Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Will Gaviria was born and raised in Columbia, immigrating to Florida at 11 years old. His family seta off in a single bedroom together, and worked hard for their life and successes. He got a full ride to MIT, and funny enough, he had to convince his mother that it was a legit school. Through all of his studies, he got to see the rise of AI and focused on neo-morphic computing. Outside of tech, he...

Andrew Kahl has spent 30 years in tech, and has had many wonderful experiences. He graduated in 1992, and actually accidentally entered the industry, when he came across a job ad for Compaq. He's been in tech ever since, all around the building of things. Outside of tech, he is marred with 2 daughters - one of which he just sent to college, and one in high school. Along side of that, they have...

Pete Hunt grew up in NE Massachusetts, which he mentions was culturally New Hampshire. He wasn't into Hockey, but did a lot of swimming, in particular the 200m butterfly. He has a 2 year old daughter, and loves to play guitar in his cover band. Pete was one of the founding team members of React, and his friend and colleague, Nick, was one of the creators of GraphQL. Post Facebook, they wanted...

Eric Olden grew up in the Bay Area, as one of the few local natives, but enjoys the mountains of Colorado now, outside of Boulder. He and his family love to ski, mountain bike, and even visit the reservoir to do some surfing. Outside of these things, he is passionate ab out landscape architecture, and does it for fun on the side. Prior to his current venture, Eric was running a large division at O...

Barak Glanz is 26 years old, and has done quite a few things in his life. He served in the Israeli Navy prior to jumping into the professional world. He worked for Meta as a student, and has has a few impressive startup failures in different sectors. Outside of tech, he is a rock climber, weight lifter, and likes to play chess. He mentioned that he beat someone in 10 moves before, but attributed i...

David Hurwitt lives in Burlington, Vermont, and is a married father of 3. And, those kids hav already grown and flown, per Dave's words. Their journey out of the nest into college was a driver behind starting his current venture. Outside of current venture, he is an avid photographer and really enjoys taking pictures, but ensuring there is people in them - cause, he states it's just better...

Jared Ward grew up in a sporty family, participating in wrestling and football. His background is in supply chain and eCommerce, but outside of this and tech, he is a family man and loves spending time with his kids. With his 7 year old son, he is sharing his love of Zelda, and with his 3 year old daughter, he enjoys taking her to the park and the occasional tickle fight. For himself, he enjoys wa...

Vikram Chalana grew up in India, but has been in Seattle over 30 years. He graduated from the University of Washington, and actually met his wife in college. In fact, his kids now go to the same school, so his whole family are Huskies. Outside of tech, he loves anything outdoors - skiing, biking, and kayaking. In fact, at the recording of this episode, he just got back from climbing Mt. Kilimanjar...

Dor Laor lives North of Tel Aviv, Israel, but travels 4 times out of the year to the states. He loves tech, which drives 200% of his day. Outside of tech, he is married with two teenage kids, and enjoys extreme sports. At the time, he does snowboarding and mountain biking, mentioning that the best place to mountain bike was a ski resort in France. He would love to do surfing, but hasn't found...

Artem Koren is now based in Amsterdam, and has been a techy since his early years. He was programming Q-basic and C in 5th grade, and building web applications in High School. Post school at Columbia, he started working at .COM businesses, but found himself dis-enchanted with the state of AI. Outside of tech, he loves chess, attending running club, Jui Jitsu, and cosmology - the study of space, bl...

Hello Listeners. This week, we're sharing another episode of the Tools and Weapons podcast, brought to you by our friends at Microsoft. Microsoft’s Chief Technology Officer, Kevin Scott, believes that for AI to benefit everyone, humans must be at the center of its development. His philosophy was shaped by his rural Virginia roots, where he belonged to a hardworking community that used creativi...

Adam Nathan was born and raised in New York. His parents were small business owners, his brother is entrepreneur, so starting a business was just in his blood. He has always been interested in complex systems, working in the government and in the airline industry. Outside of tech, he is a big skier, cyclist and works out every day. He's also a big reader, and reads 60-70 books a year. Adam fou...

