Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Austin Federa has a non-traditional path into the blockchain world. In college, he studied political & environmental science, and economics. Interestingly enough, those studies map a lot to the blockchain first principles. He was seriously looking to do his PhD, but fell out of love with that space, and joined NPR as a journalist for a while. Then, of course, he got bit by the startup bug. Outside of tech, he enjoys living in Brooklyn, photography, and engaging in some form of learning at all times. He enjoys reading, mention the Children of Time series, as though it was fiction, it had a lot of interwoven psychology and communal themes.Austin acknowledges that though we all love the internet, it's actually not very good... for high performant systems. And though companies are trying to build dedicated networks in the world, there hasn't been one created for blockchain - IE, not centralized around single party.This is the creation story of DoubleZero.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://doublezero.xyz/https://www.linkedin.com/in/austin-federa/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Tim Eades grew up poor, but forced himself into college. He is a 4 time CEO, an investor, and on the boards of several different companies - but more interestingly, he is an old punk. He saw the Sex Pistols live back in the day, which he mentioned had great sound quality. He's been married for 25 years, and is on the board of a charity that his wife runs. That charity delivery 20,000 birthday cakes to underprivileged children a year.Being a multi-time CEO, Tim has some experience around starting companies. He interviewed many cybersecurity leaders, asking about identity and why vulnerabilities around it was still a problem. During a Liverpool game, he downloaded a powerpoint template and put together a pitch to build a company and solve this problem.This is the creation story of Anetac.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://anetac.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/tieades/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Brooke Hartley May lives in Oakland, California, on the East Bay, claiming to get more sunshine than her neighbors in San Francisco. She was a history major in college, which makes her path to technology a bit different. She still enjoys writing and reading in long form to this day. Outside of tech, she is married with a 4 year old son - and a pug. She enjoys life as a parent, startup founder, but was sad that the Oakland A's left Oakland, amongst other teams.A few years ago, Brooke and her now co-founder observed that people were viewing AI as this end-all-be-all solution. But what quickly happened was that the data needed to make AI effective was not in quite the same state.This is the creation story of Infactory.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://infactory.ai/https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhartley/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Yaroslav Lazor started writing code when he was 10 years old. It took him a while to understand that making a difference in the world wasn't just about writing code - but he has arrived there these days. He is the father of 4 daughters, 2 of which are artists and a couple who are digging into their entrepreneurial roots with running their own lemonade stand. He lives in Los Angeles, and has learned to be a better person through pushing himself as a founder.Sergiy Korolov also started coding when he was young, though 4 years later than Yaroslav. He went to a technical university, and as his career in leadership grew, the number of lines of code he contributed to decreased. He is located in Poland, and loves to snowboard in the winter, and bike in the summer. He has 3 kids, and recently started teaching coding to his oldest son.Yaroslav & Sergiy were building software for clients, the typical Ukrainian software route. Over time, they realized that building their own products was the best way to make an impact - so much so, that they decided to start building their own.This is the creation story of Railsware.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://railsware.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ylazor/https://www.linkedin.com/in/sergiykorolov/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Yaroslav Lazor started writing code when he was 10 years old. It took him a while to understand that making a difference in the world wasn't just about writing code - but he has arrived there these days. He is the father of 4 daughters, 2 of which are artists and a couple who are digging into their entrepreneurial roots with running their own lemonade stand. He lives in Los Angeles, and has learned to be a better person through pushing himself as a founder.Sergiy Korolov also started coding when he was young, though 4 years later than Yaroslav. He went to a technical university, and as his career in leadership grew, the number of lines of code he contributed to decreased. He is located in Poland, and loves to snowboard in the winter, and bike in the summer. He has 3 kids, and recently started teaching coding to his oldest son.Yaroslav & Sergiy were building software for clients, the typical Ukrainian software route. Over time, they realized that building their own products was the best way to make an impact - so much so, that they decided to start building their own.This is the creation story of Railsware.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://railsware.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ylazor/https://www.linkedin.com/in/sergiykorolov/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Rob Duffy lives in New York with his family. He moved to the states to go work for a small online bookstore that we know today as Amazon. He's married with 2 kids, and enjoys to cook. But, his main passion is flying, as he has is pilots license and enjoys flying small planes. He recalls training on a simulator with a rendering of the Seattle space needle, which he got to fly next to in the real world once he got his license. He admits his wife has a love/hate relationship with his flying - IE she prefers when the flight is over.Rob's has a track record of successfully building platforms - IE figuring out how to do things once instead of multiple times. His current company was growing through acquisitions, and Rob was brought on to unify these and create a converged platform for what the company had to offer.This is Rob's creation story at HealthEdge.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://healthedge.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/platformduffy/proxyfeed-jUAqjtCxSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Emmanuel Straschnov grew up in rural France, which is interestingly enough where he started doing computer stuff (he mentioned there wasn't much else to do in the 90's). He grew up sailing, as he lived next to the shore in Normandy. He never really thought he would end up coding, but after obtaining his MBA, he ended up doing just that. Outside of tech, he is married with 2 children. He mentions that most of his hobby time is devoted to them, but on occasion, he likes to travel, continue sailing, and to sing.Many years ago, Emmanuel noticed that there were a lot of people searching for technical founders, and using services to find technical founders. He thought this to be wrong, as many people have product ideas and just need a product to help them build it... so, he created something just for them.This is the creation story of Bubble.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://bubble.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/straschnov/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Clayton Gentry has been digitally oriented his whole life. When he was younger, he was into photography and making videos with his friends and for school - either highlight videos for school events or promotional videos for businesses. He's always liked making things look good on a screen, and was attracted to the art of it - which, he attributes to his mother's genes. These days, he lives in Brooklyn, plays guitar, and likes to run in Prospect Park near his home.Toward the end of 2022, Clayton and his co-founder, Michael, re-connected on starting something new. Given Michael had extensive industry knowledge in the podcast world, Clayton and he combined their super powers to take on the multi-platform nature of podcasting.This is the creation story of Podstock.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://podstock.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/clayton-gentry-6492588a/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

David Asamu grew up in Nigeria and got into technology early, through serving his community. He attended University, and continued his community efforts there, and was introduced to the joys of Python programming. Outside of tech, he spends time with his significant other and family. He enjoys soccer, whether it is watching over playing. When asked about food, he mentioned loving Nigerian delicacies, such as Jollof rice.Previously, David was working at a fintech company. While he was there, he and his friends were observing the trends around AI - and they wanted to get more involved. So they got together and built something over the weekend... and eventually decided to advance AI through research.This is the creation story of Nesla.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://nesla.co/https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-asamu/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Clément "Kero" Renault wanted to be an architect when he was younger. During that time, he also learned about computers and built his first website - and he never stopped building. Funny story, he lost that first website cause it wasn't on Git. Outside of his professional life, he likes to draw, craft and to cook. He also enjoys video games, and mentioned Hidden Reign was his favorite game of all time, alongside the likes of Cyberpunk.Seven years ago, Kero was in school, and he wanted to build a solid search experience, but not just a general search - one that indexed your data, and allowed you to have a "Google" just for your info. After winning a school hackathon, Kero and his mates wanted to take it to the next level.This is the creation story of Meilisearch.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://www.meilisearch.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerollmops/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy