Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders
Episodes
S9 E25: JJ Tang, Rootly
21 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
JJ Tang grew up in mainland China, though eventually he came to the US for University and stayed. He found a job, started working and eventually, move...
S9 E24: Alex Gallego, Redpanda Data
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Alex Gallego was born and raised in Colombia. He has always identified as a builder, and as a kid, he would help his Uncle re-build dirt bike engines,...
S9 Bonus: Adam Sandman, Inflectra
09 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Sandman grew up in Wales, in the United Kingdom. He went to university to study physics, because he had a fascination and desire to understand ho...
S9 E23: Vlad Sadovskiy, Netevia
07 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Vlad Sadovskiy is a first generation immigrant from the Ukraine in the early 1990's. He has been in the payments space for 30+ years, so he knows ...
S9 Bonus: Sasha Mitchell, BeL2
02 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sasha Mitchell living in Bangkok, Thailand, but grew up in London. He stared in the creative industries, as one side of his family are architects and ...
S9 E22: Roman Sevast, Awesomic
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Roman Sevast was born in a small city in Ukraine. When he met his girlfriend, he wanted to take her out to dinner - but he didn't have the money t...
S7 Bonus: Björn Kolbeck, Quobyte
25 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When asked about his life outside of tech, Björn Kolbeck stated "Is there anything outside of tech?". He has made his hobby into his job, bei...
S9 E21: Matt Hocking, WellSaid Labs
23 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Matt Hocking has a background in design, and started off as a graphic designer in Australia. He moved into lecturing while running a design school, wh...
S9 Bonus: Tech Update - Rene Morkos, Alice Technologies
18 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome back listeners.Today we have a return guest on the podcast, Rene Morkos, the Founder & CEO of Alice Technologies. If you recall our conver...
S9 E20: Michael Hummel, Establish
16 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Hummel has a different perspective on tech and startups than most people in this realm. His background dis in marketing, and prior to his curr...
S9 Bonus: Alon Arvatz, Pointfive & Author of Battle for Your Computer
11 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Alon Arvatz has been in tech for a long time. Fun fact, he loved technology but hated computer science. After getting introduced to the industry by hi...
S9 E19: Linus Hakansson, Gravitee
09 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Linus Hakansson finds that he has been in the tech industry so long, that it is difficult to separate himself from what he does professionally. He'...
S9 Bonus: Erin & Jesus, MSquared
04 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Erin Marie has been in tech for 20 years. Prior to tech, she was a history major but became more passionate about building websites and technology. Sh...
S9 E18: Jai Ranganathan, Motive
02 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jai Ranganathan is a typically middle aged man, living in Austin, TX with a couple of kids and a Tesla. He moved to the US when he was 17, to attend t...
S9 Bonus: Amy & Whitney, Disruption Advisors
28 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Whitney Johnson graduated college with a degree in Music, minoring in English. Of course, she needed a job, and became the secretary to a broker on Wa...
S9 E17: Jake Ward, Data Protocol
26 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jake Ward originally from a small town in Maine, and claims to be running away from the snow by living in South Carolina now. He worked in politics fo...
S9 Bonus: Luka Yancopolis, Grapevine
21 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Luka Yancopoulos lives in New York City, and believes whole heartedly in doing well by doing good. He grew up in the early 2000's, where the focal...
S9 E16: James Perkins, Unkey
19 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
James Perkins did not have a traditional journey to technology, but has been in the space for 16 years. He had planned to be a special education teach...
S9 Bonus: Zach Goldberg, Gruntwork & The Startup CTO's Handbook
14 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Zach Goldberg was sent to computer camp when he was 12 years old. An interesting part of the story is that the prior year, he went to sports camp - an...
S9 E15: Saravana Kumar, Document360
12 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Saravana Kumar is from India, near Chennai, but moved to London 23 years ago. He loves to play badminton, and is very into high quality cars. One of h...
S9 Bonus: Craig Sellars, Self
07 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Craig Sellars grew up near Atlanta, Georgia, and was interested in technology at an early age. He went to Georgia Tech to get his degree, and after sp...
S9 E14: Mike Bifulco, Craftwork
05 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Bifulco studied Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science in college. He was always good with computers, dating back to his High School Freshma...
S9 E13: David Boskovic, Flatfile
27 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
David Boskovic grew up on a farm, in a small town in Canada. He grew up milking cows, not building technology. However, when he was 12 years old, he b...
S9 Bonus: Debbie Levitt, Delta CX
22 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Debbie Levitt is an American living in Italy, with her Italian husband, and their 5 dogs. Many years ago, she obtained a degree in Music, but now focu...
S9 E12: Yoav Abrahami, Velo by Wix
20 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Yoav Abrahami was born and raised in Israel, never living in another country. Currently he lives in Tel Aviv, and has spent 30 years in technology. He...
S9 Bonus: Shauli Rozen, ARMO Security
15 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Shauli Rozen grew up in Israel, and besides a 5 year stint stateside, he has spent his whole life there. He is married with 3 boys, and is 45 years ol...
S9 E11: Srikar Sam Yeruva, Pycube
13 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Srikar Sam Yeruva comes from an immigrant family from India. He had a humble background, which shaped his path forward and how he approaches life with...
S9 Bonus: David Hartmann, Helio Additive
08 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
David Hartmann is a German born New Zealander, where he still lives today. His first job was to spend 17 years at Bayer, getting deep in the materials...
S9 E10: Dennis Pilarinos, Unblocked
06 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dennis Pilarinos was tinkerer at an early age. He always found himself wanting to understand how things were put together - and as such, he would take...
S9 Bonus: Ruslan Zaripov, RiskHunter by KRIT
01 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ruslan Zaripov has been interested in computers since the early days. He started his career as a database developer, and eventually became a project m...
S9 Bonus: Erik Gross, The Tech Academy
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Erik Gross had an odd journey into tech. He grew up in the redwoods of California, off the grid with no running water in a tee pee. However, there was...
S9 E9: Ryo Koyama, Remote.it
30 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ryo Koyama never thought he would be in technology. In the past, and in current days, he is very much into art, photography and woodworking. However, ...
S9 E8: Roger Light, Cedalo
23 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Roger Light lives in the midlands of the UK. He has his PhD in Electrical Engineering, and post graduating, he did research, then taught. But in paral...
S9 Bonus: Nate Henderson, BILT
18 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Nathan Henderson grew up in Saudi Arabia, where he actually met his now co-founder, back when he was 5 years old. His wife grew up in Mexico, and as s...
S9 Bonus: Craig McLuckie, Stacklok
17 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Craig McLuckie is a self proclaimed boring guy - monochromatic, as he put it. At one point, he tried retiring from his professional ventures - IE buil...
S9 E7: Naomi Chopra, Hatica
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Naomi Chopra grew up in Delhi, India, but attended Grad school in the US, specifically in Atlanta. He worked in the valley for several companies, incl...
S9 E6: Melissa Pancoast, The Beans
10 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Melissa Pancoast is originally from Miami, but now lives in California. She still loves Florida, being outside skiing or rowing. The latter was a huge...
S9 Bonus: Jonathan Norris, DevCycle & Taplytics
04 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Norris lives in Toronto, and has a passion for tech that started early in his life. He has participated in the First Robotics competition, wh...
S9 E5: Gilad Shriki, Descope
02 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Gilad Shriki was born and raised in Israel. He loves the outdoors, and loves to travel. Skiing in a passion of his, and he loves to explore new places...
S9 Bonus: Alexander Deeb, Classhook (Replay)
28 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alex Deeb was influenced by the education space early on. He had many teachers who inspired him through his life, and his parents pushed him to do wel...
S9 Bonus: Sahil Patel, Spiralyze
21 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sahil Patel has lived in Atlanta for 12 years now, but has made a lifetime of leaving Atlanta... and the coming back. He attended undergrad in ATL, an...
S9 Bonus: Ariel & Irena, Healthbird
20 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ariel Dominguez has been an entrepreneur for most of his life. He started his first company at age 15, selling websites in Miami, hiring family member...
S9 E4: Ayal Regev, Redefine.dev
19 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ayal Regev lives in Tel Aviv, and continues working hard on his startup, despite the hostage conflict in the country at the time of this recording. Pr...
S9 Bonus: Leonardo Shapiro, Not Alien
14 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Leonardo Shapiro is originally from Mexico City. His family was from Russia and Poland, but ended up being in Mexico City after being denied from the ...
S9 Bonus: Blake Burch, Shipyard
13 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Black Burch grew up in Fort Worth, attending college at TCU. Prior to his current venture, he wasn't actually a tech person. He wanted to be a mus...
S9 E3: Reinis Simanovskis, Finfra
12 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Reinis Simanovskis was born in Latvia. He comes from a family of exact sciences - physic, math, tech, etc. - which gave him a clear path of where to g...
S9 Bonus: Raven Jiang, Arc
07 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Raven Jiang grew up in Singapore before heading over to the states for college. He came to the US for undergrad because he grew up reading science fic...
S9 Bonus: Avi Freedman, Kentik
06 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Avi Freedman became obsessed with tech at age 8. He was given a BASIC programming book by his Uncle in 1978, and at that point - he was hooked. Outsid...
S9 E2: Juan Barroso, Salsa
05 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Juan Barroso lives in the Bay Area but was born in Venezuela. He didn't grow up with technology around him, as his father was a farmer, and his mo...
S9 Bonus: Fabiana Clemente, YData
30 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Fabiana Clemente was born and raised in Portugal, and lived in Lisbon until 2 years ago, when she moved to Seattle. She is passionate about the arts, ...
S9 Bonus: Kyle Carberry, Coder
29 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kyle Carberry grew up in a very small town in Saskatchewan, Canada. He was always into tech, but mainly the pirating side of things on his dial up int...
S9 E1: Matt Levine, CacheFly
28 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Matt Levine grew up in Toronto, and played sports as a baseball catcher. During his teens, he got injured and had to sit out during the season. And du...
Season 9 Trailer
24 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What if you had a window into the digital startup world?What if you could ask the tech veterans what it feels like to create a world class product?......
S8 Bonus: Puneet Gupta, Amberflo (Replay)
23 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For Puneet Gupta, his professional work and personal hobbies collide. He has been enamored with tech since his early days, and finds coding to be quit...
S8 Bonus: Glauber Costa, Turso (Replay)
21 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Glauber Costa is a family man, with three kids at home. So he admits, that with a startup and kids, there is not much space for anything else. He made...
S8 Bonus: Sefi Genis, Firefly (Replay)
16 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sefi Genis lives in Tel Aviv, and started in with technology early on in his life, maintaining the school website when he was younger. He served in th...
S8 Bonus: Naré Vardanyan, Ntropy (Replay)
14 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Naré Vardanyan has a statistically unlikely story. She grew up in Armenia, without electricity during a war. She recalls that her parents gamified th...
S8 Bonus: Alex Yarotsky, Hubstaff
09 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alex Yarotsky got into tech as a little kid. In fact, he remembers watching the movie Toy Story, and wanting to learn how to build the tech that drove...
S8 Bonus: Pato Echague, Split.io
08 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Pato Echague was born and raised in Argentina, and as such, is a huge soccer fan. He played soccer and tennis growing up, and enjoys following the Boc...
S8 E30: Moti Rafalin, vFunction
07 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Moti Rafalin was born and raised in Israel. He spent half of his life there, and the rest of his life in the states. He is a father of 3 kids, 2 of wh...
S8 Bonus: Shaun Ritchie, nClouds
02 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Shaun Ritchie has lived in Salt Lake City for 20 plus years. He grew up in Phoenix, but decided it was too hot to live there. He started his first com...
S8 Bonus: Arunabh Dastidar, RealSage
01 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Arunabh Dastidar has a background in engineering, starting his coding years in his teens. In fact, he was building and selling web products even prior...
S8 E29: Zach Wasserman, Fleet
31 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Zach Wasserman lives near Vancouver, but grew up a child of the 90's in Berkeley, California. The .COM boom was happening around him, so he found ...
S8 Bonus: Steven Schkolne, MightyMeld
26 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Steven Schkolne has a standard tech story. He was good at math, and loved computers - so, he got into programming. What sets him apart in the industry...
S8 Bonus: Somak Chattopadhyay, Armory Square Ventures
25 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Somak Chattopadhyay lives 30 minutes outside of Syracuse, NY, where he enjoys the great outdoors vibe of the area. He studied engineering at MIT, but ...
S8 E28: Maxim Fateev, Temporal
24 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Maxim Fateev grew up in the Soviet Union, and witnessed its collapse. He left in 1995, and moved to Brazil, where he got his Masters in Computer Scien...
S8 Bonus: Ibrahim & Jay, Astera
19 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ibrahim Surani grew up in Pakistan, dropped out of high school and in his words, stumbled around for a while. Eventually, he stumbled onto an IBM main...
S8 Bonus: Jason Radisson, Movo
18 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jason Radisson had a tough childhood, being born to a 16 year old single mom. He grew up on a rural place, and his journey required him to work jobs t...
S8 E27: Valeriy Bykanov, Prodigy
17 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Valeriy Bykanov studied computer science in the Ukraine, and eventually in 2009, decided to start his own software development agency. After doing thi...
S8 Bonus: Massoud Alibakhsh, Omadeus
12 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Massoud Alibakhsh was born in Iran, but grew up in the states. He has always been curious about machines, computers, robots - and as such, studied ele...
S8 E26: Josh Purvis, Assembly
10 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Josh Purvis grew up in Missouri, on a lake in the Ozarks. He spent most of his time outdoors, and became a professional wakeboarder. Eventually, an in...
S8 Bonus: Max Rudman, Prodly
05 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Max Rudman grew up in Soviet, Moscow - then moved from Russia when he was 16 years old. He spent his early years programming and exploring engineering...
S8 Bonus: Kaj Pedersen, AstrumU
04 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kaj Pedersen was born in Zambia, Africa, and has travelled all throughout his life - through Africa, Europe, but has now landed in the United States. ...
S8 E25: Andrew Colombi, Tonic
03 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Colombi is a 38 year old tech guy from way back. At 12 years old, he wanted to play a computer game, but lacked the RAM to load it. After diggi...
Dev Interrupted: Assembling & Nurturing Engineering Teams
29 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Our host, Noah Labhart, couldn't be more excited about being featured on Dev Interrupted, whom we have followed for a long time, and have learned ...
S8 Bonus: Max Howell, Tea
28 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Max Howell did well in school, and was presented with the problem that - he didn't know what to do with himself. At that time, software wasn't...
S8 Bonus: Shirshanka Das, Acryl Data
27 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Shirshanka Das grew up on the eastern side of India, near Calcutta. He did well in school, and got into IIT, choosing Computer Science as his major. P...
S8 E24: Jon Ricketts, Writerly
26 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jon Ricketts lives in Knoxville, TN with his wife and kids. He notes that he has had an unconventional route to being a tech startup founder. He has a...
S8 Bonus: Tim Tutt, ClearQuery
21 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Tutt grew up in the military, and travelled around following his father. An interesting fact he shared was that he attended three different school...
S8 Bonus: Alfredo Ramirez, Vyopta
20 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alfredo Ramirez is the son of Ecuadorian immigrants, which instilled in him positive beliefs around faith, family, community and hard work. Way back, ...
