Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Shaunak Roy spent 10 years in the tech industry before deciding to be a tech entrepreneur. In undergraduate, he studied mechanical engineering and eventually came to the states for his masters. Outside of running a company, he has 2 daughters and enjoys playing games and observing their patterns of learning, which applies to his current venture. Throughout his life, Shaunak has always been fascina...

Jon Perl is originally from Virgina, growing up on a computer. Mom is an architect and Dad is an electrical engineer. Jon picked up programming at his first job, when he automated a companies manifest creation. He has been passionate about programming ever since. Now, he lives in Seattle with his wife, young family, and dog. He enjoys all that Seattle offers, including the touristy stuff, and find...

Nigel Smart is from Britain, but currently lives in Belgium. He has a PhD in mathematics, but headed into the world of cryptography early on. He has started a few companies in the past, both of which have successfully exited, one to Coinbase. But outside of technology, he loves to cycle and attend concerts. When asked about food, he said he loves all food - as long as it doesn't include eggpla...

Michael Louis grew up in South Africa, spending the first 25 years of his life there. From a young age, and being surrounded by an entrepreneurial family, he was always curious. He got into robotics and coding early, and stayed competitive and active as he grew up. Outside of tech, he loves to play squash, workout in CrossFit, run, and do anything where he has an opponent. Also, per South Africa c...

Pablo Ruiz-M ú zquiz has a background in physics and computer science. At some point, he decided to ditch the science and pursue open source, which is what got him started on his 20 year passion for tech. Outside of tech, he longs to feel like a useful member of society and engages in extracurricular projects to support this. He also is into traditional archery - IE wood bow and arrows - and finds...

William Neill had an interesting childhood in New Zealand, rooted in being an entrepreneur. As a kid, he helped write business plans with his parents, or build makery stuff for projects. Living this type of childhood, combined with the creativity of music, it started a lifelong trend of building businesses and products. Rooted in his love for being an entrepreneur, he has always longed for a flexi...

Rohith Varanasi grew up in Jersey and had a chill childhood, playing videos games and sports from a young age. He wanted to learn how to build a video game, and upon googling it, decided he should build a website first. At that point.. he was hooked on coding. He got into jailbreaking the playstation and writing real code to mod games. Eventually, he got into hackathons and ended up building a web...

Jason Harbert grew up in the middle of nowhere, Ohio. He got into video games, which led him into programming... which led him to Linux and internet security and joining the hacking club. He studied computer science at the University of Cincinnati, but left his senior year to hit the startup scene in the Bay Area. Outside of tech, he lives in Ohio, and is married with a 13 month old son. He loves...

The Haunted House of API's Today, we are releasing another episode for Cybersecurity Awareness month, in our series entitled the Haunted House of API’s, sponsored by our friends at Traceable AI . In this series, we are building awareness around API’s, their security risks – and what you can do about it. Traceable AI is building One Platform to secure every API, so you can discover, protect, an...

The Haunted House of API's Today, we are releasing another episode for Cybersecurity Awareness month, in our series entitled the Haunted House of API’s, sponsored by our friends at Traceable AI . In this series, we are building awareness around API’s, their security risks – and what you can do about it. Traceable AI is building One Platform to secure every API, so you can discover, protect, an...

Shashwat Sehgal has been in the tech industry broadly for 15 years. He started out as an engineer, but eventually, worked his way towards product and the business side. Outside of tech, he enjoys spending time with his family. He's into sports, loves to play tennis, but admits he hasn't played pickle ball yet because the courts are always booked. He also enjoys reading, in particular histo...

The Haunted House of API's Today, we are releasing another episode for Cybersecurity Awareness month, in our series entitled the Haunted House of API’s, sponsored by our friends at Traceable AI . In this series, we are building awareness around API’s, their security risks – and what you can do about it. Traceable AI is building One Platform to secure every API, so you can discover, protect, an...

The Haunted House of API's Today, we are releasing another episode for Cybersecurity Awareness month, in our series entitled the Haunted House of API’s, sponsored by our friends at Traceable AI . In this series, we are building awareness around API’s, their security risks – and what you can do about it. Traceable AI is building One Platform to secure every API, so you can discover, protect, an...

The Haunted House of API's The Witch’s Brew: Stirring Up OWASP Vulnerabilities and API Testing Today, we are kicking off an amazing series for Cybersecurity Awareness month, entitled the Haunted House of API’s, sponsored by our friends at Traceable AI . In this series, we are building awareness around API’s, their security risks – and what you can do about it. Traceable AI is building One Plat...

Elkhan Shabanov was born in the Soviet Union, and started out in the tech world. He eventually left tech to try some other types of businesses, but eventually returned. He has done a few early stage startups in the past, in particular in the 3d printing space before it was cool. Six years ago, he joined his current venture. Outside of tech, he enjoys traveling, and is in a competition with his dau...

Vishal Agarwal was born in India, and did his schooling in Darjeeling. He noted that this city exports some of the best tea in the world! Prior to his current venture, he was the chief marketing officer for Choxi. Outside of tech, he is an avid tennis lover and follows cricket and basketball closely. Though, he admits, now that he has a 2.5 year old child, his time is mostly dedicated to him. In a...

Heiki Riesenkampf is from a tiny country called Estonia, later studying computer science in London and doing his post grad in Zurich. He has been into machine learning since before all of the hype it has now. Outside of technology, he dreams of being a macroeconomist, and spends a ton of time reading about the topic. He lives in New York now, and frequently takes in the architecture, fashion and l...

Guy Guzner first computer when he was 5, which was a Commodore 64, where he learned to program in BASIC. As a teed, get started getting into the internet, back with dialup and a modem. He startec hacking into places where he shouldn't be, and eventually got into trouble - but now, he has flipped that for good and works to protect systems now. Outside of tech, he plays tennis, and likes to ski....

Rob Grazioli started his life in Brooklyn NY, but moved to Italy for his Dad's job, and lived there from age 5 to 13. He ended up moving back to the states for High School and College, and finds that it's difficult to separate tech and work from his life. Outside of tech, he enjoys exercising, and has always been an athlete, most recently picking up basketball. He really loves to make thin...

Sebastian Raffaele grew up in a small, working class family in Australia. He had a crazy life, growing up in social housing, having to find his way. He found inspiration from his family members, who always pushed him to follow his passions. He left high school early, and jumped straight away into the work force. In 2014 he was introduced to crypto, and got hooked. Outside of tech and finance, he h...

In August of 2021, we interviewed Brendan Wood on the podcast to tell the creation story of Passiv . After the recording, the company decided to pivot into a new market, focusing on solving their biggest pain point for other platforms. They were running into the problems surrounding integrations into brokers. In fact, they were spending 80% of engineering time on integrations. People started to re...

Hello listeners. Today, I have an awesome follow episode from our friends at Swob. You may remember our episode with Stephanie Florio in Season 6 over 2 years ago , where she clued us in on the creation story of the company. Today, I'm speaking with her co-founder and brother, Alex, to hear the update on Swob and what the team has been up to since then. Have a listen now It's very cool to...

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...

Hello listeners. Today, I have an incredible follow episode from our friends at Turso. You may remember our episode with Glauber Costa in Season 8 , where he told us the creation story of the platform. Today, I'm speaking with his co-founder, Pekka, to hear the update on Turso and what the team has been building over the past year. Now with Turso, you can not only have embedded replicas on you...

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...