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

Alex Yarotsky got into tech as a little kid. In fact, he remembers watching the movie Toy Story, and wanting to learn how to build the tech that drove its creation. He got into University, but eventually, dropped out, and went the standard Eastern European software route, by joining a consultancy. Post that, he joined his first tech startup, and hasn't looked back since. Outside of tech, he is married with 2 fat cats. He and his wife enjoy MMA, and traveling.

Twelve years ago, the founders of Alex's current venture noticed that the demand for freelancers was growing in the market. They also noticed that very few time tracking solutions existed, and they wanted to tackle this niche. Later, Alex joined the crew to take the product to the next level, as CTO.

This is the creation story of Hubstaff.

Sponsors

• Cipherstash
• Treblle
• CAST AI 
• Firefly
• Turso
• Memberstack

Links

• Website: https://hubstaff.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayarotsky/

Pato Echague was born and raised in Argentina, and as such, is a huge soccer fan. He played soccer and tennis growing up, and enjoys following the Boca Juniors. He also admits to being influenced by the Messi effect as well, liking Barcelona and now the States. He is a father of 2 young kids - who also play soccer - so there are a lot of nets and practice tools in his backyard.

At his prior startup, which was acquired by Salesforce, Pato and his co-founders observed that the faster they shipped things, they faster they broke production. After giving into his co-founders persistence, he decided to jump in and build a feature flagging to fix the problem.

This is the creation story of Split.

Sponsors

• Cipherstash
• Treblle
• CAST AI 
• Firefly
• Turso
• Memberstack

Links

• Website: https://www.split.io/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patricioechague/

Moti Rafalin was born and raised in Israel. He spent half of his life there, and the rest of his life in the states. He is a father of 3 kids, 2 of which are in college. His family and he lives in the Bay Area, and he likes to play tennis and travel. In fact, he has been to over 65 countries in his life, and has lived in 2 continents.

After attending AWS re-invent, Moti left with the knowledge that the amount of innovation happening continued to grow and grow. At the same time, there wasn't a good way to ensure that applications weren't just "lifting and shifting" but were fully taking advantage of proper functionality during their modernization process.

This is the creation story of vFunction.

Sponsors

• Cipherstash
• Treblle
• CAST AI 
• Firefly
• Turso
• Memberstack

Links

• Website: https://vfunction.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrafalin/

Shaun Ritchie has lived in Salt Lake City for 20 plus years. He grew up in Phoenix, but decided it was too hot to live there. He started his first company 20 years ago, and has had some major successes, selling later ventures to WeWork. Outside of tech, he is married with 4 kids. He loves the mountains and outdoors, enjoying snowboarding, skiing, and hiking.

In 2022, Shaun set out to accomplish a new goal. He put together the financial resources to acquire an organization, with the goal of transforming it into a premier services company - by leading and growing people to the next level.

This is Shaun's creation story at nClouds.

Sponsors

• Cipherstash
• Treblle
• CAST AI 
• Firefly
• Turso
• Memberstack

Links

• Website: https://www.nclouds.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunritchie/

Arunabh Dastidar has a background in engineering, starting his coding years in his teens. In fact, he was building and selling web products even prior to college. He spends most of his free time thinking about tech and startups, but when he is not, he plays acoustic guitar and attends music festivals. He enjoys traveling and trying food across the world, mentioning that Tokyo ruined Sushi for him.

Arunabh was on a very important call, and his excel sheet was crashing. He looked left and right, and couldn't find anything to support what he needed. He found some co-founders, and built the solution he wished he had for the industry.

This is the creation story of RealSage.

Sponsors

• Cipherstash
• Treblle
• CAST AI 
• Firefly
• Turso
• Memberstack

Links

• Website: https://realsage.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arunabhadastidar/

Zach Wasserman lives near Vancouver, but grew up a child of the 90's in Berkeley, California. The .COM boom was happening around him, so he found himself fascinated with this era in tech, with little understanding of the details. He was a skater kid, riding around the Bay Area, typically on a short board over long board. Nowadays, he is more into the outdoors, as a mountain biker, rock climber and back country skier. He enjoys the vast selection of Chinese food at his home near Vancouver.

In 2014, Zach was working at Facebook. During that time, a team member wanted to build a platform where they could know what was going on with all of their assorted machines. They ne eded a way to ask questions without writing code, and more quickly get answers about their community of devices.

This is the creation story of Fleet.

Sponsors

• Cipherstash
• Treblle
• CAST AI 
• Firefly
• Turso
• Memberstack

Links

• Website: https://fleetdm.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharywasserman/

Steven Schkolne has a standard tech story. He was good at math, and loved computers - so, he got into programming. What sets him apart in the industry though, is his passion for design, art and creativity. He is a self taught designer, but really jams when his right and left brains are firing at the same time. Outside of tech, he is married and enjoys gaming and digging into YouTube.

Steven was working on a VR project in the past, and a component required some web development. What he immediately noticed was that although Unity Game Engine development was visual, but web development required you to build visually in the realm of code. He started to wonder if there was a way to bring this sort of thing to web dev.

This is the creation story of MightyMeld.

Sponsors

• Cipherstash
• Treblle
• CAST AI 
• Firefly
• Turso
• Memberstack

Links

• Website: https://www.mightymeld.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/schkolne/

Somak Chattopadhyay lives 30 minutes outside of Syracuse, NY, where he enjoys the great outdoors vibe of the area. He studied engineering at MIT, but spent the bulk of his career in investing. He has been in venture capital for nearly 18 years, spending time at Edison and Tribeca. Outside of tech, he is married and passionate about food and music. He's actually a classically trained violinist, and enjoys cooking or consuming Tandoor cuisine.

In 2013, a group of professors and business people noticed that early stage companies in Syracuse were required to move to NYC - primarily because there was lack of capital and access to talent. A year later, Somak and his team stepped out to solve this problem in New York regions... and beyond.

This is the creation story of Armory Square Ventures.

Sponsors

• Cipherstash
• Treblle
• CAST AI 
• Firefly
• Turso
• Memberstack

Links

• Website: https://www.armorysv.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/somak-chattopadhyay-7662a/

Maxim Fateev grew up in the Soviet Union, and witnessed its collapse. He left in 1995, and moved to Brazil, where he got his Masters in Computer Science. In the late 90's, he moved to the US, eventually landing in Seattle, which loves. He's been married for 27 years, with 3 boys, and loves to hike, play ice hockey, and snowboard. He mentioned there were a number of choices, but he prefers Whistler in Canada, when he can make the 5 hour drive.

During the development of open source services at Amazon, Maxim came across the idea of durable execution. Eventually, at Uber, he launched an open source library that eventually would become the basis of his current venture.

This is the creation story of Temporal.

Sponsors

• Cipherstash
• Treblle
• CAST AI 
• Firefly
• Turso
• Memberstack

Links

• Website: https://temporal.io/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fateev/

Ibrahim Surani grew up in Pakistan, dropped out of high school and in his words, stumbled around for a while. Eventually, he stumbled onto an IBM mainframe, taught himself to code, and has been in tech ever since. He moved to the states in 1988 and has been here ever since. Outside of tech, he is an avid hiker, and enjoys a good fantasy read, like Lord of the Rings.

Jay Mishra studied mathematics and computer science. He started out at his current venture right out of college, post his masters program. Outside of tech, he is a Dad of two boys who love sports. He enjoys playing chess and golf, and likes to hike and travel. His favorite book is the Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.

Going back several years, Ibrahim started a consultancy in 2005 or so, and mentions working on successful products in the area of mortgage banking. In 2008, the financial meltdown happened, and all of their customers (save 1) went out of business. After struggling for while, they decided take a foundational utility they had built and bridge the gap to 2.0 of their business.

This is the creation story of Astera.

Sponsors

• Cipherstash
• Treblle
• CAST AI 
• Firefly
• Turso
• Memberstack

Links

• Website: https://www.astera.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ibrahimsurani/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaymishra/