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

Vikram Chalana grew up in India, but has been in Seattle over 30 years. He graduated from the University of Washington, and actually met his wife in college. In fact, his kids now go to the same school, so his whole family are Huskies. Outside of tech, he loves anything outdoors - skiing, biking, and kayaking. In fact, at the recording of this episode, he just got back from climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Vikram noticed that content marketing has shifted from text to images to videos. In a prior organization, they only had 1 person who was trained to create videos, though the demand for assets was high. After attempting to learn tools to make these videos, he wanted to find a better way to generate this type of content.

This is the creation story of Pictory.

Sponsors

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

Links

• Website: https://pictory.ai/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vikramchalana/

Dor Laor lives North of Tel Aviv, Israel, but travels 4 times out of the year to the states. He loves tech, which drives 200% of his day. Outside of tech, he is married with two teenage kids, and enjoys extreme sports. At the time, he does snowboarding and mountain biking, mentioning that the best place to mountain bike was a ski resort in France. He would love to do surfing, but hasn't found the time to hit the waves around Israel.

Dor and his co-founder met long ago at another startup. Post acquisition, they listed ideas of what to start building next. They decided to build an operating system like to Linux, and noticed that databases still didn't run faster within their system. They decided to tackle distributed NoSQL databases instead.

This is the creation story of ScyllaDB.

Sponsors

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

Links

• Website: https://www.scylladb.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dor-laor/

Artem Koren is now based in Amsterdam, and has been a techy since his early years. He was programming Q-basic and C in 5th grade, and building web applications in High School. Post school at Columbia, he started working at .COM businesses, but found himself dis-enchanted with the state of AI. Outside of tech, he loves chess, attending running club, Jui Jitsu, and cosmology - the study of space, black holes, and things like that.

Artem and his co-founder have years of experience in digital transformation. With the latest innovations in AI proving useful, they decided to make digesting, and utilizing, information from meetings easier - using said AI.

This is the creation story of Sembly AI.

Sponsors

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

Links

• Website: https://www.sembly.ai/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akoren

Hello Listeners. This week, we're sharing another episode of the Tools and Weapons podcast, brought to you by our friends at Microsoft.

Microsoft’s Chief Technology Officer, Kevin Scott, believes that for AI to benefit everyone, humans must be at the center of its development. His philosophy was shaped by his rural Virginia roots, where he belonged to a hardworking community that used creativity, perseverance, and curiosity to support each other and tackle practical challenges.

In this episode, you'll hear about how a culture grounded in human values can lead to safer products, how AI can increase access to critical services like education and medicine, and what Chopin’s G Minor Ballade can teach us about AI and human connection.

You can find more Tools and Weapons at codestory.co/toolsandweapons.

Links

• Website: codestory.co/toolsandweapons

Adam Nathan was born and raised in New York. His parents were small business owners, his brother is entrepreneur, so starting a business was just in his blood. He has always been interested in complex systems, working in the government and in the airline industry. Outside of tech, he is a big skier, cyclist and works out every day. He's also a big reader, and reads 60-70 books a year.

Adam found himself inundated with messages and emails, all surrounding the workflow of reviewing and approving documentation. Keying off what Github accomplished for developers, he wanted to became a centralized, beautiful place, for business users to collaborate on documents.

This is the creation story of Almanac.

Sponsors

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

Links

• Website: https://almanac.io/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adampnathan/

Idan Plotnik is a half Russian and half Moroccan, which mainly shows up in the way he cooks. First and foremost though, he is a geek, having worked in computer security from his early days. Outside of tech, he is married to a professional surfer, so he and his wife surf Israel's waves regularly. He is a dad as well, and stays busy putting together lego sets, or cooking delicious fish dishes, in traditional moroccan style.

In the past, Idan sold two companies, one of which to Microsoft. At Microsoft, he felt the challenge and the pain of talking to risk management and security folks, begging them to integrate their tooling into the development process - which slowed down delivery. After spending so much time on non-value add activities, he decided to set out and optimize this process.

This is the creation story of Apiiro.

Sponsors

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

Links

• Website: https://apiiro.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idanplotnik/

Yann Ravel-Sibillot lives in France, and has a lot of hobbies. Ones that he mentioned was kayaking and rock climbing, which he has been doing for more than 10 years. He is passionate about AI, and built his first robot 15 years ago. Outside of tech, he is happily married and really enjoys Italian food. When I asked him what I should do when I come to France, he mentioned trying all the different food genres, regionally across the country.

When Yann was a CTO of a group of restaurants, he was pursued by the accounting department, to ensure he was validating invoices. Though he tried to build a system for this, it wasn't enough to alleviate the pain of the problem. Eventually, he set out to build the right solution to solve this.

This is the creation story of Flowie.

Sponsors

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

Links

• Website: https://www.get-flowie.com/en
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yannravelsibillot/

Danielle Shaul was born and raised in Tel Aviv, as an only child with a dog she dearly loved. She has always been passionate about building and creating things, often assembling and disassembling things in her home. She loves to travel, and spent many years in Asia, Europe and in the US. Outside of tech, she likes ceramics and reading - specifically, biohacking, mindset books, or learning to become a better leader. When asked her favorite food, she says her Mom's - who can cook anything well.

Prior to her current startup, Danielle had to create home grown solutions for financial workflows - cause back then, when she was at Fundbox, software for these workflows didn't exist. Her and her co-founder clicked over the idea to build the software that she wished she had.

This is the creation story of Nilus.

Sponsors

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

Links

• Website: https://www.nilus.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-shaul-735b1b92/

Caroline Strzalka is a Philadelphia native, born and raised. She is a first generation American, and is grateful to be in a place where she can run her own company. Her parents are from Argentina, with a Polish heritage - so she pointed out that they speak a lot of languages in her home. Outside of tech, she loves to hike and be in the trees. And, she calls herself the MacGyver of the kitchen, meaning she can take anything from the fridge and make a stellar meal out of it.

Dan Projansky is a country boy, only moving to NYC when he was 11 years old. He is a father of a 14 year old, whom he adores, and is an avid mountain biker and motorcyclist. In fact, he has owned over 50 different motorcycles across different brands over the years. Originally, he attended to school for film, but after working at Sesame Street, he started to work in computers and development - and that is where he met Caroline.

One day, Dan was watching some videos online. He had a thought, a desire, a want - to play the video like it was a game. And eventually, this idea turned into a business, which he started with his co-founder Caroline.

This is the creation story of Overplay.

Sponsors

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

Links

• Website: https://overplay.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolinestrzalka/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-projansky/

Ritukar Vijay has been in tech for around 16 years. He has always been fascinated with new things above and beyond the normal day to day grind. During his studies, he was interested in robotics - which he describes as the culmination of computer and physical sciences. Outside of tech, he is married with a 6 year old son. He mentioned that his son is inquisitive, and is requesting robot features from home, preparing to build his first robot in the future.

Prior to COVID and during lockdowns, Ritukar started ideating about the autonomous delivery for an industry that was overlooked for automation. They started to created robots to service the industry, and did so - from their guest rooms.

This is the creation story of Ottonomy.

Sponsors

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

Links

• Website: https://ottonomy.io/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritukarvijay/