Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Theo Bergqvist is an entrepreneur who enjoys working a lot. He started his first venture in 1999 in the gaming industry, building Paradox, which is now listed on the Nasdaq. Of all his ventures, the common core to them all was technology. Outside of tech, he lives a life dedicated to Japanese martial arts. He practices 5-6 times a week, and have made several trips to Japan with his Sensei, focusing on the art 10 hours a day.At one point during his career, Theo was working for Ericson around their transformation. He noticed how difficult it was for enterprises to adopt AI tooling and automation. He decided to raise some funds and get started trying to create something to help... and started the build and pivot game.This is the creation story of Turbotic.SponsorsFull ScalePaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://turbotic.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/theodore-bergqvist-/Our Sponsors:* Check out Incogni: https://incogni.com/codestory* Check out NordProtect: https://nordprotect.com/codestorySupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Jens Neuse grew up in Germany, originally planning to be a carpenter. In his 2nd year as an apprentice, he was in a motorcycle wreck that thrust him into a process of surgery and healing. Eventually, he decided he wouldn't be doing carpentry, and got into sysadmin work. Once he got bored with this, he moved into startups, learned how to code, and starting digging into programming, API's and eventually - GraphQL federation. Outside of tech, he is married with 3 young kids. He loves to sit ski on the mountain - which is the coolest carbon fiber chair on a ski, where you steer with your knees and hips.After chasing building a better Apollo, Jens and his team ran into a point where their prior product and company was doomed to go under. When they accepted this fact, they started to think about what people actually wanted - and started to dig into the federation of GraphQL.This is the creation story of Wundergraph.SponsorsFull ScalePaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://wundergraph.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/jens-neuse-706673195Our Sponsors:* Check out Incogni: https://incogni.com/codestory* Check out NordProtect: https://nordprotect.com/codestorySupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Simon Ritter has been in the IT industry for 40 years. He went from university to work on Unix in the early days, employed by AT&T and programming in the C language. In 1996, he switched gears to join Sun Microsystems, programming in Java. Years later, after the Oracle transition, he started to dig into what might be next. Outside of tech, he is married with an older son. He is a complete petro-head - meaning, he is really into cars. In fact, in the last few years, he and his son re-built a classic mini from the ground up.While Simon was at Oracle, he started to crave a different opportunity, but still in the Java space. He stumbled upon a company digging into powering the Java platform, to make it the most secure, efficient and trusted platform on the planet - and he, and the company, found a great fit.This is Simon's creation story at Azul.SponsorsFull ScalePaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinkshttps://www.azul.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/siritter/Our Sponsors:* Check out Incogni: https://incogni.com/codestory* Check out NordProtect: https://nordprotect.com/codestorySupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Adam Cohen grew up in Toronto, in North York. He showed early signs of entrepreneurship by putting his lemonade stand on a wagon, and taking it door to door - or hustling his friends to buy souvenirs on a school field trip. His Dad was in VC, and was a big influence on his life, pushing him to succeed. Outside of professional life, he is big into sports, specifically basketball. In the past, he loved playing fantasy sports, which also influence how he built his business ventures.Adam and his team went through several iterations of AI tooling - summarizing AI, integrating git and JIRA, etc. While they were doing this, they realized that the best way to make a difference, was to first focus on the data itself.This is the creation story of Weave.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchMailtrap.TECH Domains (https://get.tech/codestory)Linkshttps://workweave.dev/https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-b-cohen/Our Sponsors:* Check out Incogni: https://incogni.com/codestory* Check out NordProtect: https://nordprotect.com/codestorySupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Alan Fisher started his career as a computer programmer. Early on, he was hired by the 1st or 2nd largest freight railroad in the world, Union Pacific. He describes their technology group as having a punk rock spirit, leaning towards building their own solutions over buying them, which he found great value in. Outside of tech, he has been married for 30 years, and has 3 kids. He is an avid runner, landing someplace between a marathon runner and a mile in the morning kinda guy. He also loves to read the classics, drawing inspiration from them, along with restoring old homes.Given his rich history in the rail industry, Alan has led the charge in growth, innovation, and most recently, logistics, analytics, and digital mine. As his company started to look to the future in how to solve the industry's most pressing problems, his team executed the acquisition of a portfolio of companies and products - driving by automated inspection.This is a creation story of KinetiX at Wabtec Corporation.