Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Sefi Genis lives in Tel Aviv, and started in with technology early on in his life, maintaining the school website when he was younger. He served in the Israeli military, specifically in the cybersecurity unit, followed by working at some interesting and successful startups. Outside of tech, he loves to travel, ninja warrior, and scuba diving. One of his favorite places to dive was Thailand, which...

Naré Vardanyan has a statistically unlikely story. She grew up in Armenia, without electricity during a war. She recalls that her parents gamified the experience, which allowed her to experience it much differently than the hardship it was. Her upbringing was very community driven, focused on caring for others. Eventually, she went to work for the United Nations, in her words, so she could save th...

Alex Yarotsky got into tech as a little kid. In fact, he remembers watching the movie Toy Story, and wanting to learn how to build the tech that drove its creation. He got into University, but eventually, dropped out, and went the standard Eastern European software route, by joining a consultancy. Post that, he joined his first tech startup, and hasn't looked back since. Outside of tech, he is...

Pato Echague was born and raised in Argentina, and as such, is a huge soccer fan. He played soccer and tennis growing up, and enjoys following the Boca Juniors. He also admits to being influenced by the Messi effect as well, liking Barcelona and now the States. He is a father of 2 young kids - who also play soccer - so there are a lot of nets and practice tools in his backyard. At his prior startu...

Moti Rafalin was born and raised in Israel. He spent half of his life there, and the rest of his life in the states. He is a father of 3 kids, 2 of which are in college. His family and he lives in the Bay Area, and he likes to play tennis and travel. In fact, he has been to over 65 countries in his life, and has lived in 2 continents. After attending AWS re-invent, Moti left with the knowledge tha...

Shaun Ritchie has lived in Salt Lake City for 20 plus years. He grew up in Phoenix, but decided it was too hot to live there. He started his first company 20 years ago, and has had some major successes, selling later ventures to WeWork. Outside of tech, he is married with 4 kids. He loves the mountains and outdoors, enjoying snowboarding, skiing, and hiking. In 2022, Shaun set out to accomplish a...

Arunabh Dastidar has a background in engineering, starting his coding years in his teens. In fact, he was building and selling web products even prior to college. He spends most of his free time thinking about tech and startups, but when he is not, he plays acoustic guitar and attends music festivals. He enjoys traveling and trying food across the world, mentioning that Tokyo ruined Sushi for him....

Zach Wasserman lives near Vancouver, but grew up a child of the 90's in Berkeley, California. The .COM boom was happening around him, so he found himself fascinated with this era in tech, with little understanding of the details. He was a skater kid, riding around the Bay Area, typically on a short board over long board. Nowadays, he is more into the outdoors, as a mountain biker, rock climber...

Steven Schkolne has a standard tech story. He was good at math, and loved computers - so, he got into programming. What sets him apart in the industry though, is his passion for design, art and creativity. He is a self taught designer, but really jams when his right and left brains are firing at the same time. Outside of tech, he is married and enjoys gaming and digging into YouTube. Steven was wo...

Somak Chattopadhyay lives 30 minutes outside of Syracuse, NY, where he enjoys the great outdoors vibe of the area. He studied engineering at MIT, but spent the bulk of his career in investing. He has been in venture capital for nearly 18 years, spending time at Edison and Tribeca. Outside of tech, he is married and passionate about food and music. He's actually a classically trained violinist,...

Maxim Fateev grew up in the Soviet Union, and witnessed its collapse. He left in 1995, and moved to Brazil, where he got his Masters in Computer Science. In the late 90's, he moved to the US, eventually landing in Seattle, which loves. He's been married for 27 years, with 3 boys, and loves to hike, play ice hockey, and snowboard. He mentioned there were a number of choices, but he prefers...

Ibrahim Surani grew up in Pakistan, dropped out of high school and in his words, stumbled around for a while. Eventually, he stumbled onto an IBM mainframe, taught himself to code, and has been in tech ever since. He moved to the states in 1988 and has been here ever since. Outside of tech, he is an avid hiker, and enjoys a good fantasy read, like Lord of the Rings. Jay Mishra studied mathematics...

