: 6 February 2025

Today, we are releasing another episode in our series entitled Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, sponsored by the City of Dubai. Dubai is the new global center of gravity, connecting the world in a way few places can. As a hub for trade, tourism, innovation, and finance, Dubai offers the ideal environment for startups and scale-ups to thrive. Entrepreneurs find a home here, whether in health-tech, fintech, AI, or renewable energy, supported by SME-focused programs that empower high-potential companies to scale globally. From flexible regulations to tax incentives, world-class infrastructure to access to global investors managing $1 trillion, Dubai understands what businesses need to scale fast. For today’s episode, we are speaking with Mohammad Albalooshi, CEO of the DIFC Innovation Hub, a driving force behind Dubai’s innovation ecosystem and a key player in empowering startups and scaleups across the MEASA region. 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

Transcribed - Published: 5 February 2025

Cory O'Daniel has had an interesting path to technology, growing his career in a number of cloud architect roles at Ripple, DealScience and The RealReal. He has rich experience in DevOps, the cloud and platform engineering. But outside of tech, he is married with 2 kids, living in Southern California. He loves driving (and destroying) RC cars - like the ones that go 65-70 miles per hour. He jumps them off a lot of ramps, his highest jump behind 20 feet upwards... which of course, he landed. Cory noticed that there is a huge knowledge gap regarding the cloud, especially during his time doing professional services. He would leave a project post completion, and see a major gap in how the client understood what was built. He and his co-founders had the idea to build a product to allow platform engineers to diagram their infra - and fuel developers engineering process. This is the creation story of Massdriver. 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

Transcribed - Published: 4 February 2025

Torrey Leonard lived in Maryland prior to moving to New York City. In 7th grade, his claim to fame was building the world's largest Minecraft server in the world. In early high school, he had over a million users, made 6 figures, and was fueled by open source software that still runs on most Minecraft servers today. Outside of tech and gaming, he loves to play pickleball and really enjoys skiing - though he confesses that in New York, it's harder to do these hobbies, financially and logistically. Last summer, Torrey built a platform that allowed you to build out voice agents. After doing so, he realized that there wasn't a good way to do this through a UI, and he realized this was an obvious thing that needed to be built. He decided to leave his prior company to pursue this vision - which headed towards the Zapier for call center agents. This is the creation story of Thoughtly. 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

Transcribed - Published: 30 January 2025

Today, we are releasing another episode in our series entitled Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, sponsored by the City of Dubai. Dubai is the new global center of gravity, connecting the world in a way few places can. As a hub for trade, tourism, innovation, and finance, Dubai offers the ideal environment for startups and scale-ups to thrive. Entrepreneurs find a home here, whether in health-tech, fintech, AI, or renewable energy, supported by SME-focused programs that empower high-potential companies to scale globally. From flexible regulations to tax incentives, world-class infrastructure to access to global investors managing $1 trillion, Dubai understands what businesses need to scale fast. Today, we are speaking with Dr. Marwan Al Zarouni, CEO of AI for the Dubai Department of Economy & Tourism. Dr. Marwan. He is going to help walk us through how Dubai is creating a foundational hub for AI, Blockchain, and the intersection of both. 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

Transcribed - Published: 29 January 2025

Joni Klippert has spent many years in startups. Post getting her MBA, she built her early career in Boulder, CO, and became very technical learning new technologies throughout the businesses she worked for, liked VictorOps and Splunk. Outside of tech, she is married with 2 dogs. Her favorite thing to do is travel with her husband to visit Michelin star restaurants. One of her favorites was called Azuermendi in Spain, as it was not only delicious, but an immersive experience. Joni had been building software for engineers for a long time, as a product person. At one point, she started researching the last mile of DevOps, and was surprised how far this particular group was behind, in regard to tooling. She dreamt of automating the pen-testing remediation process, and stumbled upon an opportunity as it relates to DAST - dynamic application security testing. This is the creation story of Stackhawk. 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

Transcribed - Published: 28 January 2025

Eric Leebow was born in New Jersey, and bounced around a few states growing up. He has always been a gadget and tech enthusiast, growing up curious. At a young age, he could be found drawing, creating new things, and tinkering with headsets. Outside of tech, he is into juggling, playing and watching basketball. He's based in New York, and has been a vegetarian since he was a kid. When he went off to college, Eric had with him picture books. He noticed that there were key words next to each person, which indicated their interests. He thought, wouldn't it be interesting if we can use this information to connect people within school? This is the creation story of FreezeCrowd. 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

Transcribed - Published: 23 January 2025

Mihri Minaz is originally from Turkey, and has 4 siblings in different industries. Being good at math and problem solving, he was drawn go study computer engineering, and eventually was in the industry for a while before starting her current venture. Upon reflection, she feels it was supernatural for her to live in Turkey, be a woman, and end up in software. Eventually, she moved to Berlin and continued to be a unique case in the industry. Outside of tech, she enjoys watching art movies and shows, like Turin Horse or Fargo. She is learning piano, but travels so much for work, she has picked up DJ'ing, cause she can't bring a piano with her. In the past, Mihri's experienced problems with her team, as far as measuring and optimizing productivity. This was related to the different number of tools used, along with the lack of a unified view of these tools. She and her co-founder clicked on this problem, and decided to build a solution. This is the creation story of Beams. 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