S8 E23: Will Gaviria, Coactive AI
19 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Will Gaviria was born and raised in Columbia, immigrating to Florida at 11 years old. His family seta off in a single bedroom together, and worked har...
S8 Bonus: Andrew Kahl, BackBox
14 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Kahl has spent 30 years in tech, and has had many wonderful experiences. He graduated in 1992, and actually accidentally entered the industry, ...
S8 Bonus: Pete Hunt, Dagster
13 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Pete Hunt grew up in NE Massachusetts, which he mentions was culturally New Hampshire. He wasn't into Hockey, but did a lot of swimming, in partic...
S8 E22: Eric Olden, Strata Identity
12 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Eric Olden grew up in the Bay Area, as one of the few local natives, but enjoys the mountains of Colorado now, outside of Boulder. He and his family l...
S8 Bonus: Barak Glanz, Coddy.tech
07 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Barak Glanz is 26 years old, and has done quite a few things in his life. He served in the Israeli Navy prior to jumping into the professional world. ...
S8 Bonus: David Hurwitt, Troove
06 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
David Hurwitt lives in Burlington, Vermont, and is a married father of 3. And, those kids hav already grown and flown, per Dave's words. Their jou...
S8 E21: Jared Ward, Luminous
05 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jared Ward grew up in a sporty family, participating in wrestling and football. His background is in supply chain and eCommerce, but outside of this a...
S8 Bonus: Vikram Chalana, Pictory
31 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Vikram Chalana grew up in India, but has been in Seattle over 30 years. He graduated from the University of Washington, and actually met his wife in c...
S8 Bonus: Dor Laor, ScyllaDB
30 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dor Laor lives North of Tel Aviv, Israel, but travels 4 times out of the year to the states. He loves tech, which drives 200% of his day. Outside of t...
S8 E20: Artem Koren, Sembly AI
29 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Artem Koren is now based in Amsterdam, and has been a techy since his early years. He was programming Q-basic and C in 5th grade, and building web app...
From Tools and Weapons: Putting AI in the Hands of People Everywhere
28 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hello Listeners. This week, we're sharing another episode of the Tools and Weapons podcast, brought to you by our friends at Microsoft.Microsoft’...
S8 Bonus: Adam Nathan, Almanac
24 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Nathan was born and raised in New York. His parents were small business owners, his brother is entrepreneur, so starting a business was just in h...
S8 Bonus: Idan Plotnik, Apiiro
23 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Idan Plotnik is a half Russian and half Moroccan, which mainly shows up in the way he cooks. First and foremost though, he is a geek, having worked in...
S8 E19: Yann Ravel-Sibillot, Flowie
22 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Yann Ravel-Sibillot lives in France, and has a lot of hobbies. Ones that he mentioned was kayaking and rock climbing, which he has been doing for more...
S8 Bonus: Danielle Shaul, Nilus
18 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Danielle Shaul was born and raised in Tel Aviv, as an only child with a dog she dearly loved. She has always been passionate about building and creati...
S8 Bonus: Dan & Caroline, Overplay
16 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Caroline Strzalka is a Philadelphia native, born and raised. She is a first generation American, and is grateful to be in a place where she can run he...
S8 E18: Ritukar Vijay, Ottonomy
15 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ritukar Vijay has been in tech for around 16 years. He has always been fascinated with new things above and beyond the normal day to day grind. During...
S8 Bonus: Mike Long, Kosli
10 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Long describes himself as near really sitting still. He was born in Australia, but when he was 9 years old, he moved to Scotland. Post school, he...
S8 Bonus: Suman Kanuganti, Personal AI
09 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Suman Kanuganti is married with a 5 year old daughter, which he greatly enjoys. He loves robots, as a robotics major, but describes himself as a human...
S8 E17: Jay Sarmaz, Truve.ai
08 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jay Sarmaz studied operations research in college, which he describes as the science of solving problems and maximizing value with limited resources. ...