Jason Radisson had a tough childhood, being born to a 16 year old single mom. He grew up on a rural place, and his journey required him to work jobs to get ahead and figure the world out at a young age. He was always interested in math and sports, which led him down the path to study economics and applied mathematics, eventually working for McKinsey. Today, he is married with small kids, and enjoy...

Valeriy Bykanov studied computer science in the Ukraine, and eventually in 2009, decided to start his own software development agency. After doing this for some time, he wanted to expand his horizons and moved to Berlin to join a startup. Outside of tech, he is married, and loves to be active outdoors - hiking, snowboarding and cycling. In fact, one of his favorite things to do is listen to a podc...

Massoud Alibakhsh was born in Iran, but grew up in the states. He has always been curious about machines, computers, robots - and as such, studied electrical engineering and computer science. He built his career on hardware and software, and witnessed all the tech changes throughout the past decades - from mainframes to GUI's to pcs to distributed systems to the cloud. Outside of tech, he used...

Josh Purvis grew up in Missouri, on a lake in the Ozarks. He spent most of his time outdoors, and became a professional wakeboarder. Eventually, an injury took him out of the circuit and he went to entertainment school. During his time there, he and his roommate built a website - and he has been into tech ever since. Outside of tech, he reads a ton, owning about 400-500 books, and enjoys street ta...

Max Rudman grew up in Soviet, Moscow - then moved from Russia when he was 16 years old. He spent his early years programming and exploring engineering, and it just continued on as he got older. He got the entrepreneurial bug in early 2000's when he was hired at a marketplace .COM startup. Outside of tech, he is married with 3 kids. He loves to travel and considers himself a foodie, stating tha...

Kaj Pedersen was born in Zambia, Africa, and has travelled all throughout his life - through Africa, Europe, but has now landed in the United States. He has had tons of exposure to cultures and countries, which he is fond of. Outside of tech, he married with a family, and loves climbing, being a proclaimed mountaineer. When he isn't climbing he likes to read a broad array of books, and scuba d...

Andrew Colombi is a 38 year old tech guy from way back. At 12 years old, he wanted to play a computer game, but lacked the RAM to load it. After digging into the internal configuration to delay the load of peripherals, he was hooked on computers and eventually, coding. Outside of tech, he is picking back up learning piano, and really enjoys biking. He mentioned he just got a new gravel bike, which...

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Max Howell did well in school, and was presented with the problem that - he didn't know what to do with himself. At that time, software wasn't cool, so he studied chemistry and started out a job in that industry. After he mastered his work environment within 3 months, he was disenchanted with the career path, and decided to stop going to work. Post installing Linux on his home computer, he...

Shirshanka Das grew up on the eastern side of India, near Calcutta. He did well in school, and got into IIT, choosing Computer Science as his major. Post undergrad, he got his PhD at UCLA, eventually working at PayPal and Yahoo on massive architectural systems. Outside of tech, he's married with 2 kids, he's an accomplished Indian vocalist, and has a passion for swimming, which he states i...

Jon Ricketts lives in Knoxville, TN with his wife and kids. He notes that he has had an unconventional route to being a tech startup founder. He has an MBA and JD, but knew during law school he didn't want to practice. Throughout his career, he has continually fallen in love with building. Outside of tech, he enjoys spending time on the beach, staying physically fit, golfing, and working on hi...

Tim Tutt grew up in the military, and travelled around following his father. An interesting fact he shared was that he attended three different schools in the 1st grade. He learned how to make friends and fit in quickly. Outside of tech, he loves the marvel cinematic universe, from which he states that Tony Spark is his spirit animal. He also loves to play poker, which he got into during college....

Alfredo Ramirez is the son of Ecuadorian immigrants, which instilled in him positive beliefs around faith, family, community and hard work. Way back, his father bought him an Apple 2 computer, which started him on his software development journey. Outside of tech, he is married with kids, and loves spending time outdoors with them - hiking, water sports, snow skiing and shooting trap. All of these...