Uncertain Value

Mara Lantz is a Bay Area-based artist and product design leader. She holds a BA in psychology and fine arts from Hampshire College, where she designed her own concentration at the intersection of psychology, studio art, art history, creative writing, and theater. Most recently, Mara worked at Pinterest as a design leader in the monetization sector. Her acrylic paintings and mixed media sculptures...

In this episode I'm speaking with Nina Chan, a Strength Coach and former Growth Product Manager. After studying creative writing at Brooklyn College, she spent 16 years as a Product Manager. First at Ask.com, then at SurveyMonkey, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Recently she changed her career to be a strength coach.

In this episode, I’m speaking with Sarah Eckenhoff . Sarah is a creative director and aesthetic trend analyst with a background in both graphic design and product design. Quoting the tagline from her online bio "she's been making things thoughtfully pretty for over 20 years” . Sarah has curated trends for thousands of seasonal Starbucks drinkware products, including collaborations with Di...

In this episode, I'm talking with Patricio "Pato" Echagüe , one of the founders of Split.io . Pato shares his path to starting a company in Silicon Valley, all the way from his roots growing up in a small town in Argentina and starting to code on an i386. He talks about how he kept his motivation over the 10-year existence of Split until it got acquired in 2024. We talk about how the...

Katharina van Zeller was born in Vienna and grew up in both Vienna and Hamburg. She studied Social Anthropology and Sinology at the University of Vienna. She is a professional organizing coach and the founder of Ordnungskunst , a consulting practice that helps small businesses and private households create and maintain order. She also co-founded Dreikreis, an agency dedicated to placing agile IT f...

In this episode of the Uncertain Value podcast, I’m talking with Mario Zechner again . He shares how he designed and built a portable, Gameboy-like audio player for his son — motivated by the shortcomings he saw in the Toniebox and Yoto Player , the two biggest products in the market. Issues like unintuitive controls, underpowered speakers, the potential fire hazards of lithium-ion batteries, cont...

Anthony Parker lives in San Rafael, California, and created a successful online guitar school. The success of his business is deeply rooted in social media. He has a strong presence on TikTok , Instagram , YouTube , Facebook , and Patreon. His business, called " Anthony Parker - Near Life Experience ", is the go-to destination for aspiring guitarists. In our conversation, Anthony tells the story o...

Brandon grew up in Idaho and earned both a Master of Science and a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Boise State University. He is a Certified Public Accountant in the state of California. Most recently, he served as the Director of Accounting and Operations at Split Software in Redwood City, California. Prior to that, he was an Accounting Manager at Officengine in Oakland and an Audit Associat...

David Burrowes, who goes by “Deej” earned a bachelor’s degree in Cognitive Science from Brown University. He also studied Chinese at National Taiwan University and Tzu Chi University. He has held various engineering roles in Silicon Valley over the last 30+ years, including Senior UI Engineer at Sun Microsystems, Staff Engineer at Box, Principal Engineer at Split Software, and Engineering Architec...

Richard Koscher is an Artist and Creative Director. Originally from Austria, Richard has been residing in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1999. He has served as the Art Director for the George Lucas Educational Foundation and has contributed his expertise to technology companies such as NextRoll, Neo4J, Mesosphere and Matillion. In addition to his work in the tech industry, Richard actively produ...

Audrey Do grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended UC Santa Cruz, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Astrophysics. For the past three years, she has worked as a Data Analyst and, more recently, as a Product Manager at Split Software, which was acquired by Harness. In our conversation, we discuss how, as a child, learning about a comet that might destroy Earth inspired her t...

Johannes Deubener grew up in Germany and is now based in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he leads AI partnerships at Deutsche Telekom. Johannes brings a wealth of experience in business development, product, and innovation, having worked in various strategic roles at Deutsche Telekom for over five years. Before his current position, he co-founded and managed 'As Good As Pros Sports,' a sports ma...

Richard Koscher is an Artist and Creative Director. Originally from Austria, Richard has been residing in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1999. He has served as the Art Director for the George Lucas Educational Foundation and has contributed his expertise to technology companies such as NextRoll, Neo4J, Mesosphere and Matillion since 2007. In addition to his work in the tech industry, Richard act...

Avash grew up in South Africa and currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Business Science from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and an Executive MBA from the Henley Business School. Avash currently is the Vice President of Corporate Finance at Meta Mind. He has an extensive background in Mergers & Acquisitions, working many years for CitiBank and Deutsch...

Charles was born in China and moved to the United States after finishing high school there. He attended Wabash College in Indiana, where he studied Psychology and German. After completing his undergraduate studies, he moved to Pennsylvania to become a PhD student in Cognitive Neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University. He earned his doctoral degree in 2020. Since then, he has worked as a Data Scie...

Karo was born in Austria, where she also grew up. She earned a master's degree in Architecture from the Technical University in Graz and an Associate of Arts degree from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles. Karo began her career as a Color, Material, and Finish (CMF) Designer at Tesla in California. Afterward, she spent 6 years as a CMF Designer in the UK, contributi...

Mario Zechner, an independent software developer, coach, and angel investor based in Graz, Austria. His technical expertise spans applied machine learning, data science, compiler engineering, and computer graphics. He has authored several books and numerous scientific papers. He was also a key member of a successful startup named RoboVM. The birth of his son marked a pivotal moment in his life, in...

Heather was born in Scotland and spent much of her childhood moving across Europe. She currently resides in Manchester, where she lends her expertise to Split Software as an Experimentation Advisor. With a decade of experience in the field of experimentation, Heather has made significant contributions to prominent organizations such as the BBC, Optimizely, and SKY, as well as to renowned football...

Hennie Farrow is a Designer and Design Leader. Hennie was born in Iran, grew up in Los Angeles and has been living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area since the early 90ies. Hennie has a degree in Fine Arts from the Academy of Art University. She worked as an Instructor at the Academy of Art University for over a decade. After that she held various Design Leadership positions in Silicon Vall...

Inaki lives and works in Argentina. He studied Computer Science at the National University of Central Buenos Aires in the city of Tandil. After his studies he founded a startup that managed genetic information for cattle farms. He held various Software Engineering positions and has been a Product Manager at Split Software, a Silicon Valley tech startup, for a bit over a year now. Besides being a P...

Christian Ross has been managing products for 13 years. His experience spans both consumer and B2B products. In his career he has managed products at WeightWatchers, American Express, Macy’s, Genesys, Sunbasket, and the PGA.  Christian got a degree in Computer Science from the University of Mississippi. He also started a Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at Columbia...