Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Today, we are kicking off a new series, entitled Developer Chats - hearing from the large scale system builders themselves. In this episode, we are talking with Svyatoslav Babinets , Engineering Manager at Meta . Svyatoslav helps to illuminate teh approaches he takes when building larger scale systems, connecting millions of users, and motivating users and developers alike. Questions You’ve worked...

Spriha Baruah Tucker has spent time in a number of places - growing up in India, attending boarding school in Singapore, and now living in San Francisco. She spent many years at Google, before founding her own startup called Aviator . Outside of tech, she really likes music, having a soft spot in her heart for Bollywood, but really digging into the jazz world these days. She enjoys the guilty plea...

Gajus Kuizinas lives in Mexico City, and travels between there, New York and San Francisco. He had a non-traditional upbringing for an engineer, as all of his family were into the arts - so he had to make his own way. He started in Lithuania, and eventually was recruiting to setup computers and networks for dating platforms. Eventually, he got into freelancing, and started his first startup in the...

Today, we are dropping our final episode in the series "The Railsware Way", sponsored by our good friends at Railsware . Railsware is a leading product studio with two main focuses - services and products. They have created amazing products like Mailtrap , Coupler and TitanApps , while also partnering with teams like Calendly and Bright Bytes. They deliver amazing products, and have happy...

Raj Dosanjh grew up in Coventry, which he calls the Detroit of the UK. He still enjoys following the football team, and hopes they rejuvenate the city some. He eventually left for University and moved to London. He likes to dig into how people think and how things are built. Outside of tech, he is engaged to be married in 2026. As such, he has recently taking up physical training - which results i...

Emmanuel Straschnov grew up in rural France, which is interestingly enough where he started doing computer stuff (he mentioned there wasn't much else to do in the 90's). He grew up sailing, as he lived next to the shore in Normandy. He never really thought he would end up coding, but after obtaining his MBA, he ended up doing just that. Outside of tech, he is married with 2 children. He me...

Today, we have a special guest on the podcast, Kate Lowry, CEO coach , author and comedian. She is a long time startup founder, spent time in VC, is leading a values driven coaching and advising firm called Scaleheart , and recently, just published a book. The title of the book is Unbreakable: How to Thrive Under Fear-Based Leaders , and is a tactical guide to help smart, caring people get unstuck...

Today, we are another episode in our series, sponsored by our good friends at Railsware . Railsware is a leading product studio with two main focuses - services and products. They have created amazing products like Mailtrap , Coupler and TitanApps , while also partnering with teams like Calendly and Bright Bytes. They deliver amazing products, and have happy customers to prove it. In this series,...

Marco Rodrigues was born and raised in Canada, but now lives in the Bay Area. His tech genesis was around the time when the internet came out, when he spent an entire summer indoors, worrying his mother. He eventually attended university in Toronto, and went to work for Juniper Networks. Past that, he went towards the startup world - running product teams, and taking part in the ownership and sell...

Today, we have a special episode correlated with Fraud awareness week, and brought to you by our friends at SEON - the command center for fraud prevention and AML compliance. SEON connects first party data signals to show you what other solutions can't - by enriching data, understanding context, and taking action from one place... to prevent fraud. In this episode, we are talking with Husnain...

Praveen Ghanta recently turned 47 and started to look at the things he wanted to do - but potentially couldn't do in the future. He's married with 3 teenage kids, and has been into running for quite some time. So much so, that he attempted to run a 5 minute mile... and almost made it. Also, he recently signed up for soccer classes, after having been beat by some eighth grade kids, who help...

Today, we are another episode in our series, sponsored by our good friends at Railsware . Railsware is a leading product studio with two main focuses - services and products. They have created amazing products like Mailtrap , Coupler and TitanApps , while also partnering with teams like Calendly and Bright Bytes. They deliver amazing products, and have happy customers to prove it. In this series,...

Chris Wallis lives in London, and grew up on a farm in the UK. He was the kid running around the countryside climbing trees - until his parents bought a computer when he was 15. Past that point, he didn't leave the house much, learning to code and digging into ethical hacking. Outside of tech, he is into tennis, swimming, alpine skiing and surfing. He finds himself in phases with these sports,...

Erez Druk grew up in Israel, but has been in the Bay Area for many years. He has a common theme in his life of obsessing over his current thing. In the 4th grade it was the saxophone, and later on it was being Israel's board game champion, and then - he became obsessed with startups. Outside of tech, he is married and expecting his first child. He's into exercising, reading and coffee. His...

Today, we are another episode in our series, sponsored by our good friends at Railsware . Railsware is a leading product studio with two main focuses - services and products. They have created amazing products like Mailtrap , Coupler and TitanApps , while also partnering with teams like Calendly and Bright Bytes. They deliver amazing products, and have happy customers to prove it. In this series,...

Mrinal Wadhwa grew up in India with a Dad in the Armed Forces, so he moved around a lot. His mother was a teacher for 40+ years, and greatly influenced his love for teaching. In addition to this, he grew up loving to build things. He was introduced to computers and the internet by his cousin - and at that point he was hooked. Outside of tech, he is married and enjoys attending concerts in the Bay...

Shamba Chowdhury got his first computer at an early age. He was the kid that explored every button and every setting, trying to figure out how it all worked. His curiosity exploded when he was 15 and the internet came around. Post that, his first foray into programming came from his love of playing video games. Outside of tech, he loves to read, in particular crime thrillers. He noted that his fav...

Today, we are kicking off a new series, sponsored by our good friends at Railsware . Railsware is a leading product studio with two main focuses - services and products. They have created amazing products like Mailtrap , Coupler and TitanApps , while also partnering with teams like Calendly and Bright Bytes. They deliver amazing products, and have happy customers to prove it. In this series, we ar...

Zohar Bronfman spends most of his time in Tel Aviv, Israel these days. He has a focused academic background, specifically in philosophy and neuroscience. He was always intrigued by the question - how do we know what we know? - which led him to get a PhD in Philosophy. While doing that, he also became fascinated with he human mind and empirical decision making, which took him down the road of obtai...

Tanmai Gopal is a repeat guest on the podcast. Back in Season 7 , he came on to tell the creation story of Hasura, which is a universal data access layer for next generations apps. He talked through he and his colleagues frustration with building API after API, and taking steps to ensure people wanted to not do that work anymore. As Hasura started to take off, Tanmai started to ask the question ar...

Ryan Wang has had a winding set of paths to get to where he is today. He studied economics and statistics, with the intent of going to grad school and becoming a professor. After talking with his boss at the time, Steven Levitt (also one of the authors of Freakonomics), he was convinced that was not the best path. Eventually, he joined stripe via nepotism, and became a software developer via data...

Sam Partee started out his love for tech/engineering by working on cars. After many y ears of working on cars, and even starting his own car stereo installation business, he decided that cards were finite and moved onto computers. He fell in love with the space, and the rest is history, filled with super computers, AI, distributed training, Redis and the lot. Outside of tech, he loves to take long...

Raja Tabet lives in Austin, TX, but grew up overseas in Lebanon. When he migrated to the states for his education, he did not speak English, and had to go through the process of learning the language to fully integrate. He studied computer science for undergrad, and computer engineering for graduate school. And eventually, went to work for companies like IBM, Freescale, and others, prior to landin...

Today, we are talking with Oliver Mitchell , Partner at ff Venture Capital , the most engaged technology venture capital firm in New York City since 2008. They have an extensive portfolio, and have created billions of dollars in market cap value. Recently, Oliver has released a book titled A Startup Field Guide in the Age of Robots and AI . In the book, he sets the stage to mentor - and provide me...

Alex Halkin can't remember a time where he wasn't doing tech. Funny enough, he does remember a time before internet was common place. In 6th or 7th grade, he got a computer and immediately disassembled it. And eventually, he built an internet service provider for his community, eventually dropped out of university, and sold his internet provider. Outside of tech, he has always been into sp...