Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Evan Henshaw-Plath, also known as Rabble, was born in Berkeley while his Mom was a student. His parents were hippies, and he grew up near Silicon Valley, which gave him access to work with startups as early as High School. He founded Odeo, which eventually became Twitter. He got the name Rabble cause it was founded by three Evan's, which didn't work - so he went with his online nickname. H...

Jesse Pollak grew up in Washington, DC, attending a Quaker school through graduating in high school. He played competitive soccer, which was a huge part of his life. Eventually, he moved to SoCal to attend school at Berkley. He got the bug to start a company, and only lasted 2 years at school - before he ventured out on his own. Eventually, his company got acquired by Coinbase, which opened up a w...

Gaurav Bhattacharya grew up in New Delhi, in a blue collar family. He lost his Dad early in his life. He took influence from his older brother and his love for programming, getting hooked on C/C++. He loves building things, including video games, of which he built his first one at the age of 12. In High School, he pursued a startup idea that led him to skip college, and eventually exit. Outside of...

Artem Rodichev was born and raised in Kazakhstan, surrounded by the mountains. He loves hiking, and pretty much all outdoor activities. He jokes that he was raised by computers, as he was always playing games, trying to learn hacking, and more. He has always be interested in stories, in particular science fiction. He read a lot of books and watched movies, being fascinated with plots around empath...

Keren Fanan doesn't come from a tech based family, yet has worked in tech for the last 15 years. She's not a developer herself, but has always been drawn to software in general, as in her words, software runs the world. She studied Industrial Engineering, but quickly moved into product roles, working for AT&T, Gett and Moon Active in the past. Deep down, she always wanted to found a co...

Michael Sacca didn't start out coding - he started out as a musician. In college, he studied music business and wanted to go into that world. Eventually, he figured out that people didn't care that you had a music business degree, and he ended up waiting tables for a few years. After watching his roommate write software and get paid well to do it, he decided to learn to code himself. Outsi...

Ofir Bibi grew up in Jerusalem, and is where he is today because of his love for photography. He has always been a tinkerer, taking apart of radios and such, and was drawn to the early days of training neural networks and computational photography. He spent a number of years in academia, but eventually was drawn outside of that world. Outside of tech, he is married with 3 boys who play sports. His...

Austin Federa has a non-traditional path into the blockchain world. In college, he studied political & environmental science, and economics. Interestingly enough, those studies map a lot to the blockchain first principles. He was seriously looking to do his PhD, but fell out of love with that space, and joined NPR as a journalist for a while. Then, of course, he got bit by the startup bug. Out...

Tim Eades grew up poor, but forced himself into college. He is a 4 time CEO, an investor, and on the boards of several different companies - but more interestingly, he is an old punk. He saw the Sex Pistols live back in the day, which he mentioned had great sound quality. He's been married for 25 years, and is on the board of a charity that his wife runs. That charity delivery 20,000 birthday...

Brooke Hartley May lives in Oakland, California, on the East Bay, claiming to get more sunshine than her neighbors in San Francisco. She was a history major in college, which makes her path to technology a bit different. She still enjoys writing and reading in long form to this day. Outside of tech, she is married with a 4 year old son - and a pug. She enjoys life as a parent, startup founder, but...

Yaroslav Lazor started writing code when he was 10 years old. It took him a while to understand that making a difference in the world wasn't just about writing code - but he has arrived there these days. He is the father of 4 daughters, 2 of which are artists and a couple who are digging into their entrepreneurial roots with running their own lemonade stand. He lives in Los Angeles, and has le...

Yaroslav Lazor started writing code when he was 10 years old. It took him a while to understand that making a difference in the world wasn't just about writing code - but he has arrived there these days. He is the father of 4 daughters, 2 of which are artists and a couple who are digging into their entrepreneurial roots with running their own lemonade stand. He lives in Los Angeles, and has le...

Rob Duffy lives in New York with his family. He moved to the states to go work for a small online bookstore that we know today as Amazon. He's married with 2 kids, and enjoys to cook. But, his main passion is flying, as he has is pilots license and enjoys flying small planes. He recalls training on a simulator with a rendering of the Seattle space needle, which he got to fly next to in the rea...

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...

Clayton Gentry has been digitally oriented his whole life. When he was younger, he was into photography and making videos with his friends and for school - either highlight videos for school events or promotional videos for businesses. He's always liked making things look good on a screen, and was attracted to the art of it - which, he attributes to his mother's genes. These days, he lives...

David Asamu grew up in Nigeria and got into technology early, through serving his community. He attended University, and continued his community efforts there, and was introduced to the joys of Python programming. Outside of tech, he spends time with his significant other and family. He enjoys soccer, whether it is watching over playing. When asked about food, he mentioned loving Nigerian delicaci...

Clément "Kero" Renault wanted to be an architect when he was younger. During that time, he also learned about computers and built his first website - and he never stopped building. Funny story, he lost that first website cause it wasn't on Git. Outside of his professional life, he likes to draw, craft and to cook. He also enjoys video games, and mentioned Hidden Reign was his favorite...

Arnab Deka lives in Vancouver and loves the Pacific Northwest. He was never formally educated in computer science or software engineering - in fact, while he was studying civil engineering, he fell in love with building things and eventually, building software. Outside of tech, he is a family man and loves to sup with them and his dog. He also enjoys astronomy, and is known to attend a star party...

Rob Woollen lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He grew up with a Father in IT and management, and his Mother as an English teacher. He has been programming for a long time, since the early days on his Apple 2E (yes, the green screen one). Outside of tech, he is married with 3 boys, all teenagers. He also has a 1 year old golden retriever, and spends a lot of time ensuring he lives his best life....

Matt Van Itallie is the son of a math teacher and a coder - so this explains why he now uses code as data. He is a proud Boy Scout, making it of course to Eagle Scout and beyond. After being a management consultant, he found his way to ed tech, and fell in love with improving code. Outside of technology, he is married with 3 amazing kids. He likes to run, play ultimate frisbee, and has a wicked co...

Kevin Hurley grew up in a multi-kid house, which is where he got his competitive nature. He used to play 2 on 2 with his Dad and siblings at home. He went to school for electrical engineering, and funny enough, interviewed for a computer science job by accident, effectively stumbling into the trade. Outside of tech, he spends his free time with his fiancé, planning for the wedding, and visiting Ma...

Anurag Goel grew up in New Delhi, but moved to Boston after college for his first job. He worked at Stripe, as the 8th employee, before eventually moving on and launching his current venture. Outside of tech, he is married, living in San Francisco. He likes to read science fiction, especially prior to bedtime. He also enjoys eating Thai food on the regular, though he mentioned he could eat pizza e...

Erik Braund was born and raised in Alaska. Growing up, he played competitive hockey and built computers for his Dad's company and eventually others. He grew up with a gameboy, an electric guitar, and a love for Nirvana. He eventually upgraded his setup to a computer - which led him to setup a recording studio. He was internet obsessed from a young age, partially because it was the door to a bi...

Ravi Pratap Maddimsetty lives in Bangalore with his family. Early on, he joined startups where his friends worked, in order to get to know the landscape of how they functioned. He fell in love with the tech, team and early innings of building a business - so much so, that he eventually started his own. He has been an entrepreneur for 15 years - or in the woods, as he says. But outside of tech, he&...

Shai Horovitz grew up on a farm in Israel, 1.5 hours north of Tel Aviv. He was drafted into the army, in a unit that focused on technology - and in 2013, he moved to the states and joined a startup. And - he loved it, eventually leading the team in building the business in Japan. Outside of tech, he loves to travel with his family and 3 kids. He is also a self proclaimed foodie, and enjoys sports...