Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Prince Ghosh was born in Bangalore, India, and moved around a lot during his life - to the US, then to Europe, then back to the US. But he spent his formative years in Princeton, New Jersey. He majored in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, as he wanted to build planes and engines. Eventually, he fell out of love with building planes, and because obsessed with supply chain tech. Outside of tech, he is a tennis player, occasional basketball player, and is an avid reader. He is enthusiastic about tech, the economy, and of course, the supply chain.Prior to his current venture, Prince started Workbench while his co-founders created an agency, which was more like an operations company in a box. When they started working together, they realized there was a large opportunity to combine forces and simplify quality control.This is the creation story of Factored Quality.SponsorsCacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://www.factoredquality.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/princeghosh/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Anish Dhar grew up in the Bay Area, but now is located in New York. He felt lucky to be surrounded by technology, being in the Bay Area and having his Dad as a software engineer. His earliest exposure to tech was hacking his Wii - and at that point he was hooked. He eventually joined Uber and experienced many of the problems he is solving today. Outside of tech, he enjoys tennis and playing piano. He loves making music and attending shows to hear other artists, in particular EDM.While he was at Uber, Anish noticed that the company was a prime example of microservices gone wrong. Developers were going outside of standards building services, not documenting them properly. He realized that every company he talked to had the problem of service cataloguing, and he felt confident to apply to take the challenge on and apply to YC.This is the creation story of Cortex.SponsorsCacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://www.cortex.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/anishdhar/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Rick Caccia was born and raised in Silicon Valley - and just stayed. He is married with 2 teenage daughters, one about to go to college. Between him and his wife, they have worked in 13 different startups - so you could say they have a startup family through and through. Outside of tech, he is a cyclist in a bike club, and enjoys spending time with his family.After speaking with a number of security officers at companies, Rick realized the enterprise situation with AI - most companies are stuck, trying to figure out how to enable their employees to use new tooling, while still maintaining the level of security and control they have over data. Rick was asked to join a founding team to solve this problem.This is the creation story of WitnessAI.SponsorsCacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://witness.ai/https://www.linkedin.com/in/rcaccia/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Shalin Madan immigrated to the US when he was 6 years old. He spent 20 years in the financial markets, of which he got into when he was a teenager. HIs first and best memory of the industry is when Netspace IPO's, and the stock went up 300% in the first day. Outside of finance and tech, he enjoys cooking, frequents the gym, and loves to travel. He's also a learner, studying philosophy, relationships, and of course, the macro economy.Shalin found himself frustrated with working for others, which drove him into entrepreneurship. When he came across his current venture, he invested in the firm, became a part of it, and eventually, became the last co-founder, in a company administrating funds with cutting edge technology.This is the creation story of Formidium.SponsorsCacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://formidium.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/shalin-madan-caia-b00239/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Konrad Niemiec lives in San Francisco. He is very close to his family, of which his parents are polish immigrants. He started coding when he was 11, while working for his Dad. His core values are curiosity and community, which drives a lot of what he does outside of tech. He likes to learn things, and his current hobby set includes surfing and spike ball, of which he is working on perfecting his spin serve.Konrad worked at Uber, on the self driving team. After a few years, he wanted to be less of a cog in the machine and joined a small startup. He introduced a feature flagging platform, and realized how quickly configuration bloat appeared on the platform. He also realized how dynamic configuration could take the platform beyond the limits of feature flags.This is the creation story of Lekko.SponsorsCacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://www.lekko.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/konrad-niemiec/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Jason Hill was born and raised in New York, and post college, went back to New York and joined the financial services - though, he was always into technology. Eventually, he moved to South Florida because every time he was in New York, he couldn't wait to leave. He enjoys playing poker, pickleball, and spending time with his two kids.Jason has been a podcaster for many years, interviewing founders and creators of new startup and tech solutions. When COVID hit, he was struck with how difficult it was to connect with individuals via audio call. He validated an idea he had, and combining his ambition and a little bit of boredom, he got a crew building a solution.This is the creation story of Owwlll App.SponsorsCacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://owwll.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejasonrhill/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Adam Jacob grew up in Vancouver, but now lives North of San Francisco. He's married with a teenage daughter, and grew up in the era of the internet that was bulletin based. He likes music, specifically heavy metal. He was raised on 80's hair metal, but also enjoys modern and Swedish metal, of which your host is very familiar. He also loves cats, and at one point, had a bengal, which is a cross between a tiger and a domestic cat.Previously, Adam was the creator of Chef, and has spent many years building a successful platform, extending DevOops value with automated security and compliance. He and his now cofounder reached the limits of what could be achieved using conventional approaches in the space - and decided build a new tool, to enable engineers to tackle complex infra and app management without compromising control.This is the creation story of System Initiative.SponsorsCacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://www.systeminit.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjacob/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Berkay Atatop is originally from Turkey, but now lives in Germany. He loves to travel, and living in Germany allows him to be close to family, but enable him to live a nomadic life. He split his college time in Turkey and America, and while he was stateside, he discovered hackathons - which is the origin spot for his current venture. Outside of tech, he played water polo for 10 years, and enjoys playing the guitar. He finds inspiration in bands like Pearl Jam, who is coming to Europe soon, which Berkay is excited about.After getting into hackathons, Berkay and his co-founder built a prototype of their current company solution - an automatic transcription solution for voiceovers. Once they graduated, they decided to start a company and move into subtitles and beyond.This is the creation story of Maestra.SponsorsCacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://maestra.ai/https://www.linkedin.com/in/batatop/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Umaimah Khan grew up in San Diego, but now lives in the Bay Area. A fun fact about her - she was home schooled until college, and growing up, loved puzzles and math. She planned to be a math professor until she eventually got into startups and tech. She is a curious person, with many hobbies and interests. In fact, she loves to cook and was a chef at two different Michelin star restaurants. She also likes to garden, growing food and also interesting plants.In the past, UK found herself drawn towards real world problems in real time.What she found herself noticing was that access management was incredibly messy - and that people weren't willing to look behind the curtain to fix the problem. After she noticed that this problem kept surfacing , and decided to solve it.This is the creation story of Opal Security.SponsorsCacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://opal.dev/https://www.linkedin.com/in/umaimah-k-b7466a249/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

David Cauthron grew up in Dallas, TX and attended UTD for undergrad. Post that, he spent 22 years at Texas Instruments - who makes a whole lot more than calculators - serving in numerous roles in IT, the latter being e-commerce. Outside of tech, he is married with 2 kids, and really enjoys spending time with his family - going to Disney, biking and running. In addition to this, he plays Minecraft with the kids, and attending gymnastics meets and Boy Scout campouts.David was contacted by his current founder and friend, who was going through an intra-prenuership program at SAP. After winning the program, but having the program shut down, he asked David if he was available to start a company and create the Concur for small to medium businesses.This is the creation story of Outpave.SponsorsCacheFlyClearQueryKiteworksLinkshttps://www.outpave.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-cauthron-15806a8/Our Sponsors:* Check out Vanta: https://vanta.com/CODESTORYSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy