Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Ivan Poupyrev grew up in the Soviet Union, studying rocket science. He moved to the US in 2013 to pursue the early days of VR. He has worked at Disney and Google, and has been focused on merging the physical and digital world for many years. Prior to this latest revolution, Ivan was one of the skeptics towards the idea of AI. But at Google, he was convinced by one of his now co-founders, the value in this tech.Nick Gillian has been working in real time Machine learning for nearly 2 decades - but path here was a bit different. His background is in music and audio engineering - think the math behind amps, studios, mixers, etc. During his masters studies, he fell in love with sensors, and participated in early development and advancement of this tech alongside machine learning. He built a toolkit, which eventually got the attention of Ivan.Ivan was working at Google, and one of his team members began utilizing the toolkit built by Nick. Upon discovering this, Ivan reached out to Nick to see if he wanted to join the top secret team - and eventually, Nick convinced Ivan of the power of machine learning and AI.This is the creation story of Archetype AI.SponsorsMailtrapPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.archetypeai.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-poupyrev/https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-gillian-b27b1094/Support 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

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, acrobatically.Quinn Li has been focused on productivity throughout her career. As she started to swing her focus to building connections at work through play. One of the games she and her team built went viral on TikTok - and they knew they were on to something.This is the creation story of Braid.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.trybraid.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/qloshea/Support 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

Alberto Simon is an immigrant from Mexico, moving to Florida with his small family when he was very young. At a young age, he got interested in computers, through gaming and building his own computers. In college, he briefly studied mechanical engineering, but quickly switched over to MIS. Post that, he joined an adtech startup, caught hold of the rocket, and built the professional skills he still utilizes today. Outside of tech, he enjoys dancing, specifically salsa and machata, and participates in CrossFit. For both things, he enjoys the challenge, working hard towards goals, and seeing progress.Alberto and his co-founders had worked in the startup world for quite some time. They noticed the trends of platforms leading the charge on portfolio management, without advisors, alongside the democratization of investments in things like real estate, crypto, etc. They decided to move forward in removing the opaqueness from investment in art.This is the creation story of Masterworks.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.masterworks.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertosimonSupport 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

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 from the speculative component. He was fascinated with the providential integrity that is found in the blockchain. This culminated with 20 years of experience in deep tech, and led him down the path of AI agent payments.This is the creation story of Nevermined.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://nevermined.app/https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-gossen-40ab96/Support 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

Shmuel Kliger is a self proclaimed old man. He was born in Israel, and served in the army for 6 years. It was in the army where he obtained his passion for the space, from which he got his bachelors, masters and eventually, his PhD. Outside of tech, he is married with 4 kids and 2 grandchildren. He met his wife during grad school, and they now live in New York. When asked what he did for fun, he laughed and said that he enjoyed living in the "best city in the world", with everything at his fingertips.When his past venture winded down, Schmuel found himself at the center of an idea that was the culmination of all his years in technology. To build something that could not only process large amounts of observability data - but could make sense of it, and take appropriate action.This is the creation story of Causely.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.causely.ai/https://www.linkedin.com/in/shmuel-kliger-1a91963/Support 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

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 of charities worldwide.The charity I've chosen is the American Cancer Society.The American Cancer Society is fighting cancer through research into cures and support for existing patients in their family. This not for profit organization, and is enabled to do its work through donations, grants and other sources.If you feel led to help fight cancer and support patients, go to the cancer.org website and click Donate. You can even give in Honor & Memorial of someone who's life has been impacted by cancer.If you want to learn more, go to cancer.org. That C A N C E R.org.Big thanks to the American Cancer Society for the work they do, and to Podcasthon, for coordinated this effort for charity.And thanks again for listening.SponsorsPodcasthonLinkshttps://www.cancer.org/Support 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

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-founders started digging into the AI Code Editor, Cursor, and how the agent side of things could increase the power and speed of coding. Through the shutdown, they decided to start something new.This is the creation story of Braingrid.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://www.braingrid.ai/https://propeldata.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerswells/Support 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

Anthony Eden is a gray beard in terms of internet time, being around when Netscape was released. He was studying music at the University of Miami, and decided to build a website to show off his music and other peoples work - and was hooked. Outside of tech, he grew up surfing, living in Hawaii, France and now Florida. He enjoys writing software for fun - when he has time - and playing board games with this kids - when they are around.In the past, Anthony was coming off of a failed startup. At the time, he was using a different vendor to manage domains and DNS - which he did not like at all. He decided to go forward and build a better solution, and one that is - you guessed it - simple.This is the creation story of DNSimple.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://dnsimple.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/aeden/Support 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

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, and has come to Texas a time or two to tour the Texas Monthly list.Andrew met his current co-founders in 1999. Recently, they re-connected, recalling the successes and camaraderie they had during their startup days. They recalled that the act of leading engineering teams is hard - and they wanted to build something that makes that easier.This is the creation story of Jellyfish.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://jellyfish.co/https://www.linkedin.com/in/amlau/Support 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

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 Levine.When Ayush met his now co-founder, they started to think through businesses and how much goes into setting up payments, taxes, etc. They started to dream about building this layer of payments, to enable builders to send and receive global payments easily, so they can focus on their core competencies.This is the creation story of Dodo Payments.SponsorsPropelAuthTeclaSpeakeasyQA WolfSnapTradeLinkshttps://dodopayments.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/aagarwal1012/Support 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