Code Story | Startup Podcast for CTOs, CEOs and Technical Founders

Kavitta Ghai realized at an early age that she thought different than everyone else. She grew up neurodivergent, with autism and ADHD but was a lucky kid, having parents that helped her see the silver lining in her learning challenges, making sure she had outlets in extracurricular activities. She is a creative person always looking to build something that doesn't exist. In her off time, she enjoys turning off all the tech, learning a new language, and reconnecting with the real, analog world.

Kavitta and her co-founder found themselves frustrated with the classroom in college. For paying such an exorbitant amount of money, they were confused why the educational classroom was so ineffective. It came to a head - to the point, where Kavitta was going to change it or drop out of school.

This is the creation story of Nectir.

Sponsors

• Mailtrap
• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links

• https://www.nectir.io/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/kavittaghai/

Darko Fabijan is originally from Serbia, and splits his time between their and the US. He got is first computer in 1994, and eventually started tinkering and playing with Linus. He went to university in 2003, and then started a company with a college friend, which was a rails consultancy. Outside of tech, he is married, with 2 kids - ages 3 and 9. The older one is into athletics, and the younger one is more into art. He enjoys spending time in nature with his family, and got into trail running a few years ago - recently running a 64km trail. He enjoys business books because he likes to see how other people "did it", when it comes to their successes and failures.

In 2011, Darko was running his consulting shop with 7 or 8 people. As they were developing applications, they couldn't find anything for continuous integration where you just "signed up" and it worked. That was enough for them to get out there and build it on their own.

This is the creation story of Semaphore.

Sponsors

• Mailtrap
• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links

• https://semaphore.io/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/darkofabijan/

Today, we are releasing another episode from our series, entitled The Gene Simmons of Data Protection - the KISS Method, brought to you by none other than Protegrity. Protegrity is AI-powered data security for data consumption, offering fine grain data protection solutions, so you can enable your data security, compliance, sharing and analytics.

In this episode, we will be talking with Clyde Williamson, Senior Product Security Architect. Clyde is going to help us see how we've created a broken systems - and it's OK, we are willing to take the necessary steps to fix it. Business face immense pressure to safeguard data, ensure compliance, follow regulation, and make data easily available when needed. This is the conversation we should have heard yesterday, when it comes to our data.

Questions

• Why is consumer privacy more critical than ever in today's digital world, and what role do businesses play in protecting and consuming data? 
• How that concern translates to regulatory requirements and changes for businesses. What does it mean to “future-proof” consumer data in terms of regulatory compliance, and why should businesses care? 
• How can businesses effectively balance the need for data accessibility with the need to protect consumer privacy? 
• What role does data de-identification play in helping businesses secure sensitive data while minimizing risk, and what are the tangible benefits? 
• What are some common pitfalls businesses face when implementing privacy measures, and how can they avoid them? 
• Can you provide an example of a company that improved consumer trust by adopting stronger data protection strategies? 
• What are some emerging technologies in data protection and cybersecurity that are making, or will make, a significant impact? 
• Can you share any real-world examples of data breaches that could have been prevented with better security practices? 

Links

• https://www.protegrity.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/clyde-williamson-6211192/

Gino Ferrand is originally from Peru, and moved to the United States when he was 12 years old. Now, he lives in Seattle, and is enjoying all that the Northwest has to offer. He's very much into sports, specifically soccer, and plays in an indoor league with a great community. He loves to travel, and gets to often with the world he does. And when it comes to food, he is very evangelistic about Peruvian food, and encourages people to try every chance he gets.

Gino attend the University of San Diego, and was really into startups. He was building mobile games for the iPhone in 2012, while living back in Peru for a short time. He hired a few engineers from back home, and this started him on the journey of understanding the great talent in South America.

This is the creation story of Tecla.

Sponsors

• Mailtrap
• Tecla
• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links

• https://www.tecla.io/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/ginoferrand/

Ivan Poupyrev grew up in the Soviet Union, studying rocket science. He moved to the US in 2013 to pursue the early days of VR. He has worked at Disney and Google, and has been focused on merging the physical and digital world for many years. Prior to this latest revolution, Ivan was one of the skeptics towards the idea of AI. But at Google, he was convinced by one of his now co-founders, the value in this tech.

Nick Gillian has been working in real time Machine learning for nearly 2 decades - but path here was a bit different. His background is in music and audio engineering - think the math behind amps, studios, mixers, etc. During his masters studies, he fell in love with sensors, and participated in early development and advancement of this tech alongside machine learning. He built a toolkit, which eventually got the attention of Ivan.

Ivan was working at Google, and one of his team members began utilizing the toolkit built by Nick. Upon discovering this, Ivan reached out to Nick to see if he wanted to join the top secret team - and eventually, Nick convinced Ivan of the power of machine learning and AI.

This is the creation story of Archetype AI.

Sponsors

• Mailtrap
• PropelAuth
• Tecla
• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links

• https://www.archetypeai.io/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-poupyrev/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-gillian-b27b1094/

Today, we are kicking off a new series on the podcast, entitled The Gene Simmons of Data Protection - the KISS Method, brought to you by none other than Protegrity. Protegrity is AI-powered data security for data consumption, offering fine grain data protection solutions, so you can enable your data security, compliance, sharing and analytics.

In this episode, we are talking with James Rice, VP at Protegrity. He is going to help us strip away the nonsense, when it comes to securing data, and help us understand why we don't need a fortress... just a kill switch. While companies throw billions at firewalls, AI driven threat detection, and fortress like defenses - attackers still find their way in. James reminds us to keep it simple, with Protegrity's KISS Method which stands for Keep It Simple Stupid - and how when data is useless to attackers, breaches become mere inconveniences instead of existential threats.

Questions:

• What exactly is the KISS method, and how does it apply to cybersecurity?
• Why are traditional cybersecurity approaches failing to stop breaches?
• What are some of the biggest myths about security that lead businesses to waste money on ineffective defenses?
• How do encryption, tokenization, and de-identification work together to make stolen data useless?
• Can you share an example where a company’s focus on complex security backfired, and how a simpler approach could have helped?
• What’s the biggest pushback you hear from companies hesitant to adopt a simpler, data-first security model?
•  If a company wanted to implement the KISS method tomorrow, what are the first three steps they should take?

Links

• https://www.protegrity.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesrice1/

Ivan Poupyrev grew up in the Soviet Union, studying rocket science. He moved to the US in 2013 to pursue the early days of VR. He has worked at Disney and Google, and has been focused on merging the physical and digital world for many years. Prior to this latest revolution, Ivan was one of the skeptics towards the idea of AI. But at Google, he was convinced by one of his now co-founders, the value in this tech.

Nick Gillian has been working in real time Machine learning for nearly 2 decades - but path here was a bit different. His background is in music and audio engineering - think the math behind amps, studios, mixers, etc. During his masters studies, he fell in love with sensors, and participated in early development and advancement of this tech alongside machine learning. He built a toolkit, which eventually got the attention of Ivan.

Ivan was working at Google, and one of his team members began utilizing the toolkit built by Nick. Upon discovering this, Ivan reached out to Nick to see if he wanted to join the top secret team - and eventually, Nick convinced Ivan of the power of machine learning and AI.

This is the creation story of Archetype AI.

Sponsors

• Mailtrap
• PropelAuth
• Tecla
• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links

• https://www.archetypeai.io/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-poupyrev/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-gillian-b27b1094/

Quinn Li started into tech well before college. In High School, she was into fashion and would take pictures of herself and her friends. She wanted to share these pictures, and found her way to Squarespace - which ultimately, led her getting into HTML and CSS - and the rest is history. Outside of tech, she plays a lot of tennis, and teaches Aerial. I had to ask what this was, and she explained it was the art form that you see in the circus, when people are climbing the sheets in the air, acrobatically.

Quinn Li has been focused on productivity throughout her career. As she started to swing her focus to building connections at work through play. One of the games she and her team built went viral on TikTok - and they knew they were on to something.

This is the creation story of Braid.

Sponsors

• PropelAuth
• Tecla
• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links

• https://www.trybraid.io/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/qloshea/

Alberto Simon is an immigrant from Mexico, moving to Florida with his small family when he was very young. At a young age, he got interested in computers, through gaming and building his own computers. In college, he briefly studied mechanical engineering, but quickly switched over to MIS. Post that, he joined an adtech startup, caught hold of the rocket, and built the professional skills he still utilizes today. Outside of tech, he enjoys dancing, specifically salsa and machata, and participates in CrossFit. For both things, he enjoys the challenge, working hard towards goals, and seeing progress.

Alberto and his co-founders had worked in the startup world for quite some time. They noticed the trends of platforms leading the charge on portfolio management, without advisors, alongside the democratization of investments in things like real estate, crypto, etc. They decided to move forward in removing the opaqueness from investment in art.

This is the creation story of Masterworks.

Sponsors

• PropelAuth
• Tecla
• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links

• https://www.masterworks.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertosimon

Don Gossen is Canadian, but at this point, in name only. He lives in Portugal with his wife and 2 daughters. He grew up all over the world, and his career has afforded him to travel the globe. He's been in the machine learning space for 20 years, but spent his early days in statistical modeling - which was fun to setup, but boring to operate. For fun, he enjoys traveling and skiing, in particular off trail - and anywhere in Japan during the winter.

In 2016, Don caught the crypto bug, but not from the speculative component. He was fascinated with the providential integrity that is found in the blockchain. This culminated with 20 years of experience in deep tech, and led him down the path of AI agent payments.

This is the creation story of Nevermined.

Sponsors

• PropelAuth
• Tecla
• Speakeasy
• QA Wolf
• SnapTrade

Links

• https://nevermined.app/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-gossen-40ab96/