In this episode of Austin Tech Connect, Thom Singer chats with Mike Maples Jr., the visionary founding partner of Floodgate and the author of the compelling new book Pattern Breakers: Why Some Startups Change the Future. The conversation dives deep into the mindset and strategies that differentiate the startups that truly disrupt industries from those that merely follow the rules. Mike shares his journey from his early entrepreneurial days in Austin to becoming one of the most respected venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, investing in radical startups at their earliest stages.

We discuss the concept of "pattern breaking"—how startups that succeed against the odds often do so by challenging conventional wisdom and introducing ideas that are not only innovative but also non-consensus. Mike reveals the critical importance of timing and inflection points, explaining how recognizing and harnessing these moments can make or break a startup. He also shares personal anecdotes, including the unexpected success of Twitch, a company he invested in without fully understanding its potential at the time.

Listeners will gain valuable insights into the unique challenges and rewards of investing in and building disruptive companies, as well as practical advice for entrepreneurs who aspire to be at the forefront of innovation. Whether you're a startup founder, an investor, or simply someone interested in the future of technology, this episode offers a wealth of knowledge and inspiration. Mike’s reflections on the importance of resilience, the role of storytelling in building a movement, and the necessity of embracing risk make this a conversation you won’t want to miss.

About Mike Maples Jr

Mike Maples is a co-founding Partner at Floodgate.  He has been on the Forbes Midas List eight times in the last decade and was also named a “Rising Star” by FORTUNE and profiled by Harvard Business School for his lifetime contributions to entrepreneurship. Before becoming a full-time investor, Mike was involved as a founder and operating executive at back-to-back startup IPOs, including Tivoli Systems (IPO TIVS, acquired by IBM) and Motive (IPO MOTV, acquired by Alcatel-Lucent.) Some of Mike’s investments include Twitter, Twitch.tv, Clover Health, Okta, Outreach, Chegg, Demandforce, and Applied Intuition. Mike is known for coining the term “Thunder Lizards,” which is a metaphor derived from Godzilla that describes the tiny number of truly exceptional companies that are wildly disruptive capitalist mutations. Mike likes to think of himself as a hunter of the “atomic eggs” that beget these companies. Mike is the author of the National Bestselling book Pattern Breakers and host of the Pattern Breakers podcast, which shares startup lessons from the super performers.

In this episode of "Austin Tech Connect," Thom Singer welcomes back Joyce Durst, founder and CEO of Growth Acceleration Partners, who was recently honored as the 2024 inductee into the Austin Tech Hall of Fame. As one of the few repeat guests on the show, Joyce shares her journey in the Austin tech community, reflecting on how the city has evolved since she first arrived 30 years ago. They delve into the importance of mentorship, community involvement, and the responsibility of today's leaders to pave the way for the next generation.

Joyce discusses the need for a renewed focus on inclusivity and collaboration within the tech industry, emphasizing how critical it is for young professionals to get involved in boards, committees, and nonprofit organizations. She also highlights the challenges facing women and underrepresented groups in tech, and the importance of creating environments where everyone can thrive.

Thom and Joyce explore what it means for Austin to continue its growth as a leading tech hub and innovation center, discussing how the community can better support startups and mid-sized companies. They talk about the role of organizations like the Austin Technology Council in fostering a culture of giving back and ensuring that Austin remains a place where tech companies can grow and succeed. The episode is a call to action for all members of the Austin tech community to engage, support, and mentor, ensuring a bright future for the city’s tech ecosystem.

  About Joyce Durst   Joyce Durst is the CEO and cofounder of Growth Acceleration Partners, a consulting and technology services company headquartered in Austin, TX, with offices in Costa Rica and Colombia. Bootstrapped since 2027, GAP provides custom software, data engineering, and modernization solutions for technology leaders and growing companies across the U.S. As an engineer by trade and visionary leader by nature, Joyce has leveraged more than 30 years of experience in the software and technology industries. Her business model is built on strategic and long-term client partnerships, resulting in over a decade of profitable growth and more than 600 GAPsters who believe in “striving for Greatness, being Agile and investing in People.” Joyce earned a B.S. in computer science from Texas A&M University, and is active with the Women Presidents Organization, HiPower and Springboard Enterprises. She mentors CEOs and first-time entrepreneurs, and has served on the boards of several non-profit organizations. Joyce is also on the Board of Directors for the Austin Chamber of Commerce and chairs their Global Tech and Innovation Committee. She has won several prestigious industry awards, including the Executive Leadership award and the A-LIST award from the Austin Chamber of Commerce; the Profiles in Power award from the Austin Business Journal; and Stevie Awards for Management Team of the Year and Achievement in Developing and Promoting Women. In 2023, Ernst & Young recognized Joyce as an Entrepreneur Of The Year®. In 2024, she was inducted into the Austin Tech Hall of Fame.

About Growth Acceleration Partners

Growth Acceleration Partners is a consulting and technology services company that provides custom software, data engineering and modernization solutions. GAP works to consult, design, build, and modernize revenue-generating software and data engineering solutions for clients. Their remote, integrated engineering teams help businesses achieve a competitive advantage through technology. Using AI, proprietary tools and seasoned experience, GAP’s end-to-end approach spans from consultation and migration services, to full-cycle digital product development and managed services, ensuring the solutions delivered are innovative and align with your business goals. GAP transforms the way companies do business, helping clients to stay ahead of technology trends in a rapidly-evolving digital landscape. Working with GAP, you are able to achieve operational efficiency and revenue goals with custom software that drives results.

In this episode, host Thom Singer talks about the ten pillars that helped make Austin become a global technology hub. While there were civic minded community leaders who had ideas and plans to set our region up to grow, the ten pillars that supported the success of Austin are not something that can be dupblicated by other cities.  This is a retrospective, not a recipe book.

Austin's success was not luck, it was the product of several things that come together at the right time.  And it was about the people.  Leaders who would show up regularly to support the community who had visions that more home grown tech companies, and being a destination for established companies could become key.

The Chamber of Commerce, Opportunity Austin, The Capital Factory and other organizations had big impact on the growth of the tech scene.  But it was no one organization or individual that did it all.  Yes, you can trace back much of the credit to Dr.George Kozmetsky, who was the dean of the UT Business School in the 1960s and 1970s (and then a major civic leader until the 1990s).... but much of the credit is split between about 50 men and women who openly cared and worked to help set the stage for the community we have today.  

The ten pillars that Thom talks about all came togther in a time when technology was exploding across the world.  Austin became the cool alternative to the big cities, alhtough we are now a big city ourselves.  

These pillars are not the whole story, and Singer welcomes input from people on other ideas. Not all of the pillars are as strong or important today, as times change and new pillars are being formed. Also, in a short version of this talk he cannot cover all the details that he can when he does the hour long keynote about "The History of Austin Tech".  

The Ten Pillars of Austin Tech

1. The Univseristy of Texas and the hiring of Dr. George Kozmetsky
2. Central location in the US and warm weather all year.
3. Affordability
4. Connected community with a strong focus on networking and relationships
5. Robust business ecomonty that worked for startups, midsized companies, and large tech.
6. Arts, music, and the Keep Austin Weird vibe.
7. Young educated workforce
8. Angel investors, VCs, service providers, incubators, etc...
9. Pro-business state poliicies
10. SXSW

Check out this episode.

This week Thom Singer sits down with his longtime friend Sam Decker.  Sam has been active in the Austin tech scene for over 25 years.  He has started and grown several companies and is now an active board member, advisor, and investor.   Sam has always looked three steps ahead in his career, and before making big moves has sought out experienced mentors so that he can learn from those with a proven track record and assess the industry.   In this episode of "Austin Tech Connect" Sam shares his journey and will leave you with a lot of advice on how to succeed in tech.     About Sam Decker   Sam has led diverse and impactful roles throughout his career, beginning with marketing, product, and sales leadership at several early-stage startups in California, covering direct mail catalogs, marketing consulting, online media, and web-based telecommunications. In 1999, he managed Dell’s consumer website operations, redesigning it three times and growing consumer online revenue to over $3.5 billion while launching Dell's Consumer CRM group. As the founding CMO of Bazaarvoice Inc., Sam drove the company's growth to seven products and $50 million in revenue before its IPO in 2012. He then founded and led Mass Relevance, a SaaS leader in social TV and content integration, which grew to 150 employees before merging with Spredfast. Sam also co-founded Clearhead, a data-driven experience optimization firm that sold to Accenture in 2017. Currently, he serves as co-founder and Chairman of Fairworlds, an immersive reality agency, co-owner of Texas Drift Academy, and is involved with Interplay Learning and Axial Commerce. An original co-founder of Capital Factory, Sam is also a published author and active advisor and investor.

 

This week on Austin Tech Connect with go into a deep conversation about AI and AGI with Peter Voss.  Peter is the Founder, CEO, and Chief Scientist at Aigo.ai.  He has been researching AI and AGI for his whole career.  He recently moved to Austin and has a very positive outlook on our community and the future of Artificial General Intelligence.

  About Peter   Peter Voss is a Pioneer in Artificial Intelligence who in 2001 coined the term ‘AGI’ (Artificial General Intelligence) with fellow AI luminaries. Peter is an Engineer, Scientist, and Inventor as well as a Serial AI Entrepreneur and Leader. Started in electronics engineering, then fell in love with software. Peter achieved his first major success by developing a comprehensive ERP package and taking that company from Zero to 400-person IPO in Seven years. Fueled by the fragile nature of software, Peter embarked on a journey 20 years ago to study what intelligence is, how it develops in humans, and the current state of AI while successfully commercializing an earlier version (SmartAction). This research, development & commercialization culminated in the creation of our proto-AGI natural language intelligence engine called 'Aigo' (say I-go) that can think, learn, and reason -- and adapt to, and grow with the user. Aigo engine has already replaced thousands of call center agents in the field as a proof point and is now gearing up to reach human-level intelligence developed on human brain-like Cognitive Architecture. Our white paper “Concepts Is All You Need: A More Direct Path to AGI” details this groundbreaking approach and our strategy to achieving human-level AI. Peter is on a mission to bring AGI to the world, to boost human flourishing.   About Aigo   Founded by AGI Pioneer Peter Voss who coined the term “AGI” (Artificial General Intelligence) 20 years ago with fellow AI luminaries. Peter and team have spent over two decades in researching, developing & commercializing AGI that culminated in the creation of proto-AGI natural language intelligence engine called 'Aigo' (say I-go) that can think, learn, and reason -- and adapt to, and grow with the user. Aigo engine has already replaced thousands of call center agents in the field as a proof point and today, Aigo.ai stands on the cusp of a groundbreaking AGI breakthrough, demonstrating “Self-Learning AI” by leveraging Aigo’s INSA – Integrated Neuro-Symbolic Architecture. Aigo.ai is on a mission to bring AGI to the world, to boost human flourishing

For this episode, host Thom Singer (CEO at the Austin Technology Council) simply asked ChatGPT to become the host of the podcast and interview him about the ATC and about the state of tech in Austin.  He gave no other instructions, and just went with the questions that were asked.    This is an interesting example of how advanced AI has become in the past year.     Check out this episode and hear about the history, mission, and future of ATC and the Austin tech ecosystem.... but most importantly...check out what a complete job the AI did with hosting the podcast.  Who needs Thom for future episodes????

Brad Englert is an author, advisor and technologist who has had a long tech career in Austin.  He is a civic minded leader is now dedicated to helping others craft their success.  His new book "Spheres of Influence: How to creat and nurture authentic business relationships" is now available on Amazon (or wherever you get your books).   He spent 22 years at Accenture, and then 8 years a CIO at UT Austin.  He believes his successful career came from being able to transcend a traditional network.     Best advice he ever got about being a leader?  "Get out of the office and tell them you give a damn".   About Brad Enlgert

Brad Englert is the founder of Brad Englert Advisory and an author, advisor, and technologist. Brad worked for Accenture in Austin for 22 years, including 10 years as a partner. He then served The University of Texas at Austin for eight years, including seven years as the chief information officer. Brad earned a masters of public affairs degree from The University of Texas at Austin and a bachelor of arts degree in social sciences with honors and distinction from Shimer College, which is now the Shimer Great Books School at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois.  About the book "Spheres of Influence" Spheres of Influence: How to Create and Nurture Authentic Business Relationships, offers a practical guide to help emerging and established leaders develop and perfect the critical hard skill of building effective and lasting professional relationships. The crunchy, real-world stories in this book are relevant to a diverse range of industries, organizations, and backgrounds. The internal sphere of influence are those relationships with whom you have the most impact: boss, executive leaders, direct reports and staff. Relationships with customers, peers and influencers, and vendors form the external sphere of influence. Three principles apply to all business relationships: understand their goals and aspirations, set and their manage expectations, and genuinely care about their success. Spheres of Influence is an Amazon bestseller in three categories: Leadership Training, Mentoring & Coaching, and Customer Relations.

The Austin Technology Council is working to help more local tech companies and industry leaders engage as speakers, panelists, workshop leaders, etc... at the 2025 SXSW Festival next March.   On of the ways to get on the radar of the SXSW team is to apply for a session via the PanelPicker (which is accepting applications until July 21, 2024).   This episodes looks at SXSW and how to to apply to speak.  We are joined by the Senior Director of Conference Programing, Monica Sack.     You do not want to miss this conversation.   About The SXSW PanelPicker: PanelPicker® is the official SXSW user-generated session proposal platform. This two-step online process allows the SXSW community to have a significant voice in what sessions become part of the Conference programming. During the open application process, we encourage everyone in the SXSW community to upload proposals for solo presentations, panels, book readings, workshops, and more.   About Monica Sack In 2009, Monica Sack started working for SXSW helping speakers prepare for their March speaking engagement. Now the Senior Director of Conference Programming, she helps ensure that the Conference portion of the event runs as smoothly as possible so that both speakers and attendees alike have a positive and engaging SXSW experience. When not working, Monica enjoys reading, walking her dogs, and rooting for her beloved Portland Trail Blazers.

One of the best things about the Austin tech scene is the people and the unique problems their tech companies solve. This week's "Austin Tech Connect" episode is a chat with Bob Michaels from Content Access.  Their AdFlow Plugin brings website navigation to the cloud, and changes how people engage when they come to your site from clicking ads.     Bob is also musician who has been in both the music and tech businesses since the 1980s and 1990s.     About Bob Michaels  

From the dawn of the World Wide Web, Robert “Bob” Michaels has been at the forefront of internet technology innovation. A professional developer since the beginning—when Bob built his first website, there were less than 20,000 websites online—Bob swiftly grasped the web's transformative potential.

Bob's digital journey followed a decade as a touring lead guitarist after graduating from the University of Texas with a communications degree. This experience honed his ability to connect with audiences, shaping ContentAccess solutions to reflect deep engagement expertise.

In 1994, Bob pioneered digital technologies, creating groundbreaking websites for music artists like Willie Nelson and Ray Benson. He partnered with Mark Cuban's Broadcast.com, pioneering online streaming media from Austin, Texas, in the early 2000s.

Bob's technological acumen extended to the enterprise, executing business automation solutions for industry giants like Dell, Compaq, and Tivoli Systems. His inventive efforts earned a prestigious software patent award.

In the public sector, Bob developed all public-facing web properties for the Texas General Land Office under Commissioners Jerry Patterson and George P. Bush, including the state's primary disaster recovery website, recovery.texas.gov, influencing HUD's best practices for federally required websites.

Bob has also led the development of dozens of enterprise websites for higher education clients, addressing their unique needs with robust, user-friendly, and accessible solutions that enhance educational experiences and streamline administrative processes.

As CEO of ContentAccess, Bob drives innovation in digital advertising and web development. Under his leadership, ContentAccess has developed advanced tools and services like AdFlow, AccessNav, and cutting-edge animated video banners that significantly enhance user engagement and conversion rates.

With a tech career spanning three decades, Bob Michaels embodies relentless innovation and adaptability, profoundly impacting the digital landscape. His leadership at ContentAccess demonstrates a commitment to delivering state-of-the-art digital solutions that drive success across many industries.

 About Content Access

ContentAccess offers a robust portfolio of proprietary patent-pending cloud technologies and digital marketing services. Our AdFlow Plugin dynamically adapts landing page content to match ad messages, significantly boosting relevance and conversion rates. The AccessNav Solution cuts through dense content like a lightsaber, driving double-digit percentage increases to critical web pages. Our Advanced Ad Banners transform passive and boring display ads into exciting and compelling interactive experiences, yielding exceptional click-through rates. We excel in Strategic Campaign Development, delivering bespoke strategies grounded in a profound understanding of market dynamics, complemented by our Creative Design and Content Creation, which produce compelling multimedia content seamlessly integrated across platforms.

Our expertise extends to Campaign and Demand Side Platform (DSP) management, providing expert real-time bidding across multiple exchanges for efficient ad placement and maximum reach. Our

DSP leverages sophisticated algorithms and data analytics to continuously enhance engagement rates. We offer Cross-Channel Marketing Integration, ensuring a cohesive and consistent marketing strategy across all digital channels. Our Performance Tracking and Analytics deliver transparent and actionable insights, empowering informed decision-making.

Our World-Class Enterprise Web Design & Development service specializes in crafting custom websites for higher education and government sectors, offering complete redesigns and seamless CMS integration.

The combination of these services ensures that ContentAccess clients benefit from personalized and engaging user experiences that drive superior engagement and conversion rates.

In this episode we talk to Cody Treybig, the son of Austin Tech Hall of Fame inductee, Jimmy Treybig.  At the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Cody spoke for his father, who was recovering from medical procedures. Cody shared his fathers words about his love of the Austin tech community and the people who make up our ecosystem.   We invited Cody to the podcast to talk about his father, but also to look at what it is like to grow up around a booming tech scene, and his own career path in his short time out of college.   Cody is currently moved back to Austin to be close to his parents, and is seeking his next career opportunity.  Having grown up around "Austin Tech" he has a great viewpoint of our tech scene.     Check out this episode.   About Cody Treybig   Cody, born in 1996 in Austin, TX, is the son of Jimmy Treybig, founder and CEO of Tandem Computers. He studied English at Rice University and interned at TEXO Ventures before working at Union (formerly TabbedOut) in sales operations and client success. He returned to Rice for business school but moved back to Austin to support his father after a serious brain injury. Now, Cody is seeking a client success manager role in B2B tech. He loves the Grateful Dead and is learning guitar to form a cover band.