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchMailtrap.TECH Domains (https://get.tech/codestory)Linkshttps://www.wabteccorp.com/https://www.wabteccorp.com/digital-intelligence/condition-monitoring/kinetix-inspection-technologieshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/alanjamiefisher/Our Sponsors:* Check out Incogni: https://incogni.com/codestory* Check out NordProtect: https://nordprotect.com/codestorySupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We are bringing you a special episode, as our friends at Strata return to the podcast. You might remember our interview from Season 8 with Eric Olden, Co-founder & CEO of the company. Eric took us through the creation story of the company. Today, we will be talking with Granville Schmidt, Chief Architect at Strata, who has been instrumental in architecting and building identity orchestration for AI agents from the ground up. In our chat, we are going to be discussing how the enterprises need to take advantage of identify for agents, and can do so seamlessly, no matter their level of tech debt, disconnection, or complex migration path.QuestionsLet's break down Identity Orchestration for our audience. Can you explain what it is and walk us through a real customer scenario where it made a huge differenceEnterprises have accumulated decades of identity tech debt. What are the main problems identity orchestration solves for companies trying to modernize?I noticed you work with customers in what you call DDIL environments - disconnected, disrupted, intermittent, and limited bandwidth scenarios. Can you help us understand what these environments look like in practice and why identity becomes such a critical challenge there? You've pioneered Identity Orchestration for AI Agents. What was the moment when you realized AI agents needed a fundamentally different approach to identity management?Imagine a company with 1,000 employees but 50,000 AI agents running autonomously. How does your platform handle identity for all these agents differently than traditional systems?Linkshttps://www.strata.io/https://www.strata.io/identityheroes/https://codestory.co/podcast/e22-eric-olden-strata-identity/https://www.linkedin.com/in/granvilleschmidt/Our Sponsors:* Check out Incogni: https://incogni.com/codestory* Check out NordProtect: https://nordprotect.com/codestorySupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Derek Ting grew up in Canada-land, enjoying all the things of the area but especially hockey. He mentioned he has a bit of ADD, which made it hard for him to make it through a chapter in school. Nowadays, he has 2 kids. His oldest son plays hockey, and he and his family enjoys rooting on the Toronto Maple Leafs. When asked about food, he claimed to be one of lives to eat, as he loves food. In fact, the more exotic food the better - but not as far as insects or something.When Derek figured out that carriers wanted to charge for texting, on top of the fees he was already paying for his phone and associated services. He found this atrocious, and he wanted to figure out a way to text for free - and eventually, all phone service.This is the creation story of TextNow.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchMailtrap.TECH Domains (https://get.tech/codestory)Linkshttps://www.textnow.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekting/Our Sponsors:* Check out Incogni: https://incogni.com/codestory* Check out NordProtect: https://nordprotect.com/codestorySupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Alex Kihm just turned 40, and has been into computers for 36 years. He was given his first hand me down computer at the age of 4 by his parents, and also grew up with lego bricks and building things. He is an engineer by training, but eventually switched to econometrics on the big data side. Outside of his professional life, he is married and describes himself as water affectionate. He enjoys swimming, diving - and free diving. In fact, he studied diving during his semester abroad. His free diving is mainly a hobby, but he has deep respect for the professional free divers of the world.At his original startup, Alex started to dive into LLMs and immediately ran into RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation). When he observed the wrong information being returned, along with a ton of resource consumption in the process - IE cost - he set out to solve the problem, and figured out the solution was in the chunks.This is the creation story of POMA AI.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchMailtrap.TECH Domains (https://get.tech/codestory)Linkshttps://poma-ai.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-kihm-27a902338/Our Sponsors:* Check out Incogni: https://incogni.com/codestory* Check out NordProtect: https://nordprotect.com/codestorySupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today, I'm talking with Dan Eyman, the Managing Director at Meld Valuation, specializing in independent, audit ready valuations for VC backed startups and VC firms. He is an expert in the valuation of complex instruments such as convertible debt and SAFEs. Dan is going to illuminate the common mistakes of founders, how valuations differ, and what founders should understand about dilution and how fundraising affects their cap table.QuestionsWhat are the most common mistakes you see founders make when it comes to valuations or equity structuring?Can you break down how SAFEs and convertible debt actually work—and how do they impact ownership over time?At what point should a startup bring in a valuation firm, and what are the risks of waiting too long?How do 409A and ASC 820 valuations differ, and why do they matter for venture-backed companies?What should founders understand about dilution and how fundraising rounds affect their cap table long-term?What are your general observations around venture capital investing, and the market for investment right now?You’ve worked with thousands of startups—what separates those who scale successfully from those who stall?Linkshttps://meldvaluation.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieleymanOur Sponsors:* Check out Incogni: https://incogni.com/codestory* Check out NordProtect: https://nordprotect.com/codestorySupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Avi Perez has been in the data and analytics space for more than 25 years. He began his career in banking and finance in Australia, but quickly grew tired of crunching numbers for the big wigs, wanting to find a better way to calculate this information. Outside of tech, he enjoys a wide array of music, from classical to modern trance. He's a big science fiction nut, enjoying shows like Aliens and the Matrix, and cooks up some exquisite cuisine on occasion.Within his prior startup, Avi and his co-founders built out a way to make intelligent decisions for their business using data. After they exited the business, they wanted to continue their data stint, but in particular, commercialize the analytics solution they built.This is the creation story of Pyramid Analytics.SponsorsPaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchMailtrap.TECH Domains (https://get.tech/codestory)Linkshttps://www.pyramidanalytics.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/avi-perez-cto/Our Sponsors:* Check out Incogni: https://incogni.com/codestory* Check out NordProtect: https://nordprotect.com/codestorySupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy