alphalist.CTO Podcast - For CTOs and Technical Leaders

Platform Engineering: Modularised, Standardised and Automated. Discover how to leverage platform engineering 🏗️ for convenience, standardization, automation, and reduced cloud costs in this CTO podcast featuring Boyan Dimitrov (CTO @ SIXT). SIXT is a leading global mobility provider serving customers in over 100 countries worldwide. With 800 tech employees globally, they have spent the past eight years standardizing and modularizing their tech stack to achieve unparalleled scalability. Listen to find out: How to apply the 80:20 rule to Platform ⚖️ How to automate 🔄infrastructure without tickets 🎟️ How to reduce cloud costs ☁️with Platform Engineering How to evaluate ⚖️ an IDP Why they standardize hosting (cloud and database) 🗄️ Open Souce vs. Proprietary - Build vs. Buy Listen here BROUGHT TO YOU BY Storyblok Timestamps: (1:16) Intro (1:21) Introduction to the Alphalist Podcast (1:39) Meet Boyan Dimitrov: CTO of SIXT (2:32) Boyan’s Nerd Journey Journey in Tech (8:42) SIXT’s Tech Stack: From Legacy to Modern (12:21) Microservice vs. Monolith vs. Midsized System (15:30) Platform Engineering (17:41) Platform Mindset (18:18) Modularisation, 80:20 rule and bets on tech trends (19:53) Example: DevOps (23:43) Automations that set up projects (26:40) Size of Platform Team (28:46) Open Source Build or buy (30:28) How to Manage Cloud Costs (31:19) Cost Savings of Cloud Native (31:59) Link Cost To Execution (32:36) Using Platform to abstract tech and allow engineers to focus on customers (36:12) Automating infrastructure - without tickets (38:26) Using Crossplane (39:56) Standardising Cloud Services (40:15) Standardising Database (42:25) Evaluating Proprietary Platforms for IDP (44:25) Optimizing Cloud Costs and Performance (45:20) Constantly improving IDP with inspiration (46:48) Leveraging AI for Development - in a standardised way (47:48) Fast Set Up for Internal Customers (49:41) Internal Application -Supporting the Back Office with AI and Low-Code (52:16) What is next for their IDP and Platform Engineering (52:59) Cool things Sixt is working on (56:33) Tooling for Company Communications (59:06) "Guilds": Creating Communities to Prevent Silos (1:02:28) Balancing Business and Technology (1:04:11) Focus Time (1:06:39) Time Machine: Message to Younger Self About Boyan Boyan Dimitrov is Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of SIXT, responsible for the company’s tech vision and strategy. He oversees the SIXT Engineering Hubs in Munich, Bangalore, Kiev, and Lisbon.Prior to joining SIXT in 2015, Boyan had a long career in the startup ecosystems in the UK and Bulgaria. In his last position, he led the platform teams at Hailo in London, where he worked on a global microservices platform in the mobility space. With over 15 years of experience in cloud and distributed systems, Boyan is a frequent speaker at tech conferences around the world. He holds a bachelor’s degree in network technologies and an MSc degree in IT project management from Aston University in Birmingham. About our Sponsor# Storyblok Finally, a headless CMS that works for both developers and business users. Storyblok offers a combination of visual editing tools and highly customizable content blocks. This is built on modern headless architecture that gives developers the flexibility to build fast and reliable digital platforms. The big benefit of headless CMS is that content can be streamed to any platform via API without having to manage the content multiple times. For example, customers use Storyblok for their websites, online stores, apps, or send the same content to Twitter, WeChat or Alexa skills. Storyblok is now used by over 50,000 developers, product owners and managers in over 80,000 projects in 130 countries. Customers include Adidas, Marley Spoon, Deliveroo and more.

Transformative AI, Build/Buy AI, Business Opportunities and more Get ready for the AI industrial revolution 🦸 in this CTO podcast episode featuring a roundtable of AI AllStars! So much is happening in AI, and you want to be part of it - that is why we asked Jonas Andrulis (Founder and CEO of Aleph Alpha), Rasmus Rothe (Co-founder of Merantix and its AI Campus) and Johannes Schaback (CTO of SumUp) to share with us a broad overview of what CTOs need to know about upcoming AI revolution. Turns out, we aren’t waiting for AGI - we are working on Transformative AI which is in reach for us all. Ready to transform lives with AI? Listen to find out: ~~AGI~~ Transformative AI by 2030 🤖 Why your AI strategy (USP💎) matters more than model choice How to balance AI R&D 🎓with Product 💥and Enterprise Sales 💸 AI Models: Build⚒️/Buy🛒/Pivot 🧭 What are emerging opportunities in AI? (Spoiler: B2B SaaS especially in manufacturing 🏭) How to champion AI 🦸 in your company Loonshots🚀: how to cultivate innovation + Hack to attract 🧲 AI talent to non-tech hubs Listen here BROUGHT TO YOU BY Storyblok Timestamps: (00:00) Welcome (03:39) Meet the AI All Stars (04:31) AGI VS. TRANSFORMATIVE AI (05:28) What to expect in Transformative AI before 2030 (05:53) Agents and Scaling Limits of LLMs (07:07) The Joy of Unsupervised Learning (09:33) The Growing Pains of All AI Applications (10:38) Move to Smaller Models (11:13) RAG Combined with Proprietary Data (12:11) THE ROLE OF TRAINING DATA (14:06) Dreamer Model Architecture (15:25) Synthetic Data (16:49) Where foundational models excel (18:00) AI Sovereignty and Build/Buy/Pivot (20:18) AI Strategy (USP) is more important than model choice (20:29) Example: Detecting contradictory statements using explainable AI with positive and negative sources (22:53) Risk of Vendor Lock-In and Data Breach (25:23) Why companies are pursuing Multicloud in fear of being 'milked' (26:25) BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES IN AI (26:25) 1. Customising Models (28:59) 2. Vertical AI business for industry-specific solutions (30:37) Message for B2B SaaS (31:36) The New Pricing Paradigm Created by AI Products (32:01) Attracting AI Talent (33:38) Investors as Partners First (35:14) Keeping one's ego in check as CEO (36:49) Rasmus's 5-year plan (37:51) What is the Merantix AI Campus (39:31) Hiring The Right Fit AI Researchers (41:22) Balancing AI R&D + Product + Enterprise Sales (42:35) Pivoting an AI-Driven Product (46:10) LOONSHOT: CULTIVATING INNOVATION (46:45) The Challenge of a Loonshot Team on Company Culture (50:18) Loonshot: Can ideas come when isolated from customers? (50:51) Pitching to the Innovation Board at Aleph Alpha (51:39) COMPANY BUYIN: Guiding Companies Through AI Transformation (55:10) How can CTOs get the rest of the company board AI (56:31) Encourage people to try things out (56:57) The Role of the In-House Champion for AI (57:35) 3 Levels AI Company Maturity (58:47) Position your Team to Lead the Next Industrial Revolution (59:28) Bottom Up and Top Down About our Guests# Jonas Andrulis Jonas Andrulis is founder and CEO of the German startup Aleph Alpha, with which he has set the German deep-tech funding record since its founding in 2019. He completed his industrial engineering studies at KIT in Karlsruhe, Germany, with a focus on artificial intelligence and modeling. As a serial entrepreneur, prior to Aleph Alpha, he first founded an AI software company for planning and optimization of complex logistics problems, then for human-in-the-loop training and validation of deep learning algorithms for human-machine interactions. As of 2016, he was at Apple leading AI research in the Special Projects Group. With Aleph Alpha, Jonas aims to build an independent European alternative for the next generation of artificial intelligence, following the example of OpenAI and DeepMind. Rasmus Rothe Dr. Rasmus Rothe is the co-founder and CTO of Merantix, the leading AI group in Europe. He serves as a General Partner of Merantix's venture arm, which builds and invests in AI companies. Merantix also operates an AI solutions business, Merantix Momentum, and oversees the largest AI ecosystem in Europe, including the AI Campus in Berlin and AI House Davos at the World Economic Forum. Rasmus received his Ph.D from ETH Zurich and is a renowned deep learning researcher. He serves as a founding board member of the German AI Association. Johannes Schaback Johannes Schaback is an accomplished entrepreneur and technology executive with extensive experience in the Berlin tech scene. He earned a degree in Computer Science from the Technical University of Berlin and Shanghai Jiao Tong University before joining Rocket Internet as a Software Engineer in 2008. Schaback co-founded LadenZeile.de in 2009, utilizing AI extensively to build the visual eCommerce platform, which was acquired by Axel Springer in 2011. He became a business angel in 2015, and in 2018, joined the management board of online furniture store, home24. Currently, Schaback is the Chief Technology Officer of SumUp, a global financial technology company, leading the development of their cutting-edge payment processing solutions. About our Sponsor# Storyblok Finally, a headless CMS that works for both developers and business users. Storyblok offers a combination of visual editing tools and highly customizable content blocks. This is built on modern headless architecture that gives developers the flexibility to build fast and reliable digital platforms. The big benefit of headless CMS is that content can be streamed to any platform via API without having to manage the content multiple times. For example, customers use Storyblok for their websites, online stores, apps, or send the same content to Twitter, WeChat or Alexa skills. Storyblok is now used by over 50,000 developers, product owners and managers in over 80,000 projects in 130 countries. Customers include Adidas, Marley Spoon, Deliveroo and more.

