Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Waseem Daher had two immigrant parents from Lebanon. He was born in the states, after the migrated to the states in the 80's. With his relatives around him, he saw that it was possible to run your own business, and do it well. His love for computer science really culminated when he went to MIT to complete is undergraduate studies, where he actually met his current co-founders. He is married wi...

Ryan Buick grew up in San Francisco - in the actual city itself. He went to school in Oregon, but quickly back to the area. He is a very proud owner of a COVID dog - IE, he got the dog during COVID - and enjoys biking and just hanging out. He named the dog Jerry, in order to make his Dad and his Grateful Dead loving family laugh. Prior to their current venture, Ryan and his co-founders were workin...

Ashleigh Wilson is a self proclaimed elevator baby, being raised in the elevator industry. She grew up with an interesting mix of entrepreneurial spirit, along side blue collar influence. Outside of her current venture, she likes to reach books and is very into fashion. For books, she likes self help, spiritual type books, like Brene Brown or Glennon Doyle. At a prior company, Ashleigh did a resea...

Alex Omeyer is undercover French ,despite his thick British accent. He was born and raised in Paris, and though he studied business and management, he spent most of his time doing show jumping - in other wides, riding horses to jump over obstacles. He moved over to the UK to join his brother, finish his Masters, and get cracking on what they were going to build together. Alex, his brother, and the...

Ruslan K has been doing software development for over 10 years. He's gone from mobile development to automation and AI most recently, working with neural networks. He is a huge horror movie fan - with his favorite being the original Thing movie - and has always been looking for an intersection of tech and movie making. He's also a musician, and is into rockabilly and psycho-billy. Ruslan s...

Max Koziolek comes from a simple background. His single mother raised he and his twin brother, outside of Berlin, with no connection to technology. When he was introduced to tech, he was really only interested as far as the games he could play. He was into sports, martial arts, and even politics, believe it or not. He studied law, and realized that as the world was changing to be wrapped around te...

Jon Darbyshire is joined at the hip with his wife, in life and in business. They have been doing business together for 22 years, along with having 2 older kids, out in the world doing their own thing. He loves to do anything outside, and claims to be at Newport beach almost every day. After selling his prior company called Archer Technologies, he sat down with many founders of startups, investing...

Andrew Zhou grew up in the Bay Area, which he claims was a great place to grow up in. However, he noticed that it was sort of in authentic - as in, no one really did things for themselves. Eventually, he dropped out of college to build something based on authenticity. Outside of tech, he highly values authenticity, has been doing art for more than a decade, and he loves to ski and rock climb as we...

Vicki Duben's background is actually in physics and applied mathematics. Prior to graduation, she was a professional tennis player, having played since she was 4 years old. She loves science, and though it was going to be her future - but post graduation, she joined a hedge fund while waiting to start on her PhD. She found great joy at the trading desk of the hedge fund, which is how she quit...

Today's episode Guest: Jaxon Repp is the Head of Product at HarperDB. He has 25 years of experience in architecting, designing, and developing enterprise software. He has founded 3 tech startups, along with consulting on multiple iOT and digital transform initiatives. Questions: How did you get involved with HarperDB? You lead the charge on product, so what problem did you set out to solve wit...

Luca Rossi is based in Italy, and has lived there his whole life. He has studied computer science, while being a part time musician. He left his PhD program to found a startup called Wanderio, and has been working in engineering leadership roles ever since. Outside of tech, he has been playing guitar his whole life, and he calls it the most serious thing he does outside of tech. During the 8 years...

Dan Lorenc got into tech in a roundabout way. Most of his time in school was dedicated to the study of Mechanical Engineering, building in the world of atoms in machine shops and with 3d printers. He learned how to program through Matlab, and he got hooked. He lives in Austin, enjoys taking in the live music scene, and likes to get outdoors - when it's not 108 degrees, like it was when we did...