Idan Plotnik is a half Russian and half Moroccan, which mainly shows up in the way he cooks. First and foremost though, he is a geek, having worked in computer security from his early days. Outside of tech, he is married to a professional surfer, so he and his wife surf Israel's waves regularly. He is a dad as well, and stays busy putting together lego sets, or cooking delicious fish dishes, i...

Yann Ravel-Sibillot lives in France, and has a lot of hobbies. Ones that he mentioned was kayaking and rock climbing, which he has been doing for more than 10 years. He is passionate about AI, and built his first robot 15 years ago. Outside of tech, he is happily married and really enjoys Italian food. When I asked him what I should do when I come to France, he mentioned trying all the different f...

Danielle Shaul was born and raised in Tel Aviv, as an only child with a dog she dearly loved. She has always been passionate about building and creating things, often assembling and disassembling things in her home. She loves to travel, and spent many years in Asia, Europe and in the US. Outside of tech, she likes ceramics and reading - specifically, biohacking, mindset books, or learning to becom...

Caroline Strzalka is a Philadelphia native, born and raised. She is a first generation American, and is grateful to be in a place where she can run her own company. Her parents are from Argentina, with a Polish heritage - so she pointed out that they speak a lot of languages in her home. Outside of tech, she loves to hike and be in the trees. And, she calls herself the MacGyver of the kitchen, mea...

Ritukar Vijay has been in tech for around 16 years. He has always been fascinated with new things above and beyond the normal day to day grind. During his studies, he was interested in robotics - which he describes as the culmination of computer and physical sciences. Outside of tech, he is married with a 6 year old son. He mentioned that his son is inquisitive, and is requesting robot features fr...

Mike Long describes himself as near really sitting still. He was born in Australia, but when he was 9 years old, he moved to Scotland. Post school, he worked in England, then Norway, then China... and now back to Norway. Early on his career, he worked in the Oil & Gas building larger robots for the industry. Outside of tech, he enjoys spending time with his family and taking long walks in the...

Suman Kanuganti is married with a 5 year old daughter, which he greatly enjoys. He loves robots, as a robotics major, but describes himself as a human oriented person - one who wants to elevate the experience of people. Outside of tech, he enjoys playing volleyball and is a foodie with his wife. They enjoy yellow tail sashimi and modern Mexican fusion, but at home, they enjoy remixing cuisines wit...

Jay Sarmaz studied operations research in college, which he describes as the science of solving problems and maximizing value with limited resources. His studies led him to learn computer science to utilize in solving this problems, and eventually, he got his PhD from Georgia Tech. He is driven by curiosity to solve big problems, but outside of tech, he is a soccer fan, plays musical instruments,...

Reza Farahani has a background in engineering, and was heavily influenced by his family. In particular, his Uncle was a fighter jet engineer, which he thought was the coolest job in the world. He graduated from Waterloo, and became a data scientist - but eventually moved towards entrepreneurship. Outside of tech, he lives in Ontario and loves to rock climb and boulder. He enjoys the community aspe...

Alex Bovee is first and foremost a family man. Time outside of his life as a founder is dictated by his family. He's married with 2 kids, and can be found shuttling kids to soccer or dance practices in his spare time. During COVID, he was able to pickup guitar, using YouTube to teach himself. His family got him a super nice Taylor acoustic that he plays on today. Alex spent some time at Okta,...

Job Rietbergen lives in Amsterdam, which he says is awesome because there are so many types of amazing cuisine. He has always been a creator of things - art, photography, product and technology, to name a few. He finds its an odd trait to create art and be in tech, as there are not a lot of people who lead from a designers mind. He has been supporting early stage startups for the last 13 years. Ou...

Today we are dropping another special episode of the Code Story podcast, as part of our series entailed Beyond Bots: the REAL impact of AI on financial services, brought to you by our friends at Ntropy . As a reminder, Ntropy is the most accurate financial data standardization and enrichment API. They can take in any data source, any geography, and understand / enrich a financial transition in mil...

David Frank grew up in Denver, CO, and as expected, he grew up loving skiing. He mentioned that Vale was his favorite mountain, and continues to love it today. He graduated from the University of Michigan, and did investment banking in San Francisco, before starting his own firm. Outside of tech, he has two kids and by the time this episode releases, he will be a married man! His family loves to s...