Jason Fried, CEO of 37signals, discusses intuition over data-driven decisions, simple product design, CEO-CTO dynamics, post-launch customer interviews, Bezos' shares in 37signals, and hiring based on intuition. The podcast also explores the evolution of the speaker's computer journey, transition from PHP to Ruby, open-sourcing Rails, and the need for skill rejuvenation in web development.

Matthew Skelton, co-author of Team Topologies, discusses value flow, team structures, continuous stewardship, and decoupling in time. He explains how Team Topologies reduces cognitive load, increases user value, and structures teams more humanely. Skelton shares insights on system design, cybernetics, and neuroscience, drawing parallels to Pilates for company goals.

Alex Ewerlöf, Sr. Staff Engineer @ Volvo Cars & SRE Thought Leader, discusses SRE vs. DevOps vs. Platform Engineering, challenges of standardization, software in automotive industry, and Volvo's shift to in-house software development. Learn about setting SLIs, SLOs, and SLAs, and find out the unique software challenges in the automotive industry.

Learn from former N26 CTO Pat Kua on unlearning as you move from maker to multiplier, the importance of leadership skills for ICs, and the CRY communication principle. Explore the challenges of the German hiring process, the Trident Model, and the mindset shift needed for effective leadership. Discover the debate on technical knowledge for leaders, flying high and diving deep, and measuring effectiveness in the maker to multiplier journey.

Charles Gorintin, CTO of Alan and Co-Founding Advisor at Mistral, discusses radical transparency in salaries, decisions, and people. Topics include transparent compensation, hiring based on talent density, Mistral's founding, leveraging GitHub for decision-making, and the importance of fair salaries and levels within a company.

David Gebhardt, CTO of mobile.de, shares insights on his journey from CTO to CPTO and back, self-efficacy as a CTO, innovation at mobile.de, and his thoughts on PHP. He discusses the evolving role of the CTO, time-saving tools like scheduling apps, and the use of AI in their work. The podcast also explores their fascination with technology from a young age and their engagement in home automation projects.