Yuliia Tkachova grew up in the Ukraine, but lives in Canada now. She has a family with 2 kids, and a masters in statistics. And, she acknowledges that the war with Russia has been difficult to deal with, thinking of her friends and family back home. On the lighter side, she notes that she loves Depeche Mode and Red Hot Chili Peppers, whom she has seen many times in concert. She recalls the 2010 co...

Josh Lewis was fascinated by computers in the late 80's / early 90's. In the early days, he was neighborhood tech support, fixing people's computers around the block. He quickly moved into programming, but he moved off from technology in college, targeting philosophy and going to grad school. In doing research with a computer science component, he was pulled back into tech and went to...

Andrew Hoag remembers a time before he started his own company where there were other things outside the company. What keeps him sane is spending time outdoors, kite surfing, and traveling. He's a life long nerd, and building things has been his passion for as long as he can remember. Beyond that, he's also a musician - and enjoys hiding behind a drum kit or a DJ booth. Andrew remembers a...

Stephany LaPierre is originally from Quebec, so English is her second language. She was a ski instructor in Whistler, and followed up going to university studying English. She grew up with an inspirational grandmother, who was a forced entrepreneur, involved in the community, and a fantastic mother and family member. Her Mom has a similar story, and Stephany pulls a lot of influence from both of t...

Nat Robinson is from New Zealand, and grew up there the first half of his life. He finds that growing up in a small island nation gives him a unique perspective in the world. He currently lives in San Francisco with a young family, and loves doing water sports when he is not working - including surfing, sailing, and the opposite winter sports, snowboarding and such. He likes Santa Cruz for surfing...

Dan Draper is from South Australia, specifically Adelaide, but his family now lives in Sydney. Interestingly, he does not drink Fosters beer (which is not surprising), and doesn't know what a blooming' onion is. Outside of tech, he has been a life long martial artist, and continues to compete in several forms today. He finds that there is overlap between coding and martial arts, as they ar...

Marie Ng was born in Malaysia but grew up in Australia. She has lived and worked in London and New York City, so you could say she has been all over. At one point, she decided to teach herself how to code, which led her into her current venture. She has a dog named Homer, and ensures that he maintains his celebrity status on social media. While she was learning how to code for the third time, she...

Aaron Upright used to get a ton of energy staying up late and strategizing about his startup, but now that he is 8 years in, he gets the most energy from what he does outside of work. Living outside Vancouver, he enjoys spending quality time with family & friends, and riding mountain bikes, which he finds particularly physically and mentally stimulating. In the past, Aaron and his team noticed...

Arjun Bhatnager has been coding since he was 10 years old, and in general, his family is full of entrepreneurs, running their own businesses. In fact, his brother is his co-founder in his current business. He loves to read, write, and play tennis in his spare time, along with playing music. In fact, playing music was a large part of his life, starting out playing the trumpet. In general, he is pas...

Ian Small is a Canadian, and claims that is the most important thing about him. Tech started for him when he was 12 years old, when he got a bad grade on a homework assignment, bought the manual, and became an expert on the machine. Outside of tech, he likes to do home renovation. As he says it, when there is a power tool in your hand, that could potentially cut your arm off, you tend to focus on...

Hello listeners. Believe it or not, Season 6 has come to a close, and tomorrow, we are kicking off yet another Season of the Code Story podcast. With 6 seasons under our belt, we've nailed down the formula for surfacing the best, human stories, from the builders themselves... like Ian Small, CEO of Evernote, and Waseem Daher, CEO of Pilot. Tune in for this Season's kickoff episode, this Tu...

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...

Adam Newman grew up in the suburbs of New York and Brooklyn. Now, he lives in the DC / Maryland area. His grandparents were immigrants, and owned a bakery and were Taylors. So the entrepreneur and self starter characteristics found in Adam are deeply rooted. He's married with 4 kids, and loves to spend lots of time outdoors and living vicariously through his childrens sports activities. He spe...