Engineering Founders

In this episode of Engineering Founders, Pooja Brown (Founder @ Inventry.ai) shares her founder journey and insights on balancing being a founder & technologist, especially within the mid-market manufacturing industry. We cover why founders need to lead with curiosity as they seek out customer problems to solve, strategies for solving complex problems related to supply chain, and strategies for selling your products. Pooja also dissects important fundraising tactics, how to identify areas that AI tooling can enhance within your business, reading customer signals, and bolstering your engineering skills by leveling up business capabilities.   ABOUT POOJA BROWN Pooja Brown is a technology executive and founder focused on building AI-native platforms that power real-world operations across industries. She has led engineering at scale at companies like Stitch Fix and DocuSign, building systems that combine data, workflows, and machine learning to drive everything from personalization and supply chain to digital agreements used by hundreds of thousands of businesses.Her experience spans multiple verticals including retail, enterprise SaaS, education technology, and real estate, where she has consistently focused on embedding AI directly into core business systems rather than layering it on top. Pooja is currently the founder and CEO of Inventry.ai, where she is building autonomous AI agents that help mid-market manufacturers run procurement and supply chain operations more effectively. Across her career, she has focused on turning complex operational data into systems that don’t just generate insights, but actually drive decisions and execution.   ABOUT INVENTRY.AI Inventry.ai swiftly detects time sensitive supply chain issues, prioritizes the risk, automates resolutions, and facilitates buyer-supplier collaboration, keeping your supply chain running smoothly and your customers satisfied.   SHOW NOTES: What shaped Pooja’s entrepreneurship journey & background (3:20) Looking for the right problem & leading with curiosity (6:47) Insights on solving problems related to supply chain (10:42) Building systems for chaos / complexity (12:46) Adopting a beginner’s mindset when solving complex problems (15:40) Dissecting fundraising strategies & decision making (19:28) Emerging business patterns that eng leaders need to capitalize on (26:32) Understanding how customers make decisions on what products to adopt (29:09) Selling strategies for the mid-market manufacturing industry (37:08) Integrating AI tools to augment current business capabilities (41:03) Engineering skills that enhance sales processes (44:43) Communication frameworks when working with customers (47:21) Rapid fire questions (50:06)   This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team: Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Russ d’Sa (CEO & Co-founder @ LiveKit) joins the show to deconstruct the "Product Paradigm Shift" toward voice-driven interfaces and agent-centric UX . We dive into LiveKit’s high-stakes scaling lessons: from powering OpenAI and Character AI’s voice mode, how they navigated real time bottlenecks to hit the next level of scale, the architectural necessity of a multi-cloud strategy, and the foundations of a co-founder relationships that can effectively blend engineering & business strategy. ABOUT RUSS D’SA Russ is a startup vet who founded his first company in the 2007 YC batch and was the 2nd frontend engineer hired at Twitter, Russ d'Sa now leads voice AI unicorn LiveKit. They're the backbone of ChatGPT Voice Mode, Salesforce Agentforce, Grok, and roughly 30% of US 911 calls. ABOUT LIVEKIT LiveKit is an open source framework and cloud platform for building voice, video, and physical AI agents. It provides the tools you need to build agents that interact with users in realtime over audio, video, and data streams. Agents run on the LiveKit server, which supplies the low-latency infrastructure (including transport, routing, synchronization, and session management) built on a production-grade WebRTC stack. This architecture enables reliable and performant agent workloads. SHOW NOTES: The product paradigm shift toward voice-driven apps and natural human-computer interfaces (2:30) Voice-apps in practice: How these trends impact the strategy of product building today (5:18) Early adopters: Why legacy industries like healthcare use voice AI (7:41) Reevaluating and building product experiences optimized for AI agents (12:38) How AI trends will impact roadmaps and Go To Market ****(18:02) The origin of LiveKit: Building real-time infra for the pandemic (20:53) The OpenAI moment: Powering the fastest-growing consumer app (23:32) Scaling with OpenAI: Navigating the challenges of balancing time-to-market with system design (25:23) The Character AI outage: Solving cross-continental state sync and hitting the next level of scale (28:46) The problem: When telemetry breaks first: Managing analytics and logging for millions of concurrent AI sessions (31:50) Architecting for resilience: Multi-cloud from day one and why treating infra as a utility matters (33:08) Co-founder dynamics: Blending engineering strategy with business outcomes (37:01) Rapid Fire Questions (40:37) This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team: Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Gil Feig (Co-Founder @ Merge) deconstructs the high-speed, tactical playbook for building a category-defining API company in the middle of the AI "space race." We discuss finding resilient co-founders who can handle the “trough of sorrow,” reimagining the Lean Startup Methodology through demo-led validation, and why charging for products from day one is the ultimate validation signal. Gil also shares frameworks for selling to AI-native companies, mental models for roadmap tradeoffs, and how to stay relevant as model capabilities shift. Plus, why you should skip avoid “brilliant jerks” and focus on hiring company builders instead.   ABOUT GIL FEIG Gil Feig is the Co-Founder and CTO of Merge, which helps companies like Mistral, Ramp, and Perplexity integrate thousands of external apps into their products & AI agents. Previously, Gil was the Head of Engineering at Untapped and worked as a software engineer at Wealthfront and LinkedIn. A graduate of Columbia University, he now lives and works in San Francisco.   ABOUT MERGE Merge is the leading provider of agentic tools and customer-facing integrations for frontier LLMs, Fortune 500 organizations, and B2B SaaS companies. To date, Merge has raised over $75 million in funding from Accel, NEA, and Addition.   This episode is brought to you by xMatters! xMatters automates the entire incident lifecycle with their purpose-built AI powered workflow, giving your team the context they need to stop disruptions before they start and minimize resolution times. Head over to xmatters.com to learn more!   SHOW NOTES: The "acute pain" of integrations: How blocking sales and cybersecurity struggles led Gil and Shensi to realize the massive B2B need for unified APIs (1:55) The co-founder pressure test: Why surviving a senior event on a $2,000 budget for 600 people proved they could weather the startup storm together (3:02) Signals of a resilient partnership: How to identify a co-founder who can handle the "trough of sorrow" and high-stakes decision-making (7:52) Hacking the trial period: Why you should prioritize "passion and steam" over pure technical skill and how weekend hackathons act as a "marriage" simulation (10:08) Engineering leader to founder: Navigating the shift from IC-style work to the "insane pressure" of ownership (12:12) Why walking is a founder's best stress-management tool (13:32) Aligning on the premise of Merge: The intentional process of moving from a broad problem space to a category-defining API company (14:39) Demo-led validation: Reimaging the lean startup methodology with vibe-coded prototypes (17:05) Charging from day one: Using payment as signal to distinguish between polite beta-testers and customers with a genuine, validated need (19:36) Leveraging AI agents and plug-and-play prompts to bypass the "12-month engineering backlog" and make onboarding instant (21:08) How to win the "build vs. buy" argument by solving problems too complex for a 10-minute vibe-coding session (23:31) Signs of true category fit: How to recognize customer “pull” vs. “push” (24:07) Applying Mark Benioff’s mantra: "If we were founding the company today, what would we build?" to stay relevant as model capabilities shift (26:50) Selling to AI-Native companies: Why selling to AI companies requires "real services," high speed, and a willingness to ship custom features by Monday (29:05) Frameworks for roadmap trade-offs: Tactical advice for delegating engineering resources and navigating the tension between new features and core infrastructure (33:31) Hire "company builders": Avoiding "brilliant jerks" and why your first 10 hires must be optimized for 14-hour-day passion over raw resume depth (35:18). Building the "nervous system" for AI: Gil’s vision for a world where software is built for agents first, and why that requires a fundamental shift in how we think about infrastructure (37:29) The "hot takes" ritual: Maintaining a judgment-free Slack channel and weekly meeting to constantly challenge and "groundhog" your own assumptions (38:10). Filtering signal from noise: Why the best ideas are non-consensus and how to form opinions based on new model capabilities rather than Twitter FOMO (39:20). Rapid fire questions (40:50)   This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team: Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

After two years and eight pivots, Ryo Chikazawa (CEO & Co-founder @ Autify) realized his original product would never reach venture scale. In this episode, Ryo reveals how he scrapped everything to find his customers' "burning need," eventually securing contracts before writing a single line of code for his new idea. Ryo shares his playbook for radical pivots, navigating different market segments by hacking enterprise budgets, how to delegate and scale operations, and why a founder’s job is to constantly pursue the next zero-to-one moment.   ABOUT RYO CHIKAZAWARyo Chikazawa is the Co-Founder and CEO of Autify. Ryo has worked in software development for over ten years. Having worked as a software engineer in Japan, Singapore, and San Francisco, he helped developed a #1 social game at DeNA, led product development as a product engineer at Viki in Singapore, and moved to San Francisco to participate in a local startup as an initial member. He founded Autify, Inc. in 2016.   ABOUT AUTIFYAutify is a no-code, AI-powered software testing automation platform designed to help businesses accelerate their software release cycles and improve software quality. It allows users, including those without programming knowledge, to create, execute, and automate tests for web and mobile applications. Autify uses features like Generative AI and a natural language recorder to simplify the process of generating and maintaining test scenarios, reducing the cost and technical difficulty traditionally associated with software testing   SHOW NOTES:The origin story behind Autify & Ryo’s initial vision to solve language barriers (3:00) Navigating 8+ pivots over two and a half years to find traction (5:56) Knowing when to make the decision to shut down an idea & pivot (10:35) Entering Alchemist Accelerator with a blank slate and the advice to find a "burning need" (12:55) From "nice to have" to "how much?": The dramatic shift in customer sentiment that confirmed they found the burning need (17:44) The ultimate validation signal: When customers ask for pricing before the product exists (20:56) Applying the "burning need" framework to product expansion and new features (23:08) US vs. Japan: Navigating the differences between product-led and sales-led markets (25:32) Platform vs. Services: How to position your tool to fit the customer's available budget bucket (28:05) The future of testing: Why AI agents will replace traditional automation (30:25) Scaling operations: When to hire a COO to manage the "1-to-10" journey (34:01) The art of delegation: How to hand off the core business to focus on the next "0-to-1" (36:23) Rapid fire questions (38:01)   This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Sha Ma (CEO & Founder @ Topogy) deconstructs the concept of CEO as the “chief experiment officer” / “chief everything officer,” detailing how she personally tests, onboards and scales out AI tools to accelerate her team. Plus we cover how they identified the right customer personas, found design partners, and navigated a full startup rebrand.   ABOUT SHA MA & TOPOGYTopogy is an AI-native cost optimization platform designed to turn infrastructure complexity into clear, actionable insights for finance and engineering teams. Topology turns the unseen connections within your infrastructure into clear, data-driven actions — helping engineering teams optimize cloud cost, performance, and focus. Before founding Topogy, Sha was CTO @ Catalyst.io, an industry leading Customer Success Platform, VP of Engineering @ GitHub where she was responsible for Core Platform and Ecosystem. And was part of the leadership team that took SendGrid public.   SHOW NOTES:CEO as Chief Experiment Officer: Sha’s approach to launch and scale experiments at Topogy (1:55) How to initiate and onboard successful experiments with the team (6:25) Using AI as a creative partner to amplify a designer's human touch (10:27) The origin story of Topogy & Sha’s transition from VPE to founder (13:51) The 2023 shift: from "growth at all costs" to "efficient growth" (15:56) Building an AI-first product to manage infrastructure spend (21:49) The persona journey: Starting with growth-stage companies (28:19) How Topogy intentionally selected three diverse design partners (34:27) The story behind Topogy's rebrand (39:15) Frameworks for coming up with the right brand name & when to do so (42:08) The "renovating a house" analogy: Why you must "live in" your startup before branding it (48:45) Rapid fire questions (49:43)   This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Founders often delay leadership coaching until a major crisis hits, leading to significant costs in productivity, team churn, and poor decisions. In this episode, James Birchler (Technical Advisor & Executive Leadership Coach) argues that early coaching is a game-changer for a startup's success. We explore the hidden costs of waiting and the benefits of intentionally installing leadership and communication systems before you scale. James shares specific self-awareness mechanisms, like advisory groups and feedback loops, to help founders design their day and create accountability. You'll also learn practical strategies like the "5-Minute Alignment Loop" for spotting communication breakdowns & for reinforcing clarity. Plus insights on how to "install your leadership OS" so it can scale with your company. ABOUT JAMES BIRCHLERJames Birchler is an executive leadership coach and technical advisor who specializes in helping engineering leaders and founders develop greater self-awareness and build high-performing teams. He combines deep technical expertise with practical leadership development, making him particularly valuable for technical leaders scaling their organizations. As both a founder and engineering leader, James has more than 20 years of experience leading teams at companies ranging from early-stage startups to Amazon, where his current role is Technical Advisor to the VP of Amazon Delivery Routing and Planning. Most recently, he founded NICER, a premium natural personal care company, and Actuate Partners, his executive coaching and technical advisory practice. He also held VP of Engineering roles at companies including Caffeine (backed by Greylock and Andreessen Horowitz), SmugMug (where his team acquired Flickr), and IMVU. At IMVU, James implemented the Lean Startup methodologies alongside Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup and creator of the methodology, literally the first company to apply these principles. His team helped pioneer the DevOps movement by building infrastructure to ship code to production 50 times per day and coining the term "continuous deployment." This experience in systematic experimentation and continuous improvement now informs his coaching approach through frameworks like CAMS (Coaching, Advising, Mentoring, Supporting) and the Think-Do-Learn Loop. James completed his executive coaching certification at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Executive Coaching Institute. His coaching practice focuses on self-awareness, integrity, accountability, and fostering growth mindsets that support continuous learning and high performance. He writes the Continuous Growth newsletter and offers both individual executive coaching and peer learning circles for technical leaders. Through his advisory work with growth-stage startups in the US and Europe, James helps leaders navigate common scaling challenges including hiring and interviewing, implementing development methodologies, establishing operational cadences, and developing other leaders. His approach treats leadership development like product development—with systematic feedback loops, measurable outcomes, and continuous improvement. You can find James at jamesbirchler.com, LinkedIn, and Substack.   