Cybersecurity for CTOs in 2024 Let’s hack cybersecurity in 2024 with Melanie Rieback, Co-founder & CEO of Radically Open Security, the world’s first not-for-profit cybersecurity consultancy with a focus on PenTesting🔏. Melanie is on a mission to fix cybersecurity consulting by putting people before profits and empowering internal teams “how to fish” 🎣. Tune in to hear about the current cybersecurity landscape from the person who not only authored a viral RFID paper (“Is Your Cat Infected with a Computer Virus?”), but also PenTested Tor, Homebrew and Greenpeace. Listen to find out: What is the business model💸 behind Post Growth Entrepreneurship (90% of profits go towards Open Internet Initiatives via NLNet) What to prioritise 🕵️‍♀️ in realistic internal IT policies (passwords, backups, updates..) Internal vs. External Security Teams Why she uses “Forgot My Password” as a “magic link” to access infrequent sites (and doesn’t remember the password on purpose) Listen here BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Swarmia and codecentric About Melanie Rieback: Dr. Melanie Rieback is CEO/Co-founder of Radically Open Security (the world's first not-for-profit computer security company), and "Post Growth" startup incubator Nonprofit Ventures. She is also a former Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Free University of Amsterdam. She was named "Most Innovative IT Leader of the Netherlands" by CIO Magazine (TIM Award) in 2017, and one of the "9 Most Innovative Women in the European Union" (EU Women Innovators Prize) in 2019. She is also one of the 400 most successful women in the Netherlands by Viva Magazine (Viva400) in 2010 and 2017, and one of the fifty most inspiring women in tech (Inspiring Fifty Netherlands) in 2016, 2017, and 2019. Her company, Radically Open Security was named the 50th Most Innovative SME by the Dutch Chamber of Commerce (MKB Innovatie Top 100) in 2016. TIMESTAMPS (approx) (00:00) Introduction to the Alphalist Podcast (02:13) What we will discuss today (03:12) What is the Business Model behind Radically Open Security (05:03) The Impact of Radically Open Security's Charitable Contributions (05:43) Where many cyber firms fail us. (09:13) How a Social Enterprise Works (10:15) Giving away 90% of profits? The Bookkeeping and cashflow behind it (13:27) Melanie's Nerd Journey: From human genome to RFD (17:18) Going viral with her RFD Thesis: Is your cat infected with a computer virus? (26:25) The Current State of Cybersecurity and Attack Vectors (26:55) Cybersecurity Challenges at Large Companies (29:18) Cyber Challenges at Smaller Organisations (30:54) Challenges of keeping software up to date at even multinational companies (31:10) Internal Politics and Cyber Policies (31:43) What challenges are fun to PenTest (35:39) Making the best of suboptimal stacks like Wordpress (37:12) Don't forget to back up (39:44) Getting Started: Securing a small team (41:25) Best Practices for Password Policy (42:39) The Future of Cybersecurity: New Approaches and Standards (44:15) 2FA on same device? (45:13) The Importance of Understanding Your Company's Attack Surface (45:35) External vs Internal Cyber Teams (48:52) Finding the right cyber company Quotes:### You don't know how to defend your company until you understand how to attack your company’” - Melanie Rieback, CEO/Co-founder of Radically Open Security,alphalist CTO podcast #94 About our sponsors Swarmia Swarmia is an engineering effectiveness platform for modern software organizations. Hundreds of data-driven companies from small startups to large enterprises use Swarmia to continuously improve across three key areas: business outcomes, developer productivity, and developer experience. Swarmia connects with the tools your teams are already using: from source code hosting to your issue tracker and chat. With it, you'll stay on top of strategic initiatives, measure key engineering metrics (including DORA and SPACE), and drive continuous improvement in teams. Learn more and start your free 14-day trial at link.alphalist.com/swarmia224. codecentric The codecentric Culture and Career Podcast is unique for a company podcast. It is just employees talking freely about their daily life - from IT consulting projects they are working to imposter syndrome. We support this because we think it's pretty cool that codecentric simply lets the colleagues talk about everything, no matter what it's about - project business, Imposter sydrome, further education or parental leave in the consulting business. For us it is definitely worth a recommendation. Listen in - the codecentric Culture and Career Podcast. Note - its in German. Just go to: www.link.alphalist.com/cc