Transcribed - Published: 21 January 2025

Wes Tatters has had a crazy, diverse career history. He is been in IT for around 40 years, and started in the days before the internet. He has had two paths - multimedia and information technology, of which both merged early in his career. He has been writing books since the early days of the internet. But outside of tech, he is married with kids, and in their downtime, they enjoy being together and sharing the world with one another. Ten years ago, Wes started in on the Wordpress space. He immediately saw that most experiences utilized shared hosting, and he also had customers wanting to build community environments. The problem was most hosting providers didn't perform well enough to support the components needed for these types of sites. This is the creation story of Rapyd Cloud. 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

Transcribed - Published: 20 January 2025

Thomas Hansen was born and raised in Denmark. He's also lived in South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and then Seattle. He is married to his wife Ingrid, with 3 older kids. His real passion is wind surfing, which he started when he was 14 years old. He even engaged in the support at the semi professional level as a teenager. His favorite spot is in Maui, which includes all the wind surfing options you could want. He also spends an hour in the gym every morning to start the day with endorphins. Thomas was introduced to his current venture through an early investor in the company. He met with the co-founder, Spenser, and sparks flew. There was a great fit and chemistry between them, and he was invited on board to push the company forward to new heights. This is Thomas's creation story at Amplitude. 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

Transcribed - Published: 16 January 2025

Anand Kulkarni started his career in the dark ages of AI, as a Computer Science researcher at UC Berkeley. He published papers on human intelligence inside of software products, and eventually founded LeadGenius, which was AI for sales and was supported by Andreessen Horowitz and Sam Altman. Outside of tech, he is married with 2 kids, and used to be an avid rock climber. He also loves to eat tofu, and has been picking up a lot more science fiction lately. Though the AI space is crowded today, Anand and his team have been working in the space since 2016. They observed the need to modernize legacy software and digitally transform organizations. They wanted to utilize an intelligent approach to this, and started down the path of building a large dataset, building software to learn from it, and use that to modernize software. This is the creation story of Crowdbotics. 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

Transcribed - Published: 15 January 2025

Hannes Lenke was born in East Germany. He started tinkering with computers at an early age, and became interested in making games at the age of 10. Once the browsers came out, he quickly dove into the world of web development. He also has a background in trading stocks, which he started when he was 14, along with software development consulting for enterprise. Outside of tech, he's married with 2 daughters. He lives in a small town close to Berlin, and enjoys running, rowing, and cooking out on his grill. In 2010, Hannes founded a startup centered around testing. Post exit, he noticed that more and more businesses were using end to end testing... AND, the world was changing toward devops and observability. He decided that a new tool needed to be made along the lines of synthetic monitoring. This is the creation story of Checkly. 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

Transcribed - Published: 14 January 2025

Egil Østhus is based out of Norway - which obviously means he loves skiing. But outside of this, he loves to run outdoors, through the woods and on the streets. He has not done a full marathon yet, but dreams of doing the New York marathon someday. He's a family man, married, with 2 boys - none of which like to run with him, but they all enjoy being active and hiking. In a past role, Egil's co-founder (and brother, FYI) was looking for a tool that would help him release code into the wild, in a rapid - yet safe - manner. He couldn't find anything to meet his high standards - so he built his own. When the open source version started to get a lot of attention, Egil joined his brother to bring the solution to the enterprise. This is the creation story of Unleash. 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

Transcribed - Published: 7 January 2025

Matt Pierce has been a tech guy for his entire 17 year career. Coming out of grad school, he started out in healthcare tech for a decade or so. Eventually, he started down the path of being an entrepreneur. He is married with 3 daughters - 2 in third grade and one that is a 2 year old. He mentioned the entrepreneurial dilemma of picking 3 of the 5 life choices - family, business, sleep, exercise and friendships - and notes that his three are family, business, and sleep. After spending nights and weekends burning the midnight oil on a healthcare tech solution, Matt sat down with a prospective client and did the best pitch ever. The client's feedback was that it didn't solve her real problem which was turnover, which boiled down to money. After chatting with the client and a mentor, Matt uncovered the best potential solution to financial stress - on demand pay. This is the creation story of Immediate. 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

