Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Erik Gross had an odd journey into tech. He grew up in the redwoods of California, off the grid with no running water in a tee pee. However, there was a pivotal moment in his life when his Dad brought home an old school computer, and taught him about the internals, hardware, binary, and removed all mystery from computers. He had a career in the Navy as a nuclear reactor operator, and gained a lot...

Ryo Koyama never thought he would be in technology. In the past, and in current days, he is very much into art, photography and woodworking. However, as he says it, he did was a good Asian son does and got a fluid dynamics degree. Eventually, he went on to be a product manager for graphics cards and has been in tech since. He has two adult daughters, and at one point, coached high school basketbal...

Roger Light lives in the midlands of the UK. He has his PhD in Electrical Engineering, and post graduating, he did research, then taught. But in parallel, he worked on hobby projects that eventually led him to a new venture. Outside of tech, he is married with 4 young boys and a dog - so he mentioned things get a little loud and crazy at home. He loves spicy food, but has been enjoying the visit t...

Nathan Henderson grew up in Saudi Arabia, where he actually met his now co-founder, back when he was 5 years old. His wife grew up in Mexico, and as such, they love to travel internationally. They are married with 3 college age kids, two at BYU and one on a church mission in Chile. His hobbies center around his family, but on his own, he loves to scuba dive, hike and stay physically fit. While he...

Craig McLuckie is a self proclaimed boring guy - monochromatic, as he put it. At one point, he tried retiring from his professional ventures - IE building technology - but... it didn't work. So he is now back into building tech. Outside of tech, he is father to four children - two younger, two older - and enjoys spending time outside with them, hiking and building things. When he comes to food...

Naomi Chopra grew up in Delhi, India, but attended Grad school in the US, specifically in Atlanta. He worked in the valley for several companies, including Uber, but eventually left to start his own thing. Outside of tech, he enjoys spending time with family and friends and loves to play tennis, which he has been playing since he was young. He mostly plays doubles because there are more people and...

Melissa Pancoast is originally from Miami, but now lives in California. She still loves Florida, being outside skiing or rowing. The latter was a huge part of her life from middle school through grad school, and she is hoping to get back into it soon. She's married, and runs outside as much as possible. In fact, she has completed several half and full marathons, including the Boston Marathon....

Jonathan Norris lives in Toronto, and has a passion for tech that started early in his life. He has participated in the First Robotics competition, which got him into mechanical engineering, building robots, and leading teams to world championships. He still actively volunteers and mentors people in the program today. Outside of tech, he is a new Dad, and stays quite busy parenting his kid, when h...

Gilad Shriki was born and raised in Israel. He loves the outdoors, and loves to travel. Skiing in a passion of his, and he loves to explore new places in the winter, mentioning that Whistler was his most recent favorite. He started digging tech very early, and his hobbies center around it as well. He loves building things in home automation, like building micro controllers that detect temperature...

Alex Deeb was influenced by the education space early on. He had many teachers who inspired him through his life, and his parents pushed him to do well in school on order to obtain better opportunities. Along side of that, he is interested in equitable opportunities, which is a big driver for him in his professional ventures. He is passionate about helping learn about new opportunities. He grew up...

Sahil Patel has lived in Atlanta for 12 years now, but has made a lifetime of leaving Atlanta... and the coming back. He attended undergrad in ATL, and in 2011, started a company called ER Express, which centered around patient scheduling. After building the company, he sold it for a successful outcome for him, for his team, and for the buyer. Outside of tech, he is married with 2 daughters, and l...

Ariel Dominguez has been an entrepreneur for most of his life. He started his first company at age 15, selling websites in Miami, hiring family members before he could drive. He continued his career later, in finance, then consumer product goods, then healthcare insurance. He loves to build things, and has started 13 - 15 businesses in his lifetime. Outside of tech, he is an avid drummer, and has...

Ayal Regev lives in Tel Aviv, and continues working hard on his startup, despite the hostage conflict in the country at the time of this recording. Prior to his current venture, he was in tech for 10 years, doing consulting in cybersecurity, healthcare, and gaming. Being a gamer for a long time, he enjoyed the technical challenges in brining a game to market. Outside of tech, he likes to write rap...

Leonardo Shapiro is originally from Mexico City. His family was from Russia and Poland, but ended up being in Mexico City after being denied from the US. He is an outdoorsy person, and loves to walk and hike. And in fact, he used to be a scuba diving instructor in college, and he loves to spend time in spaces like the underwater. He's also a foodie, and loves coffee and wine. For Leonardo, the...

Black Burch grew up in Fort Worth, attending college at TCU. Prior to his current venture, he wasn't actually a tech person. He wanted to be a music professor, specifically in percussion. But eventually, he moved over to the tech world. But, outside of tech, he plays board games, in the strategy realm, and named one that I hadn't heard of called Terra Mystica. Previously at PMG, Blake and...

Reinis Simanovskis was born in Latvia. He comes from a family of exact sciences - physic, math, tech, etc. - which gave him a clear path of where to go professionally. He started coding classes in middle school, but quit to purse road cycling, of which he was very successful. He still rides today, nearly 200-300 kilometers per ride. He has worked in London, Africa, and eventually landed in Jakarta...

Raven Jiang grew up in Singapore before heading over to the states for college. He came to the US for undergrad because he grew up reading science fiction, and liked the idea of working with technology. He plays multiplayer video games, which helped to shape how he viewed technology and the advancements in that ecosystem. He enjoys Japanese food, and in fact, traveled to Japan regularly while livi...

Avi Freedman became obsessed with tech at age 8. He was given a BASIC programming book by his Uncle in 1978, and at that point - he was hooked. Outside of tech, he has been married for 30 years, and likes to play Pot Limit Omaha (which is Poker) and to Taekwondo to keep his body healthy. Avi ran the network group at Akamai, and thought that networking observability was a solved problem. After he l...

Juan Barroso lives in the Bay Area but was born in Venezuela. He didn't grow up with technology around him, as his father was a farmer, and his mother was a seamstress. Neither went to University, but they made sure to push Juan to attend university and focus hard on his studies. It was during University that he fell in love with programming. Outside of tech, he likes to try new things, and do...

Fabiana Clemente was born and raised in Portugal, and lived in Lisbon until 2 years ago, when she moved to Seattle. She is passionate about the arts, having a creative mind. She finds great joy and relaxation in water color painting, while also spending time with her family over fantastic Portuguese dinners. Outside of this, she enjoys traveling, learning about other cultures and cuisines across t...

Kyle Carberry grew up in a very small town in Saskatchewan, Canada. He was always into tech, but mainly the pirating side of things on his dial up internet connection. He got into pogromming when he got is first Xbox, and started modding it - followed by Minecraft servers and building tools for the internet. Outside of tech, he just moved to New York and prefers the hustle and bustle over the smal...

Matt Levine grew up in Toronto, and played sports as a baseball catcher. During his teens, he got injured and had to sit out during the season. And during that time, he started to dig into computers, and became hooked. He started several businesses in High School, and later founded eFront. Outside of tech, he is married with a couple of kids, and likes top lay golf. While working in Arizona, Matt...

What if you had a window into the digital startup world? What if you could ask the tech veterans what it feels like to create a world class product? ...how to recover from critical mistakes... ...how to scale your solution to the masses? How do you get from an idea on the back of a napkin, to a fully functioning product? What if you could hear the human stories about how they delivered technology?...

For Puneet Gupta, his professional work and personal hobbies collide. He has been enamored with tech since his early days, and finds coding to be quite therapeutic. He spent many years launching prominent cloud solutions, and has a track record for success there. Outside of tech, he is a family man with 2 boys, living in the Bay Area with his extended family. He is into motorcycles, and is falling...

Glauber Costa is a family man, with three kids at home. So he admits, that with a startup and kids, there is not much space for anything else. He made mention that the jump from 2-3 kids was hard, and we joked that he playing zone defense now over man to man. AS of this recording, he had already seen the Mario movie 3 times with his kids, and enjoys playing video games with them. But, his game to...