Leveraging Your Tech Knowledge as CTO: Staying Hands-On and Readying for IPO Embrace the technical side 🔧 of the CTO role with Allan Leinwand, CTO of Webflow 🖱️ who has combined technical know-how with great products on every layer of the OSI Model: from setting up HP’s first ethernet, CISCO’s early networks, building the world’s first CDN at Digital Island, and continuing up the stack to enterprise cloud ☁️ (ServiceNow), social gaming​​ 🎮 (zynga), communications 💬 (Slack), eCommerce 🛒 (Shopify) and now webdesign 🎨(Webflow). Listen to find out; Why deep technical knowledge 🧠 allows better products How a monolith can combine individual code ownership and great deploy times 🤔 How to attract 🧲 talent with a ‘boring’ stack (+ Innovation Lab 101) How to embrace the role of a pre-IPO CTO 🧑‍🚀🚀 How to stay technical as a CTO 🧑‍💻 Why he ships small fixes from their #UX-Papercut chann Listen here BROUGHT TO YOU BY: WorkGenius and codecentric About Allan Leinwand: Allan Leinwand is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Webflow, where he leads the engineering team. He joined Webflow from Shopify, where he also served as CTO. Prior to that, Leinwand was SVP of Engineering at Slack and the CTO at ServiceNow, where he grew engineering from 100 to thousands and led the team through an IPO. Before ServiceNow, he was the Infrastructure CTO of Zynga, a Venture Partner at Panorama Capital, an Operating Partner at JP Morgan Partners, and spent 7 years at Cisco Systems (among many other roles). Allan is the author of two books ("Cisco Router Configuration" and "Network Management: A Practical Perspective"), an investor, a board member at Compass and a trustee at Harvey Mudd College. He is based in San Francisco. TIMESTAMPS (approx) (00:00) Intro (02:10) Creating A Frontend For Front-End Webdesigners At Webflow (04:31) Allan’s Nerd Journey (08:38) Allan's Experience In Venture Capital (09:16) Allan's Transition To Social Gaming (09:28) ServiceNow And Slack (09:43) Shopify And Webflow (11:04) How Technical Knowledge Creates Technical Excellence (12:41) 2 Types Of CTOs: Thought Leaders And Builders (13:34) Diverse Domains Need Diverse Stacks - Choosing New Challenges (16:22) Webflow's Tech Stack (19:25) Webflow's Secret Sauce (24:05) Staying Technical As A Builder CTO (25:58) The Importance Of Understanding Developer Workflow (26:25) The Role Of A CTO In Understanding And Improving The Tech Infrastructure (26:38) Solving Ux Paper Cuts: Why He Ships Small Changes (28:04) How To Stay Technical As CTO With Community And Coding (30:26) Why Webflow is Monolith (30:52) The Importance Of Code Ownership In A Monolith Structure (31:33) The Debate: Monolith Vs Microservices (31:59) Fast Deployment In A Monolith (Kubernetes And Docker) (33:10) The Role Of A CTO In Code Quality And Team Management (34:03) The CTO In A Pre-IPO Company (34:45) How To Make A Company IPO Ready As CTO (35:09) The Importance Of Aligning Engineering Needs With Business Needs (37:13) The Challenge Of Tech Debt And Its Impact On Innovation (40:36) Attracting Talent With Conservative Stack (43:19) The Role Of Innovation Labs In A Tech Company (46:40) The Importance Of Specialization In Engineering (48:09) Choosing The Right Company: The Role Of Passion And Leadership (51:46) The Importance Of Patience And Persistence In A Tech Career Quotes:### VC is not for everyone. It is hard to be that hands off when you're a technologist at heart ’” - Allan Leinwand, CTO of Webflow,alphalist CTO podcast #93 Look for companies where you passionately believe in the product, you passionately believe you can bring something to it, and they're led by folks that really understand the market they're tracking and they really are passionate about it because those things combined are just an amazing place to” - Allan Leinwand, CTO of Webflow,alphalist CTO podcast About our sponsors WorkGenius Tired of sifting through countless resumes and struggling to find the right tech talent? Look no further! WorkGenius has just acquired Expertlead, known for its innovation in matching tech freelancers with top-tier companies and offering peer-to-peer live coding assessments. Now, they bring even more efficiency to your hiring process. Whether you're a startup or an established enterprise, WorkGenius is now here to turbocharge your hiring process. Say goodbye to the guesswork and endless interviews. WorkGenius matches your candidates experienced senior developers and puts them through tailored, enjoyable, and fair technical interviews. Your company will get the cream of the crop - the most sought-after talents in the industry- while saving your hardworking Tech and HR teams valuable time. Start your journey with WorkGenius - head over to https://link.alphalist.com/work connect with an expert, and find the perfect match for your engineering needs. codecentric The codecentric Culture and Career Podcast is unique for a company podcast. It is just employees talking freely about their daily life - from IT consulting projects they are working to imposter syndrome. We support this because we think it's pretty cool that codecentric simply lets the colleagues talk about everything, no matter what it's about - project business, Imposter sydrome, further education or parental leave in the consulting business. For us it is definitely worth a recommendation. Listen in - the codecentric Culture and Career Podcast. Note - its in German. Just go to: www.link.alphalist.com/cc