Transcribed - Published: 31 December 2024

Reed McGinley-Stempel grew up in Las Vegas, but went to school on the East Coast. Frankly, he didn't know what he wanted to do and "stumbled" into management consulting. When I dug into how someone stumbles into this profession, he mentioned that early on he got some sage advice from his older brother about not rushing to law school because... being a lawyer isn't that fun. So, he followed some friends to Bain & Company. The more projects he was involved in, the more he got interested in technology. Candidly, one of his motivations for going in tech was the fact that his was moving out to San Francisco to support his wife through law school at Stanford. He considered continuing to do consulting with Bain, but decided tech was the best route and eventually, joined Plaid. Outside of his professional career, he is into the outdoors, loving hiking and taking his very active dog outside. He mentions that living in San Francisco makes the outdoors super accessible. Reed and his Co-founder both came from Plaid, and worked on the adaptive authentication team. There, they explored how to secure bank authentication to maintain security, but also do it in such a way that reduced friction and created an amazing experience. They found that the biggest problem to be solved was the combination of security issues with passwords, and the low conversion rate of sign up / sign in forms requiring passwords. They wanted to fix this. This is the creation story of Stytch. 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

Transcribed - Published: 24 December 2024

Jonathan Stark is based in Providence, Rhode Island. He attended the Berkeley College or Music, with a dual major in song writing. He ended up going back to computers to make ends meet while he was gigging - and he figured out he really enjoyed watching people use the software he built. Outside of tech and professional life, he's married with 2 kids and 2 dogs. He is an avid martial artist, as are his kids, and got his 2nd degree black belt at age 53. At his prior company, Jonathan was leading teams to build software. He wanted to hire senior engineers, but was told junior engineers would better fit the budget. He couldn't figure out why, but then it dawned on him - hourly billing a junior created more margin. He wanted to pivot away from hourly billing as a company and went solo to figure out how to do this. Once he did, he never looked back. This is the creation story of Jonathan Stark and Ditching Hourly. 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

Transcribed - Published: 19 December 2024

Eric Müller lives in San Francisco, and explored many different paths before landing in tech. He looked into architecture, photography, but ultimately, he settled into the creativity, building and planning aspects of building software. Outside of tech, he's married with one kid, and a great tradeoff with his wife - he does all the cooking, while she does the cleaning. He still loves photography, and takes pictures regularly with his Olympus OM-1. Eleven years ago, Eric joined his current venture as a consultant, taking on projects and delivering value. He was brought on board 6-7 months later, and started down the path where he would lead the engineering and security arms of your partner in creating digital products. This is Eric's creation story at Presence. 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

Transcribed - Published: 17 December 2024

Andrey Kudievskiy has always been fascinated by technology, and when asked about himself, he identifies as an entrepreneur. He has been a software engineer, database developer, administrator and then jumped accidentally into management. Outside of his professional life, he is marred with two daughters. He enjoys running long distance. He has officially run 5 marathons, and unofficially, he has joined many more along the way. Right after he graduated from University, Andrey saw a fantastic level of talent in developing countries. At the same time, he noticed the amount of profitable opportunity in the United States - and decided to build a business that joined the two. This is the creation story of Distillery. 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

Transcribed - Published: 12 December 2024

Today, we are kicking off a new series entitled Minting Unicorns - Blockchain, AI and Dubai, sponsored by the City of Dubai. Dubai is the new global center of gravity, connecting the world in a way few places can. As a hub for trade, tourism, innovation, and finance, Dubai offers the ideal environment for startups and scale-ups to thrive. Entrepreneurs find a home here, whether in health-tech, fintech, AI, or renewable energy, supported by SME-focused programs that empower high-potential companies to scale globally. From flexible regulations to tax incentives, world-class infrastructure to access to global investors managing $1 trillion, Dubai understands what businesses need to scale fast. In today’s episode, we are speaking with Sonia Gokhale, Co-founder at VentureSouq, to understand how venture capital is thriving within all that Dubai has to offer. 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

Transcribed - Published: 11 December 2024

Josh Levine lives in Brooklyn, NY. He started programming when he was 6 years old, when his Dad brought home an Apple 2. He realized that though there wasn't enough legos in the world to support his creativity, he could get enough RAM. Growing up, he had a deep relationship with chess, setting up his own chess program. In fact, he states that he learned everything he knows about programming - by programming chess. Outside of tech, he is married with 2 kids. He loves karaoke, and is a musician, with his music online under the name Heavy Pennies. In 2011, Josh joined an amazing online game website, when they started supporting his favorite game variant. Ten years later, he researched this company and their technology to see how it worked. He applied for one of the jobs, got rejected, but then quickly got a call from the CEO, who liked his application. This is Josh's creation story at Chess.com. 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

Transcribed - Published: 10 December 2024

Daniel Loreto grew up in Venezuela, but moved around a lot and lived in 6 different countries. He is married with 2 kids, ages 8 and 5, which keeps him busy. Being based out of Austin, TX, he and his family like to spend time outdoors, on Lake Austin and Lake Travis. When it comes to food, he enjoys good sushi and eating healthy. And nowadays, he sticks to nonfiction reading, in order to learn something. As part of running an team, Daniel had to create a platform engineering squad to support the development process. What nagged him about this was that he felt like he was recreating the wheel, having done this many times before. He figured someone should solve these problem by building products to make cloud dev delightful. This is the creation story of Jetify. 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

Transcribed - Published: 5 December 2024