Code Story is a podcast featuring startup founders, tech leaders, CTO's, CEO's, and software architects, reflecting on their human story in creating world changing innovation, disruptive digital products - Their tech. Their products. Their stories.
Arnab Deka, co-founder and CTO of Metacast, shares the creation story of their podcast app. After leaving big tech for more direct customer interaction and deep work, he teamed up with a former colleague to build an app addressing their dissatisfaction with existing podcast platforms. They focused initially on a unique transcript experience, later incorporating standard features based on user feedback, navigating challenges like discoverability and scalability with a small team while aiming to grow into a broader platform.
Rob Woollen lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He grew up with a Father in IT and management, and his Mother as an English teacher. He has been programming for a long time, since the early days on his Apple 2E (yes, the green screen one). Outside of tech, he is married with 3 boys, all teenagers. He also has a 1 year old golden retriever, and spends a lot of time ensuring he lives his best life. In addition to this, he and his wife enjoy hiking around the Marin area, as they have the best hiki...
Matt Van Itallie is the son of a math teacher and a coder - so this explains why he now uses code as data. He is a proud Boy Scout, making it of course to Eagle Scout and beyond. After being a management consultant, he found his way to ed tech, and fell in love with improving code. Outside of technology, he is married with 3 amazing kids. He likes to run, play ultimate frisbee, and has a wicked cool collection of minor league baseball hats. Sitting a room with the head of Sales, Matt noticed tha...
Kevin Hurley grew up in a multi-kid house, which is where he got his competitive nature. He used to play 2 on 2 with his Dad and siblings at home. He went to school for electrical engineering, and funny enough, interviewed for a computer science job by accident, effectively stumbling into the trade. Outside of tech, he spends his free time with his fiancé, planning for the wedding, and visiting Manhattan beach for a good walk . Kevin was part of the team that attempted to launch crypto at Facebo...
Anurag Goel grew up in New Delhi, but moved to Boston after college for his first job. He worked at Stripe, as the 8th employee, before eventually moving on and launching his current venture. Outside of tech, he is married, living in San Francisco. He likes to read science fiction, especially prior to bedtime. He also enjoys eating Thai food on the regular, though he mentioned he could eat pizza every day. Post leaving Stripe, Anurag decided to work on an ambitious problem, and he started doing ...
Erik Braund was born and raised in Alaska. Growing up, he played competitive hockey and built computers for his Dad's company and eventually others. He grew up with a gameboy, an electric guitar, and a love for Nirvana. He eventually upgraded his setup to a computer - which led him to setup a recording studio. He was internet obsessed from a young age, partially because it was the door to a bigger world outside of Alaska. He played in bands, started a recording studio, which eventually turned in...
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 o...
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 att...
The Gene Simmons of Data Protection: Protegrity's KISS Method Today, 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 Security In...
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 a...
David Young, founder of Federated Computer, discusses providing open-source SaaS solutions to businesses at a lower cost. He covers the challenges of integrating various open-source tools, building a team with the right culture, and prioritizing customer feedback. David also shares his insights on scalability and the importance of translating technical innovation into sales and adoption.
Ivana Rajca from Protegrity discusses the evolving cybersecurity landscape and the importance of simplifying security strategies. She highlights outdated security methods, the rise of ransomware and supply chain attacks, and the concept of 'security through simplicity'. The episode further explores how organizations can unlock data value while effectively managing data risks and ensuring security measures do not hinder data usage, emphasizing a shift towards proactive security.
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 worl...
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...
The Gene Simmons of Data Protection: Protegrity's KISS Method Today, 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 Happe...
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 ...
Ivan and Nick discuss the scalability challenges of building a foundation model, balancing long-term goals with customer needs. They highlight the importance of limiting failure modes and designing technology for generalizability. The episode explores their proudest accomplishments, including the concept of 'lenses' for AI interaction and the early bet on physical AI, and also their philosophy on embracing failure and learning from mistakes. The future vision for Archetype AI and Newton as a general-purpose computing platform is also explored.
James Rice from Protegrity discusses the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) method for data protection, emphasizing making data useless to attackers rather than building complex defenses. He explains why traditional cybersecurity often fails and advocates for embedding security into the data itself through techniques like tokenization and de-identification. James provides real-world examples and actionable steps for implementing a data-first security model.
This episode features Ivan Puperev and Nick Gillian, founders of Archetype AI, discussing their journey and the creation of their company. They delve into their backgrounds, the evolution of their perspectives on AI, and the development of Newton, Archetype AI's platform for bringing AI into the physical world. The conversation also highlights their approach to building a team and the importance of adaptability and innovation in the rapidly changing field of AI.
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, acrobat...
Alberto Simon, co-founder and CPO of Masterworks, shares the creation story of the platform that allows fractional investment in art. He discusses the initial MVP strategy, focusing on validating interest and choosing the right tech stack. Alberto also covers the importance of team building, scalability challenges, and lessons learned from early mistakes, offering valuable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.
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...
Shmuel Kliger, founder of Causely, discusses his career journey leading to the creation of Causely, a company focused on automating IT operations. He shares insights into the challenges of managing large amounts of data, the importance of open telemetry, and building a team with strong convictions. Kliger also reflects on past experiences and offers advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, emphasizing the need for a technology-first approach and a clear vision.
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...
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-founder...
Anthony Eden, founder of DNSimple, shares the company's creation story, born out of frustration with existing domain registrars. He discusses the early days, building the MVP with Ruby on Rails, infrastructure challenges, and customer-driven development. Anthony also covers team building, scaling to handle DDoS attacks, business philosophy, and future plans including generative AI.
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,...
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 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 getti...
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 und...