ToolHive Unlocks the Full Value of MCP & Your AI AgentsSo you’ve invested in AI agents for code generation, but they’re limited to experiments or even stuck on the shelf. To do real, valuable work, those AI agents need access to your data and systems. ToolHive helps you confidently connect the pieces by making it simple and secure for you to use the Model Context Protocol (MCP). ToolHive includes a pre-vetted registry of MCP servers, containerizes every MCP server for consistency and leans on built-in security to keep your secrets safe. Leaders trust ToolHive to put MCP into production and put their AI agents to work. ToolHive is open source, so get started for free at toolhive.dev  Join us at ELC Annual 2025ELC Annual is the premier event for engineering leaders. This is our biggest event of the year: 1,000+ CTOs, VPs & Directors in San Francisco @ ELC Annual 2025 for two days of leadership breakthroughs, tactical peer learning & curated connections! 🔗 Get your ticket now → https://sfelc.com/annual2025  SHOW NOTES:Why founders should seek coaching earlier rather than waiting for a crisis to occur (2:47) The high stakes of ignoring this critical advice & how this leads to communication & Scaling problems (4:50) The importance of effective communication channels & leadership mechanisms before pressure increases (6:31) How investing a small amount in coaching early on can prevent hundreds of thousands of dollars in future costs (8:07) Frameworks for cultivating self-awareness / leadership blind spots (11:06) James's practice of "designing your day" around a desired identity, not just a list of tasks (12:30) Why designing your day is about intentionality (15:13) How this practice leads to better relationships & opportunities to reflect (17:44) Reflective listening & its impact on customer relationships (19:32) Strategies for improving self-awareness / uncovering blind spots (22:05) An example of how awareness can lead to better results (26:03) Day-to-day rituals for improving self-awareness (28:14) Signals that your communication methods are effective & getting through (30:36) Reflect on & define the desired outcome you want to generate (33:26) The five-minute alignment loop for creating clarity & confirming ownership as a leader (35:21) Why creating clarity & finding alignment is key as a founder (37:01) How the same communication & leadership patterns recur as your org scales, from small startup to large enterprise (39:46) The increasing importance of human skills like emotional intelligence and reflective listening in an age of AI (42:03) Rapid fire questions (44:38) This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, we cover some of the most important founder challenges, including engineering management, prioritization / time management principles, analyzing the market, and making the decision to sell to enterprise early on with Sumeet Vaidya, Co-founder & CEO @ Crafting. He unpacks the story behind Crafting & the decision to found it along with how he knew he was the right person to lead this org. Patrick & Sumeet dissect GTM strategies when it comes to enterprise sales, how funnel optimization for sales works, and making business decisions while navigating cost vs. value. We also chat about the importance of forming founder-to-founder connections as you navigate the founder journey – it’s definitely better with others than alone.   ABOUT SUMEET VAIDYAPrior to co-founding Crafting, Sumeet has scaled engineering teams and built products at Meta, Uber, and Discord. He has worked on developer platforms, consumer products, marketplaces, enterprise integrations, and more. He also angel invests and advises startup founders, motivated by helping sharp people solve real problems to build successful businesses.   Join us at ELC Annual 2025ELC Annual is the premier event for engineering leaders. This is our biggest event of the year: 1,000+ CTOs, VPs & Directors in San Francisco @ ELC Annual 2025 for two days of leadership breakthroughs, tactical peer learning & curated connections! 🔗 Get your ticket now → https://sfelc.com/annual2025  SHOW NOTES:The origin story behind Crafting & challenges in eng management (2:56) Dissecting Sumeet’s decision to found the company (5:28) Questions & processes for analyzing founder conviction from an investor POV (7:00) How to know if you’re the right person to lead this org (8:45) Analyzing the market / competitors & determining your product’s differentiators (11:34) Go-to-market strategy & enterprise sales (14:07) Optimizing for enterprise sales early on / understanding PMF (16:15) Why you need to leverage your founder network for advice (17:45) Frameworks for determining gaps in the sales funnel (20:55) Exploring happiness and connection (22:31) Sumeet’s perspective on prioritization & time management as a founder (24:45) Balancing cost vs. value in business decisions (27:11) Remote vs. in-person team dynamics for eng & sales (31:00) Hiring the first non-engineer (34:45) Rapid fire questions (38:54) LINKS AND RESOURCEShttps://www.themarginalian.org/   This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Tony Dong (Founder & CEO @ Propel) shares how he navigated the early days of solo founding, hired eight engineers in a month, and rapidly built early momentum. We explore how he leveraged existing relationships, storytelling, and competitive advantage analysis to pivot Propel’s focus, providing value quickly in your product, and building credibility for early sales. Plus, support systems for early founders,  strategies for going broad vs. narrow, and how Tony’s current tech stack / AI tools are accelerating how they build. ABOUT TONY DONGTony is the Founder & CEO of Propel, an AI engineering agent that integrates into your team’s workflows to automate engineering tasks and elevate developer productivity. Before Propel, Tony served as the VP of Engineering at Rippling, where he led the development of the company's Platform and HR products. As a seasoned entrepreneur, Tony was also the founder and CTO of a YC-backed startup and held key engineering roles at Periscope, TellApart, and Twitter. Join us at ELC Annual 2025ELC Annual is the premier event for engineering leaders. This is our biggest event of the year: 1,000+ CTOs, VPs & Directors in San Francisco @ ELC Annual 2025 for two days of leadership breakthroughs, tactical peer learning & curated connections! 🔗 Get your ticket now → https://sfelc.com/annual2025SHOW NOTES:Tony’s journey transitioning from eng leader to founder (2:29) Lessons learned from founding Pershop & working @ Rippling (3:47) The origin of Propel & turning frustration into a startup idea (5:58) Recognizing the right moment to pivot your product (7:55) Incorporating competitive advantage analysis into strategic decision making (10:29) Accelerating user research & establishing credibility in your product area (12:32) The process of pivoting / solving highly valuable problems (14:15) Examples of how a product can quickly prove its value to customers (16:35) Strategies for proving value quickly during the early product building stages (17:51) Dynamics of being a solo founder & early team building (19:30) Pitching Propel as a solo founder / building support systems (21:13) How Tony hired a team of eight within one month, using relationships and public storytelling (23:32) How hiring contractors & sharing publicly helped drive early team building (25:19) Frameworks for attracting talent as a competitive advantage (27:44) Assessing hiring candidates: using every available AI tool, real projects & hands-on collaboration (31:09) Tony’s current stack & AI tools enhancing team productivity and innovation (33:49) The impact of AI on early-stage company building (35:39) Tony’s thoughts on capturing a broad market @ Propel (37:03) Understanding today's fundraising landscape (39:00) Rapid fire questions (40:48) LINKS AND RESOURCESUnreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect - Today, every business can choose to be a hospitality business—and we can all transform ordinary transactions into extraordinary experiences. Featuring sparkling stories of his journey through restaurants, with the industry’s most famous players like Daniel Boulud and Danny Meyer, Will Guidara urges us all to find the magic in what we do—for ourselves, the people we work with, and the people we serve. The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket - In this exposé, author Benjamin Lorr pulls back the curtain on this highly secretive industry. Combining deep sourcing and immersive reporting, Lorr leads a wild investigation in which we learn the secrets of Trader Joe's success from Trader Joe himself, why truckers call their job "sharecropping on wheels," what it takes for a product to earn certification labels like "organic" and "fair trade," the struggles entrepreneurs face as they fight for shelf space, including essential tips, tricks, and traps for any new food business, the truth behind the alarming slave trade in the shrimp industry and much more. CAFEC Pour-Over Flower Dripper DEEP 27 - Tony’s favorite coffee dripper! This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How do you build an AI product that engineers actually enjoy? ****Aiswarya Sankar, co-founder of Entelligence.AI, reveals how her team is creating an AI-powered “insight engine” that supports (and celebrates) the work of engineering teams. We explore how Entelligence.AI evolved from code search to a full-stack insight engine that reduces merge times, improves code quality, and makes teams more effective. Aiswarya explains how personalization, context awareness, and positive reinforcement drive adoption. Plus Aiswarya unpacks the psychology of feedback, how to make AI feel collaborative (not corrective), and their dual GTM strategy blending product-led growth with enterprise sales. Whether you’re building an AI-native product, leading an eng org, or just curious about the future of developer tools, this episode is packed with insights. ABOUT AISWARYA SANKARAiswarya Sankar is the co-founder of Entelligence.AI, an AI-powered engineering intelligence platform that streamlines development, enhances collaboration, and accelerates engineering productivity. Previously, Aiswarya has held roles at Intel, Google, and Uber. She has a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley. Join us at ELC Annual 2025ELC Annual is the premier event for engineering leaders. This is our biggest event of the year: 1,000+ CTOs, VPs & Directors in San Francisco @ ELC Annual 2025 for two days of leadership breakthroughs, tactical peer learning & curated connections! 🔗 Get your ticket now → https://sfelc.com/annual2025  SHOW NOTES:Aiswarya’s eng leadership background & founder journey (3:22) The early “mini search engine” project that ignited Entelligence.AI (6:23) Behind the decision to start with code search and what it unlocked (7:44) From Uber to full-time founder: the leap into AI entrepreneurship (9:03) What Entelligence.AI does & who it serves (10:12) Deconstructing engineering pain points into product strategy (12:04) Insights from engineering users that informed the product’s direction (13:52) Building customizable, context-aware intelligence for teams (16:47) Lessons learned on balancing proactive feedback and team culture (19:24) Use sprints & rituals to surface hidden team contributions (21:05) Emerging trends in how software is being built and how teams are measured (23:45) Key principles for designing AI-based systems to align with evolving workflows (26:49) Strategies for measuring qualitative & quantitative impact (29:27) Frameworks for humanizing AI & creating enjoyable AI experiences (31:42) Identifying the psychological needs / drivers of your users (33:14) Rapid fire questions (36:47) This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

AI is reshaping the fundamental economics of startups—lowering product development costs, compressing GTM cycles, and rewriting the rules of competition. In this episode, Craig McLuckie (Co-Founder & CEO @ Stacklok, co-creator of Kubernetes) unpacks “the epoch of the startup,” a moment of massive disruption where fast-moving founders have a unique edge over incumbents. We explore how Craig is navigating this new era from rethinking cost structure, value capture and defensibility to leveraging open-source, community, and asymmetric advantages as core pillars of Stacklok’s strategy. Craig shares lessons from pivotal product shifts, frameworks for identifying moats, and the broader societal implications of AI-driven disruption. Whether you’re leading a startup, pivoting in the face of AI, or thinking about your next big move, this conversation offers a strategic playbook for thriving in today’s shifting landscape. ABOUT CRAIG MCLUCKIECraig is the CEO and co-founder of Stacklok, where his team is working to tip AI code generation on its side, from vertical, closed solutions to horizontal, aligned systems. Craig was previously CEO and co-founder of Heptio, which was acquired by VMware in 2018; he has also led product and engineering teams at Google and Microsoft. Craig is a co-creator of Kubernetes and he bootstrapped and chaired the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. ABOUT STACKLOKStacklok is working to tip AI code generation on its side — transforming vertically integrated (and closed) solutions into horizontal, open systems. Their CodeGate.ai project is an important step in this direction; it's a bridge between AI assistants and LLMs that gives developers control of their privacy and delivers richer results. Join us at ELC Annual 2025ELC Annual is the premier event for engineering leaders. This is our biggest event of the year: 1,000+ CTOs, VPs & Directors in San Francisco @ ELC Annual 2025 for two days of leadership breakthroughs, tactical peer learning & curated connections! 🔗 Get your ticket now → https://sfelc.com/annual2025  SHOW NOTES:Why this moment is “the epoch of the startup” (2:03) How AI shifts startup economics: from cost structures to value capture (4:18) Why incumbents struggle during disruption—and how startups can win (8:17) The origin story behind Stacklok & lessons from Craig’s pivot (11:04) Frameworks for identifying asymmetric advantages as a founder (14:48) How to map your unique asymmetric advantages to new opportunities and secure stakeholder buy-in (16:34) Rethinking defensibility & value capture in the AI era (16:29) How Craig applied cost, GTM & product perspectives to strategic pivots @ Stacklok (18:07) Building investment theses: Aligning cultural strengths & asymmetric advantages with evolving opportunities (20:05) Determining your startup’s investment themes (22:53) Structuring experiments & validating opportunities (24:15) Defensibility & building community-driven moats in early ideation phases (26:54) Signals of early community-product alignment (31:24) Conversation frameworks to assess asymmetric advantages (32:22) Societal implications of AI disruption & the “startup epoch” (35:14) Rapid fire questions (38:12) This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How do you build a platform that accelerates innovation by 10x-100x? Eliot Horowitz (CEO & Founder @ Viam) shares how insights from building MongoDB are shaping Viam’s approach to platform ecosystem development, user-centricity and open-source strategy. We explore the origin story behind Viam, principles for platform design for hardware/software development, modular systems, seamless APIs, and finding the right abstraction layers for your product. Plus we cover cultivating developer communities, and frameworks to anchor your business-model and pricing. This episode is packed with insights on platform building, fostering ecosystems, driving user-centric innovation. ABOUT ELIOT HOROWITZEliot Horowitz is the Founder and CEO of Viam, an engineering platform unlocking AI, automation, and data for devices in the physical world. With a deep commitment to advancing technology, Eliot leads Viam in helping companies build solutions across robotics, food and beverage, climate, marine, industrial manufacturing, and more. A career software developer and technology leader, Eliot co-founded MongoDB in 2007, writing the core code base for the pioneering database and leading the engineering and product teams for 13 years as CTO. MongoDB, which went public in 2017, has since reached a market cap of over $20 billion. Before MongoDB, he co-founded the ecommerce company ShopWiki and served as CTO, and he began his career in software development in the R&D group of adtech firm DoubleClick. Eliot is passionate about using technology to address pressing societal issues, including working with WAVS to protect marine life in the North Atlantic and supporting Billion Oyster Project’s work to help restore New York Harbor’s ecosystem. Join us at ELC Annual 2025ELC Annual is the premier event for engineering leaders. This is our biggest event of the year: 1,000+ CTOs, VPs & Directors in San Francisco @ ELC Annual 2025 for two days of leadership breakthroughs, tactical peer learning & curated connections! 🔗 Get your ticket now → https://sfelc.com/annual2025  SHOW NOTES:The origin story of founding Viam (2:07) How Viam can be a game-changing platform, accelerating robotics software & hardware 10x to 100x (3:43) The ideation journey behind Viam: Building a platform that simplifies the integration of hardware and software development (5:22) Solving challenges with seamless APIs, a modular system, the right abstraction layers, and a comprehensive platform (9:04) Key questions for identifying the right abstraction layers at Viam (10:42) Optimizing your platform for flexibility and ease of use (12:42) The evolution of product building, from first-hand experience to customer-driven (15:43) How Eliot’s MongoDB Experience shaped Viam’s user-centric approach, open-source strategy, business model & ecosystem approach (17:58) Cultivating developer communities & leveraging community insights at MongoDB & Viam (22:11) Frameworks for deciding on your business model & pricing (24:02) Eliot’s approach to building developer tools & products used by engineers (25:34) Aligning your eng team & stakeholders on the product vision (29:01) What it means to deeply understand engineers and how they interact with your product (30:20) Strategies for eng leaders to better connect with customers (33:48) Viam’s real-world applications & what’s next (35:41) Rapid fire questions (38:31) LINKS AND RESOURCESViam - At Viam, we believe in the power of technology to make our world smarter, happier, and more sustainable. We're building a revolutionary engineering platform for problem-solving in the physical world, so that innovators from all disciplines can address humanity's most complex challenges with practical solutions. Together with our partners, we're committed to making a lasting positive impact on industries, communities, and the planet. This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jon Hyman (Co-Founder and CTO @ Braze) shares the pivotal moments that shaped the company - from being the only person on call in the early years to identifying (and pivoting) product-market fit. Jon discusses how they navigated early-stage failure modes, carved out areas of product ownership, and made the shift to enterprise customers. Plus how leadership priorities evolve pre- vs. post-IPO and the next evolution of Jon’s leadership growth after almost 14 years at Braze. ABOUT JON HYMANJon Hyman is the co-founder and chief technology officer of Braze, the customer engagement platform that delivers messaging experiences across push, email, in-app, and more. He leads the charge for building the platform’s technical systems and infrastructure as well as overseeing the company’s technical operations and engineering team. Prior to Braze, Jon served as lead engineer for the Core Technology group at Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund. There, he managed a team that maintained 80+ software assets and was responsible for the security and stability of critical trading systems. Jon met cofounder Bill Magnuson during his time at Bridgewater, and together they won the 2011 TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon. Jon is a recipient of the SmartCEO Executive Management Award in the CIO/CTO Category for New York. Jon holds a B.A. from Harvard University in Computer Science. ABOUT BRAZEBraze is the leading customer engagement platform that empowers brands to Be Absolutely Engaging.™ Braze allows any marketer to collect and take action on any amount of data from any source, so they can creatively engage with customers in real time, across channels from one platform. From cross-channel messaging and journey orchestration to Al-powered experimentation and optimization, Braze enables companies to build and maintain absolutely engaging relationships with their customers that foster growth and loyalty. The company has been recognized as a 2024 U.S. News & World Report Best Companies to Work For, 2024 Best Small & Medium Workplaces in Europe by Great Place to Work®, 2024 Fortune Best Workplaces for Women™ by Great Place to Work® and was named a Leader by Gartner® in the 2024 Magic Quadrant™ for Multichannel Marketing Hubs and a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave™: Email Marketing Service Providers, Q3 2024.  Braze is headquartered in New York with 15 offices across North America, Europe, and APAC. Learn more at braze.com. Join us at ELC Annual 2025ELC Annual is the premier event for engineering leaders. This is our biggest event of the year: 1,000+ CTOs, VPs & Directors in San Francisco @ ELC Annual 2025 for two days of leadership breakthroughs, tactical peer learning & curated connections! 🔗 Get your ticket now → https://sfelc.com/annual2025  SHOW NOTES:What Jon learned from being the only person on call for his company’s first four years (2:18) Knowing when it’s time to get help managing your servers, ops, scaling, etc. (5:05) Establishing areas of product ownership & other scaling lessons from the early days (8:48) Frameworks for conversations on splitting of products across teams (11:22) The challenges, complexities & strategies behind assigning ownership in the early days (14:02) Founding Braze (17:23) Why Braze? The story & insights behind the original vision for Braze (19:30) Identifying Braze’s product market fit (21:56) Early-stage PMF challenges faced by Jon & his co-founders (25:03) Pivoting to focus on enterprise customers (27:10) “Let’s integrate the SDK right now” - founder-led sales ideas to validate your product (28:45) Behind the decision to hire a chief revenue officer for the first time (33:25) The evolution of enterprise & its impact on Braze’s product offering (36:04) Growing out of your early-stage failure modes (38:22) Why it’s important to make personnel decisions quickly (40:44) Setting & maintaining a vision pre IPO vs. post IPO (43:43) Jon’s next leadership evolution & growth areas he is focusing on (49:13) Rapid fire questions (50:44) LINKS AND RESOURCESWhen We Cease to Understand the World - Benjamín Labatut’s fictional examination of the lives of real-life scientists and thinkers whose discoveries resulted in moral consequences beyond their imagining. At a breakneck pace and with a wealth of disturbing detail, Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to tell the stories of Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrödinger, the scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible. This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Stephen Whitworth (Co-Founder & CEO @ incident.io) joins us to discuss strategically differentiating your product based on responsiveness / customer support and the shift from founder-led sales to repeatable / scaleable GTM. You’ll learn how they landed major logo companies like Netflix, Airbnb & Etsy and how you can apply that to your early enterprise customers. Plus the story behind their co-founder team transition from part-time to full-time, a product-market-fit “cheat code” that helped them decide on incident.io, how they generated 750 demo requests on launch, key qualities when hiring your first AEs to help scale yourself out of sales activities, and Stephen’s perspectives on the art vs. science of product building. ABOUT STEPHEN WHITWORTHStephen is the co-founder and CEO of incident.io, where they're building incident management tooling that's so good, people will break things on purpose. A software engineer by training, he previously led engineering teams at Monzo, and co-founded Ravelin, a fraud detection startup. ABOUT INCIDENT.IOIncident.io provides a platform to help you better respond to and learn from incidents. Helping you seamlessly orchestrate incident response from start to finish. Join us at ELC Annual 2025ELC Annual is the premier event for engineering leaders. This is our biggest event of the year: 1,000+ CTOs, VPs & Directors in San Francisco @ ELC Annual 2025 for two days of leadership breakthroughs, tactical peer learning & curated connections! 🔗 Get your ticket now → https://sfelc.com/annual2025  SHOW NOTES:The early days of incident.io (2:45) Transitioning from working on incident.io part-time to full-time (5:32) Tactics that helped the co-founder team decide on incident.io over other ideas (8:21) How incident.io received 750 demo requests right away (11:07) incident.io’s product-market fit cheat code & identifying internal PMF (12:24) How incident.io landed major logo companies like Netflix, Airbnb & Etsy (14:32) Strategies to differentiate yourself from competitors in the B2B space & why execution and responsiveness can beat technological advantage (17:30) Stephen’s perspective on “inflicting software” on people & how that changes your product, org & GTM strategy downstream (21:14) Enterprise sales insights that surprised Stephen (23:56) Why GTM is infinitely harder than product & how founders can start to scale themselves out of sales activities (27:21) What incident.io’s GTM team looks like now (32:12) Differentiating in B2B enterprise on customer support & the strategic role of support at incident.io (34:20) Why a culture of responsiveness and support can be your hidden advantage (37:03) Rapid fire questions (39:26) LINKS AND RESOURCESBillion Dollar Whale - Tom Wright and Bradley Hope’s epic tale of white-collar crime on a global scale revealing how a young social climber from Malaysia pulled off one of the biggest heists in history. This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

ABOUT MICHAEL GRINICHMichael is the founder and CEO of WorkOS, a developer platform that enables companies to become Enterprise Ready through features like Single Sign-On (SAML). Their customers include many of the fastest-growing startups including Webflow, Drata, Loom, and +200 others. Before WorkOS, Michael co-founded Nylas and studied CS at MIT. This episode is brought to you by Clipboard HealthClipboard Health is looking for the next generation of exceptional software engineering leaders, not just managers. They’re a profitable unicorn, backed by top-tier investors, and they take the craft of engineering management seriously. Clipboard Health matches highly qualified healthcare workers with nearby facilities to fulfill millions of shifts a year - revolutionizing healthcare staffing with a fast, flexible, and user-friendly platform. Learn more & browse their open roles at clipboardhealth.com/engineering SHOW NOTES:Michael’s first journey as a founder @ Nylas (2:21) Great product experience happens in the margins (6:09) Why prioritizing the details of the last 3% of your product is key (7:17) How obsession, taste, care, and the intangible wow factor impact your product experience (9:24) Study and design the business model like you would the product experience / system architecture (12:59) Designing WorkOS’s early business model & prioritizing early product decisions (16:39) The Philosophy of 'You Pay When We Create Value For Your Business' and Why It Works (20:04) ”Pricing is the API between your business model and your customer” (22:10) Why you should iterate on pricing the same way you iterate your product (24:18) How to navigate making a pricing decision - and think through options like public pricing, tiers, usage, etc. (27:21) Questions Michael asks to determine pricing of different WorkOS products (30:54) Pricing is all about considering trade-offs - start with “what’s the ideal buying experience and pricing structure for your consumer?” (32:53) Factors to consider when changing prices or revisiting pricing assumptions (34:00) Rapid fire questions (36:28) LINKS AND RESOURCESACQUIRED - Every company has a story. Learn the playbooks that built the world’s greatest companies — and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor. The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation - The need to understand what top-performing reps are doing that their average performing colleagues are not drove Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson, and their colleagues at Corporate Executive Board to investigate the skills, behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes that matter most for high performance. And what they discovered may be the biggest shock to conventional sales wisdom in decades. Founder-Led Sales: Sales Simplified for Startup Founders - Founder-led sales can be challenging, as it requires expertise and charisma to sell a product or service. Potential customers may be skeptical of the founder's intentions. However, founder-led sales can also be rewarding, providing valuable feedback and insights to improve the product or service, building strong customer relationships, and leading to repeat business and positive recommendations. It's a powerful tool for business growth. This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

David Mytton (CEO @ Arcjet & Co-founder @ Console) shares insights on “what makes a great DevTool company!” We unpack lessons on bootstrapping vs. seeking VC funding & why it’s important to stick with one; building prototypes; considerations for selling your company; and his founder journey with Server Density, Console & now with Arcjet. David also highlights GTM practices for finding reliable channels & distribution, why documentation can make a critical impact on dev tool sales, the impact of design, and translating the benefits of dev tools for finance teams vs. developers. ABOUT DAVID MYTTONA dynamic approach to tech innovation, security, sustainability, and developer empowerment can be seen in everything David Mytton touches. As co-founder of Console and host of the Console DevTools Podcast, he delights in keeping developers ahead of the curve with the tools they need the most. As the founder of Server Density (acquired by StackPath), he created a product that helped organizations manage mission-critical IT environments. As a sustainable computing researcher at Oxford and a global green tech speaker, he’s brought much-needed attention to the impact of cloud emissions and the water and energy consumption of the data centers that fuel our online lives. Now, as founder and CEO of Arcjet, he’s helping developers and businesses protect their apps with just a few lines of code. His professional career is a direct reflection of his relentless pursuit of making tech smarter and greener. How he invests his spare time showcases his unwavering commitment to mentoring developers and building the communities they need to succeed. SHOW NOTES:David’s founder journey, starting with Server Density (2:31) Behind the early decision to start a company & start building a product (4:00) Key lessons from bootstrapping, raising funding, and being acquired (7:40) How those early lessons shaped Arcjet & Console (9:39) Why VC money can make finding experienced engineers easier (12:24) Strategies to help early teams build their first product / prototype (14:02) Considering company outcomes: Should you build a company just to sell it? (15:17) Signals that it’s the right time for a sale / acquisition (17:02) The story behind Arcjet (18:54) “What makes a great DevTool company” & strategic insights that shaped Arcjet (22:11) Key practices that helped shape Arcjet’s GTM plan (24:09) David’s approach to experimentation and discovery (26:09) The impact of documentation on dev tool companies (30:03) How discovery pathways for dev tools impact sales (31:55) Making the decision-making process easier for users & buyers (33:30) Translating dev tool benefits for finance teams vs. developers (38:18) The impact of design on dev tool companies (40:55) Rapid fire questions (44:21) LINKS AND RESOURCESDavid’s reading list a16z Blog The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Ben Horowitz, a leading venture capitalist, modern management expert, and New York Times bestselling author, combines lessons both from history and from modern organizational practice with practical and often surprising advice to help executives build cultures that can weather both good and bad times. The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World - Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of finance, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance. The Lessons of History - In this illuminating and thoughtful book, Will and Ariel Durant have succeeded in distilling for the reader the accumulated store of knowledge and experience from their four decades of work on the ten monumental volumes of "The Story of Civilization." The result is a survey of human history, full of dazzling insights into the nature of human experience, the evolution of civilization, the culture of man. This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode of Engineering Founders, Archetype AI’s Ivan Poupyrev, Ph.D. (CEO & CTO), and Jaime Lien, Ph.D. (Head of Hardware & Signal Processing), join us to discuss insights on transitioning as a larger-scale founder team, inspiring big ideas / questions, communicating your product’s thesis as a founder, and how to ensure your actions are tracking toward your ultimate goals & questions. Jaime and Ivan also break down smaller steps founders can take toward answering the big question, how to adapt your product’s narrative as you iterate, communicating complicated theses in a way people can easily digest them, and what the next big ideas at Archetype AI look like. ABOUT IVAN POUPYREVChief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer of Archetype AI where he leads the team in developing a physical world foundational AI model, a direction known as 'Physical AI.' An award-winning inventor, engineer, and technical leader, he has 20+ years of experience in research and product development, as well as interaction design, advanced sensors and natural interaction, mobile and wearable devices. Prior to Archetype AI, Ivan spearheaded technology development for Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects, Walt Disney Imagineering, Sony, and others. He holds over 100 US patents, has over 100 scientific publications, and has been recognized with the National Design Award, Cannes Lion Grand Prix, and SXSW Innovation Award. Ivan was named 'one of the best interaction designers in the world' by Fast Company, and his work has been enshrined in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum. ABOUT JAIME LIENHead of Hardware & Signal Processing, Jaime Lien, Ph.D., holds a wealth of experience in research and hardware product engineering. A visionary leader with a proven track record in inventing, developing and shipping radio frequency sensing technology and techniques for human perception and interaction, Jaime has an extensive background in radar systems design and signal processing. Prior to Archetype, Jaime was the Radar Research Lead of Project Soli with Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects and a Communications Engineer with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Jaime received a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, where her research focused on interferometric synthetic aperture radar theory and techniques. SHOW NOTES:Ivan & Jaime’s co-founder story & founding Archetype AI together (3:45) What it was like transitioning collectively as a larger-scale team (6:56) How to inspire big ideas & what tackling ambitious projects looks like at Archetype AI(9:36) Learn how to embrace “crazy” ideas / questions without constraints (11:41) Creating a founder team with a diverse set of interests & experiences (13:14) Deconstructing Archetype AI’s early-stage big questions (14:27) Strategies for finding the right metaphor to describe what you’re trying to build (16:52) Why the iterative process is like archeology (18:52) The inspiration behind & conversations that led to Archetype AI (20:25) How to communicate the thesis of Archetype AIin a way people understand (21:45) Unlocking your vision around the core technologies available (24:18) Where to start when working toward answering the big question (26:07) Use prototypes to see if you idea makes sense in the real world (27:56) Frameworks for deconstructing & re-synthesizing your big ideas (30:10) What it means for AI to understand physics (32:41) Tracking tools for ensuring your actions align with your big question (34:17) Archetype AI’s next big ideas (37:29) Rapid fire questions (40:24) LINKS AND RESOURCESNormal People - Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship. The Overstory - A sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of - and paean to - the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics - Adam Becker’s gripping book following the battle to understand the meaning behind quantum physics. This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jake Schwartz (Co-Founder @ Endorsed) joins us to talk about de-risking the co-founder relationship! We cover how they built in stress-tests to validate co-founder fit, how to host a hackathon to stress-test your partnership, and why reference calls are an important component of finding a co-founder. Plus the story behind Jakes's transition from Life360 to co-founding Endorsed, prioritizing which projects to focus on, early-stage product strategy considerations around AI, and why you need to approach your customers with a genuine sense of curiosity. ABOUT JAKE SCHWARTZJake is an engineering leader, entrepreneur, and technology investor based in San Francisco. From building his first website at age 8 to shipping large-scale software at Apple and overseeing the development of the flagship Life360 app, Jake has tackled engineering challenges at every scale. At Life360, he jump-started the European engineering office, helping scale the company from 50 to 500 people and reaching an audience of 70M users worldwide. He is now the co-founder of Endorsed.com, an AI recruiting platform that helps teams hire better and faster. SHOW NOTES:The origin story behind Endorsed (1:59) What inspired Jake to dive into the world of hiring (6:05) The whiteboarding conversation between Jake & his co-founder (7:12) Jake’s transition from Life360 to starting Endorsed (9:24) Insights on experimentation & stress-testing the co-founder relationship (11:23) Deciding what experiments to pursue further or toss (13:16) Strategies for de-risking the co-founder relationship & transition to a startup (14:30) Organizing a hackathon to test the co-founder relationship (16:50) What Jake learned from the co-founder hackathon & tips for trying your own (18:07) Main objectives for co-founder reference calls (19:59) Dissecting Jake’s decision-making process behind the different pivots (21:27) Why they decided to commit to selling direct vs. building an API layer (24:38) Recommendations for sorting through problems & deciding which to solve (25:57) Approach your customers with curiosity (29:31) Early-stage considerations for AI in terms of product strategy (30:33) Rapid fire questions (33:34) LINKS AND RESOURCESSteve Jobs “Keeper of the Vision” quote The Three-Body Problem - Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nancy Wang, Venture Partner @ Felicis and Former GM @ AWS, joins us to discuss strategies & considerations for scaling costs, becoming enterprise ready on Day 1, maintaining business health, and more. We cover Nancy’s journey as a founding product manager at AWS and how those lessons have guided her throughout her career & how she coaches founders. We address why it’s paramount to prioritize scaling costs early on as a founder, how to make design decisions with cost considerations in mind, and what tools you can employ to identify the features that most benefit your customers. Finally, Nancy & Patrick talk about how to land on your V1 while being enterprise-ready from the get-go and trends / growth opportunities that founders should be aware of today. ABOUT NANCY WANGNancy is a product & engineering executive, advisor, and investor who is passionate about creating seats at the table for women, especially within engineering and technical roles. Most recently, as General Manager of Data Protection at AWS Nancy scaled her engineering teams from 18 to 100+, all while averaging over 45% female and delivering triple-digit YoY growth businesses that delivered over $1B+ ARR including its integration into Amazon’s suite of AI products. Previously, Nancy launched Rubrik’s (NYSE: RBRK) first Cloud SaaS business, growing their company valuation to over $4B in less than 2 years. Rubrik IPO’ed in Q22024, as one of the fastest-growing enterprise SaaS businesses. As Founder and Board Chair of the non-profit Advancing Women in Tech since 2016, Nancy helps prepare women and underrepresented minorities for leadership roles. She is currently a Venture Partner at Felicis, looking after their infrastructure and cybersecurity investments. SHOW NOTES:Nancy’s journey as the founding product manager for AWS (2:57) Why AWS was launched & how it scaled (5:31) How to build a successful business within the confines of your org (7:41) Insights into the people side of scaling your business (10:25) Understanding the cost component of scaling / founding (13:12) Ensure your processes aid the overall health & mission of the company (15:43) Why founders need to prioritize scaling costs early (17:15) Breaking down different cost scenarios founders may face (20:08) Avoiding design decisions that create exponential cost but linear revenue (22:51) Considerations for being enterprise-ready from Day 1 (28:10) Think of hyperscalers like a T-rex (32:31) Nancy’s lessons learned on landing your V1 while being enterprise-ready (34:05) Questions founders can ask to help identify their market & where to start (39:24) Current trends / growth opportunities for founders to consider (40:59) Rapid fire questions (43:31) LINKS AND RESOURCESCEO Excellence - McKinsey & Company led a research effort to identify those CEOs whose companies grew demonstrably healthier during their tenures, looking across more than 20 years’ worth of data on 7,800 CEOs from 3,500 public companies across 70 countries and 24 industries to further identify those whose actions have led to breakaway success. This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode of Engineering Founders, we discuss something we’ve never covered before – why you SHOULDN’T be a founder! Travis McPeak (CEO & Co-Founder @ Resourcely) joins the pod to share his founder story and questions to ask yourself to truly validate if the founder lifestyle is right for you. We also address how to de-risk your org & understanding the two main kinds of risks; things to consider when raising capital, like going bootstrap vs. VC; balancing the wedge vs. long-term vision; and how to create a lifestyle that supports you as a founder. ABOUT TRAVIS MCPEAKTravis is currently Co-Founder and CEO of Resourcely which enables platform, security, and DevOps engineering teams to offer simple self-service to their developers. Prior to Resourcely, Travis served as the Head of Product Security at Databricks. With an extensive background in application and cloud security, Travis enjoys building automated solutions to hard and critical problems. Prior to joining Databricks, Travis led the team at Netflix that automates application security including vulnerability management, asset inventory, and security reviews. During his time at Netflix Travis also built Repokid, a tool that automates least privilege at scale. Previously Travis led large security initiatives at IBM, HPE, and Symantec. Travis is an extrovert and enjoys sharing ideas and meeting new people. In his spare time, Travis leads the OWASP Bay Area chapter, mentors people getting started in security, and loves to help startups. He is an advisor for four companies including Ermetic and Appaegis. Travis is an angel investor in startups including Temporal, Truffle Security, and AuthZed. " The stress is going to get you anyway, and your mindset about how you approach that stress is going to make the difference. So you're the one that's like, ‘All right, it's challenge time. Let's do this.’ Or are you like, ‘I'm overwhelmed right now. This feels too hard for me and then you go like hide in your shell.’” - Travis McPeak    SHOW NOTES:The origins behind Resourcely & Travis’s founder journey (1:52) Questions to ask before starting a company (5:07) What it was like for Travis to answer these questions for himself (8:00) Processes for becoming more self aware (9:06) What you should do / think about before starting a company (11:12) Methods for de-risking the two main kinds of risks (14:28) Resources for better understanding de-risking business risk (16:30) Identifying when to go bootstrap vs. VC for funding (19:00) Frameworks for differentiating which investor path is the right fit (21:30) Presentation strategies & considerations when raising capital (22:48) Linking together the wedge vs. long-term vision (28:21) How Travis was able to have 45 conversations in the first 45 days (32:31) Adapting to the founder lifestyle & increasing your odds for success (34:25) Strategies for prioritization & developing discipline (35:39) Practice rigorous scheduling (40:23) Rapid fire questions (41:49) LINKS AND RESOURCESThe Mom Test - Rob Fitzpatrick’s quick and easy handbook about how to get more learning and more sales out of your customer conversations. Even when everyone is lying to you. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin's dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before. This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Mariane Bekker, Founder & CEO @ Founders Bay, joins us to discuss the power of building your distribution channel and network within the startup community. She shares best practices for community building based on her own experiences developing Upward Recruiting and Founders Bay & why being able to articulate / communicate your company’s mission (the “why” of it all) is instrumental. Mariane shares her favorite networking conversation starters, tools for staying organized as your community expands, and pitfalls to avoid. She also dissects strategies for building an MVP in eight weeks and the role of distribution/community in accelerating that process. ABOUT MARIANE BEKKERMariane is a tech executive and the founder & CEO of Founders Bay, a venture studio in Silicon Valley, where she works closely with early-stage founders to build their products from the ground up with her team of engineers and designers. She also runs the most active community of female tech founders in the Bay Area on a mission to increase funding for women founders. "Do you have an audience or do you have a channel where when you have a product, you can easily reach out to and convince them to use your product? When I started my community, I already had the audience. I already had the distribution channel. So all I had to do was send a few messages and within a month, I had already a hundred startups in my community. So that's when distribution comes to play, when you have the audience and the channels where you can distribute your product effectively.” - Mariane Bekker    ABOUT FOUNDER’S BAYFounder’s Bay is a leading venture studio dedicated to empowering women-founded startups in Silicon Valley by providing them with the engineering resources to build their product. Recognizing that only 1.9% of funding goes to women-led startups, they are committed to bridging this significant gender and funding gap in the tech industry. As part of this commitment, Founder’s Bay runs the largest and most active community of female founders in the Bay Area providing resources, mentorship, and support. Join us at ELC Annual 2024!ELC Annual is our 2 day conference bringing together engineering leaders from around the world for a unique experience help you expand your network and empower your leadership & career growth. Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to expand your network, gain actionable insights, ignite new ideas, recharge, and accelerate your leadership journey! Secure your ticket at sfelc.com/annual2024And use the exclusive discount code "podcast10" (all lowercase) for a 10% discount SHOW NOTES:Mariane’s founder origin story with Upward Recruiting (2:52) Transitioning from Upward Recruiting to Founders Bay & recent milestone events (5:09) Strategies for articulating your mission & avoiding common pitfalls (7:48) How knowing & communicating your “why” impacts early hiring decisions (11:13) Becoming good at hiring functions outside of engineering (13:12) Defining distribution & what this means for startups (16:13) Tactics for building your initial audience & testing what content works (18:04) Distribution’s impact on community, sales, marketing, etc. (22:44) Common networking / community building challenges while starting your own org (26:04) Mariane’s favorite networking questions & conversation topics (28:03) How Mariane’s technical background benefits community building activities (30:50) Tools for staying organized as you expand your network (32:55) What building an MVP in eight weeks typically looks like (35:15) Leveraging your distribution network to accelerate your MVP’s launch (37:01) How your distribution & community can provide access to traction capital (40:07) Rapid fire questions (41:46) LINKS AND RESOURCESHolly - Holly Gibney, one of Stephen King’s most compelling and ingeniously resourceful characters, returns in this thrilling novel to solve the gruesome truth behind multiple disappearances in a midwestern town. This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host Jerry Li - Co-Host Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/ Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/ Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.