Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Hey guys, today I want to tell you about a new podcast I'm digging. It's called Compiler, an original podcast from Red Hat, who also brought you the popular show Command Line Heroes. Anyway, the show Compiler is hosted by two tech veterans, Angela and Brent from Red Hat, and on the show, they discuss tech topics - big, strange and small. I checked out the first episode, titled “Should Mana...

Veena Somareddy is from India, and came to the US in 2012 to peruse her Masters degree in Game Design & Development. Technology has been an integral part of her life, as she was a big time gamer in high school and after, playing such games as GTA, Doom and Diablo. She also likes to keep watch on the latest tech gadget on Kickstarter. Outside of tech, she plays sports recreationally, and grows...

Adam Robinson has had an interesting path into the tech world. He started out at Lehmen Brothers, and eventually Barclays, as a credit default swap trader. He spent 10 years doing the job that the movie the Big Short was written about. And he loved it. Back in the day, his first roommates in New York were the founders of Vimeo, and he was inspired by what they built and by being a tech entrepreneu...

Paraag Sarva is a New York City native. He grew up in Queens, and went to college at NYU. When he started his career, he didn't think about going into tech. In 2004 / 2005 timeframe, he did what most people did or tried to do - he went to work for Goldman Sachs to learn the financial services world. Though he was good at his job, he quickly realized that he didn't love it, and moved on to...

Matt Schwartz is a lover of food. It's been a huge part of his personal and professional life, in such areas like evidence based nutrition, exercise science, and the history & economics of our food system. As a kid, he was a picky eater. Over time, learning to eat better was a catalyst towards personal improvement for Matt. He believes that food, more so than anything else, shapes the heal...

Travel is a huge part of Code Candee's life, even prior to his current venture. He has lived in a dozen different cities, travelled to over 60 countries, and has been to 49 of the 50 US states. Out of all of them, his favorite place to live was India, specifically in Bangalore. While he was there, he tried to experience all the cultures, food and people, and quite enjoyed his time. He is a min...

Andrew Childs doesn't have a computer science background. He grew up in Philly, and is currently based in NYC with his wife and 6 year old. His first computer experience was in 1984, with a Macintosh plus. He was immediately hooked on this extraordinary machine, that felt like it was made by humans. With no internet, it was just a playground in the beginning, but on it, he was able to explore...

Derrick Reimer got his first computer in kindergarten. His Dad was a mechanical engineer, but at home, tinkered with code.. and Derrick was always interested in the projects he was working on. In junior high, he learned Dos basics, and started to make games. He found it really fun to write utilities and tools for people, and funny enough, he even tinkered with accounting software - and tried to re...

Greg Rather comes from a family of artists, so he always envisioned himself going in to art. From an early age, he was drawing and creating comics (funny enough, centered around his favorite animal - pigs). And back then, he was also a budding entrepreneur. In fact, in grade school, he would Xerox his comics and sell them at school for a buck a piece. In High School, he got into animation and game...

Andrew Butt always dreamed of being an airline pilot, and his passion outside of tech is flying. He has spent more time in helicopters over planes, and he enjoys that more. His family relocated to San Francisco 18 months ago, and they have been pretty much under lock down since that time. He and his wife have been doing the normal things during lock down - surfing the web, hiking, etc... but mostl...

Rahul Sidhu was one of those kids who was always fiddling with computers. He even had a small tech startup in high school, to help him pay his way through college. Out of High School, he was an EMT, and studied emergency medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. Post that, he became a paramedic crew chief, overseeing an assigned rescue crew and shift. In 2013, he became a police officer full time....

Chris Wexler had a crazy path to get where he is today. By his count, he is on his 6th career. His first job was on Capital Hill, followed up with a stint in Wall Street. After that, he produced independent theater, and then got into marketing and advertising, being one of the early adopters of ad tech. He's married with two daughters, and is a huge baseball fan (the Minnesota Twins specifical...

Brendan Wood lives in New Brunswick, Canada, with his wife and 3 kids. They live in an old house, and from his per-view, he has done way to many projects on it. In fact, shortly after they moved into the house, they discovered foundation problems and had to re-pour a new foundation (which is a massive undertaking). They have a cabin a half hour drive out of town, which is is Brandan's happy pl...

Alexander Alimovs was born in a country that no longer exists. It was the USSR (or the Soviet Union), but today it's an independent country called Latvia. In 2008 when he was 18, he moved to the United Kingdom for school, and he has been there ever since. He studied business and medicine in school. Early on, he was given the recommendation that in order to make a big impact, he should start a...

Colin Chartier started making video games when he was young. He used to played Warcraft 3, which had a powerful map editor for its users. He recalls that one game map was called goblet exploration, where you were stuck in the middle of nowhere and you had to make civilization (think a precursor to Minecraft). He found that this was really good for learning how to make things that people wanted......

Slater Victoroff has had some pretty cool hobbies over his life. Though he claims to be a weird guy, he has a well rounded set activities. He is a vegan baker, which is half mad science, requiring the breakdown of recipes to the fundamentals of their elements. He is also a fiction writer, halfway through his second book (which he started during the pandemic). Along with that, he has pursued master...

Jody Shapiro was fortunate enough to know he was going to be an engineer from a young age. He did the typical kid things, liked played with legos, and built things, with deep curiosity around how things worked. He was introduced to coding when he was 9 years old - and it clicked. He also found himself interested in the business world. The same curiosity around gears and levers was also extended in...

Ken Gavranovic lives in the northern suburbs of Atlanta - namely Alpharetta - with his wife Heather, and two teenage daughters. As a kid, he was fascinated by the movie war games... but what excited him was not the war aspect, but the fact that kid could sit in front of a computer and build anything with their mind. That... got Ken excited. While living in Galveston, TX, he dove into computers as...

Valerie Coffman has a family in San Francisco, with 2 cats - both 18 pounds each - and 2 kids, the oldest being 3 and a half. So you could say she has a lot to juggle, even outside of a startup. Her family spends time outside, in parks, the zoo, museums, etc - as much as she can since they are opening up again post pandemic. She graduated from Cornell, with her PhD in Theoretical Condensed Matter...

Jay Haynes has always been interested in tech, just like his Dad. In 1979, his Dad bought and brought home an apple II plus. Though he was using it for his business to do spreadsheets, Jay began writing code so he could play video games for free, slinging code in BASIC. It's worth noting that this was back when you had to pay a quarter to play a video game. His Dad was a navy pilot, and a hobb...

Marko Anastasov has been working with computers for a long time. He grew up in former Yugoslavia in the 90's, when there was civil war, hyper inflation, and the economy was taken back 20 years. His father was an electronics guy, so there was always a computer around in the house. He found himself fascinated with information and the things you could conjure up on the "magic screens"......

Josh Millet's journey to tech was quite circuitous. He spent most of his 20's doing a PhD in French medieval history, with his plan being a professor in college. His specific time period was the era around Joan of Arc. Upon graduating, he realized that the job market for French medieval history professors wasn't super hot... and he ended up doing a startup with some of his friends from...

Kristen Buchanan live in Portland, Oregon with her husband, cats and dog. She went to school for museum education, with a minor in art history - note the non-technical background. She was a kid who loved archeology and anthropology, and though she was going to be spending her time in museums. Personally, she loves teaching and sharing new things with people - yet, never wanted to be a teacher. Her...

In his early career, Angel Munoz was an investment banker, specializing in technology. He was fortunate enough to invest in the development of MP3's in the 80's. In addition to this, he is well known for being the spearhead of what is known as eSports today. He is a father of 2 kids, and has been married for 36 years. His passion centers around interactive entertainment, specifically in th...

Braden Stenning has always been interested in tech. His earliest memories include the desire to be an aerospace engineer - to be the guy to build the spaceships. He spent a lot of time exploring computers, being interested in math & science - and even founded a high school robotics team. This really opened his eyes to software development as a career, and lit up something inside of him. He is...