Founders Talk: Startups, CEOs, Leadership

Founders Talk: Startups, CEOs, Leadership

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Founders Talk: Startups, CEOs, Leadership episodes

  • Refocusing Docker on developer-first and growth

    This week Adam is joined by Scott Johnston, CEO of Docker. Scott shares his journey to the CEO role, how he’s leading the company to not only grow revenue, but to also invest in developer facing features, their shift from a enterprise sales focus to a PLG driven model, and we even talk about Docker Desktop, the competition it faces, and the struggle they face when considering making it open source.

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    Sponsors:

    • Typesense – Lightning fast, globally distributed Search-as-a-Service that runs in memory. You literally can’t get any faster!
  • Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com
  • Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps and databases close to your users. In minutes you can run your Ruby, Go, Node, Deno, Python, or Elixir app (and databases!) all over the world. No ops required. Learn more at fly.io/changelog and check out the speedrun in their docs.

    • Featuring:

    • Scott Johnston – LinkedIn, X
    • Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

    Show Notes:

    • How Docker 2.0 went from $11M to $135M in 2 years
    • Docker Pricing
    • Docker Series B
    • Docker Scout
    • We’re No Longer Sunsetting the Free Team Plan
    • Docker-Sponsored Open Source Program
    • OrbStack
    • Podman

      • Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

      1 hr 1 min
    • Selling to Enterprise

      This week Adam is joined by Michael Grinich, Founder & CEO at WorkOS. Michael shares his journey to build WorkOS, what it takes to cross the Enterprise Chasm, and how he’s building his sales organization for growth.

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      Sponsors:

      • Sentry – Get to the root cause of an error or latency issue faster by seeing all the technical details related to that issue in one visual replay on your web application. Use the code CHANGELOG and get the team plan free for three months.
    • Postman – Build APIs together — More than 20 million developers use Postman for building and using APIs. Postman simplifies each step of the API lifecycle and streamlines collaboration so you can create better APIs—faster.
    • DevCycle – Build better software with DevCycle. Feature flags, without the tech debt. DevCycle is a Feature Flag Management platform designed to help you build maintainable code at scale.
    • Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com

      • Featuring:

      • Michael Grinich – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
      • Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

      Show Notes:

      • WorkOS
      • Ironclad
      • WorkOS: Enterprise’s Great Equalizer
      • WorkOS raises $80m in Series B financing, acquires Modulz
      • WorkOS raises $15M to build “Stripe for enterprise-ready features”
      • WorkOS careers
      • Resend

        • Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

        2 hr 3 min
      • Builder journey to streaming data platform

        This week Adam is joined by Alex Gallego, Founder & CEO at Redpanda Data, to share his builder journey to create the Redpanda streaming data platform.

        Join the discussion

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        Sponsors:

        • Sentry – Session Replay! Rewind and replay every step of the user’s journey before and after they encountered an issue. Eliminate the guesswork and get to the root cause of an issue, faster. Use the code CHANGELOG and get the team plan free for three months.
      • Square – Develop on the platform that sellers trust. There is a massive opportunity for developers to support Square sellers by building apps for today’s business needs. Learn more at developer.squareup.com to dive into the docs, APIs, SDKs and to create your Square Developer account — tell them Changelog sent you.
      • Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com
      • Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps and databases close to your users. In minutes you can run your Ruby, Go, Node, Deno, Python, or Elixir app (and databases!) all over the world. No ops required. Learn more at fly.io/changelog and check out the speedrun in their docs.

        • Featuring:

        • Alex Gallego – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
        • Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

        Show Notes:

        • Redpanda

          • Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

          1 hr 11 min
        • Creating magical software

          This week Adam is joined by Jori Lallo, Co-founder of Linear, to talk about creating magical software and building high-quality software teams.

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          Changelog++ members get a bonus 4 minutes at the end of this episode and zero ads. Join today!

          Sponsors:

          • Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com
        • Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps and databases close to your users. In minutes you can run your Ruby, Go, Node, Deno, Python, or Elixir app (and databases!) all over the world. No ops required. Learn more at fly.io/changelog and check out the speedrun in their docs.

          • Featuring:

          • Jori Lallo – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
          • Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

          Show Notes:

          • linear.app

            • Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

            1 hr 18 min
          • Building the best mountain bikes in the world

            This week Adam is taking the show off the beaten path to speak with Adam Miller, the founder and CEO of Revel Bikes. Yes that’s right, this episode features a founder of a bike brand, not a tech brand.

            Adam Miller’s journey to create Revel Bikes is paved with many ups and many downs, a failed partnership, super scrappy weeks and months traveling the world to find the best manufacturing partners, the latest innovations in suspension tech and modern geometry to hit the mountain biking scene, a strong team that’s been with him every step of the way (many of which are as close as family), and truly some of the best premium bikes available on the market today.

            BTW, Adam (host) is an owner of a Revel bike — he has a T1000 colorway Rascal that he’s ridden on downhill trails, all-day epics, and everything in-between. If you enjoy this episode, please us know in the comments.

            Join the discussion

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            Sponsors:

            • WorkOS – A platform that gives developers a set of building blocks for quickly adding enterprise-ready features to their application. Add Single Sign-On (Okta, Azure, Google, Microsoft OAuth), sync users from any SCIM directory, HRIS integration, audit trails (SIEM), free magic link sign-in. WorkOS is designed for developers and offers a single, elegant interface that abstracts dozens of enterprise integrations. Learn more and get started at WorkOS.com
          • Sourcegraph – Transform your code into a queryable database to create customizable visual dashboards in seconds. Sourcegraph recently launched Code Insights — now you can track what really matters to you and your team in your codebase. See how other teams are using this awesome feature at about.sourcegraph.com/code-insights
          • Rewatch – Rewatch gives product and engineering teams async superpowers and helps them move faster with greater clarity. Imagine all of your team’s videos, all in one place. Record, organize, and share the videos that your team needs to ship great work. Get started for free with 14-day trial at rewatch.com.
          • SignalWire – Build what’s next in communications with video, voice, and messaging APIs powered by elastic cloud infrastructure. Try it today at signalwire.com/video and mention “Go Time” to receive an extra 5,000 video minutes.

            • Featuring:

            • Adam Miller – Website, LinkedIn
            • Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

            Show Notes:

            • Revel Bikes + about Revel Bikes
            • Revel Bikes - HQ Tour & Behind The Brand
            • First Ride: Revel’s Rail Enduro Bike is an Impressive Debut
            • Revel Bikes CBF Suspension - EXPLAINED!
            • Revel Rail29 - The New Long Travel 29er From Revel Bikes
              • Adam's Revel Rascal (circa 2022)

              Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

              1 hr 47 min
            • Enabling a world where all software is reliable

              This week Adam is joined by Robert Ross founder and CEO of FireHydrant — the glue layer between your tech stack and your teams to mitigate and resolve incidents at scale.

              Robert shares his journey to become a software engineer, his time at DigitalOcean, this idea of incident management as a platform and how he shifted his focus from creating courses on incident management to recognizing the value of the software he was creating for the course — what is now known as FireHydrant. We also talk through his first experience in raising capital, what happens when the bar is raised on the reliability of the world’s software, and why their mantra is “Hire great people, who build, sell and market a great product, and you’ll have a great company.”

              Join the discussion

              Changelog++ members save 9 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!

              Sponsors:

              • WorkOS – A platform that gives developers a set of building blocks for quickly adding enterprise-ready features to their application. Add Single Sign-On (Okta, Azure, Google, Microsoft OAuth), sync users from any SCIM directory, HRIS integration, audit trails (SIEM), free magic link sign-in. WorkOS is designed for developers and offers a single, elegant interface that abstracts dozens of enterprise integrations. Learn more and get started at WorkOS.com
            • Sourcegraph – Transform your code into a queryable database to create customizable visual dashboards in seconds. Sourcegraph recently launched Code Insights — now you can track what really matters to you and your team in your codebase. See how other teams are using this awesome feature at about.sourcegraph.com/code-insights
            • Rewatch – Rewatch gives product and engineering teams async superpowers and helps them move faster with greater clarity. Imagine all of your team’s videos, all in one place. Record, organize, and share the videos that your team needs to ship great work. Get started for free with 14-day trial at rewatch.com.
            • SignalWire – Build what’s next in communications with video, voice, and messaging APIs powered by elastic cloud infrastructure. Try it today at signalwire.com/video and mention “Go Time” to receive an extra 5,000 video minutes.

              • Featuring:

              • Robert Ross – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
              • Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

              Show Notes:

              • firehydrant.com

                • Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

                1 hr 48 min
              • Fireside chat with Jack Dorsey

                Adam was invited by our friends at Square to interview Jack Dorsey as part of their annual developer conference called Square Unboxed. Jack Dorsey is one of the most prolific CEOs out there — he’s a hacker turned CEO and is often working at the very edge of what’s to come (at scale). Jack is focused on what the future has to offer, he’s considered an innovator by many. He’s also a Bitcoin maximalist and has positioned himself and Block long on Bitcoin.

                What you’re about to hear is the fireside chat Adam had with Jack at Square Unboxed 2022. Jack and Adam discuss the vision Square has for the developer platform and why it’s so central to the company’s strategy.

                Join the discussion

                Changelog++ members save 6 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!

                Sponsors:

                • WorkOS – A platform that gives developers a set of building blocks for quickly adding enterprise-ready features to their application. Add Single Sign-On (Okta, Azure, Google, Microsoft OAuth), sync users from any SCIM directory, HRIS integration, audit trails (SIEM), free magic link sign-in. WorkOS is designed for developers and offers a single, elegant interface that abstracts dozens of enterprise integrations. Learn more and get started at WorkOS.com
              • FireHydrant – The reliability platform for every developer. Incidents impact everyone, not just SREs. FireHydrant gives teams the tools to maintain service catalogs, respond to incidents, communicate through status pages, and learn with retrospectives. Small teams up to 10 people can get started for free with all FireHydrant features included. No credit card required to sign up. Learn more at firehydrant.io
              • Sourcegraph – Transform your code into a queryable database to create customizable visual dashboards in seconds. Sourcegraph recently launched Code Insights — now you can track what really matters to you and your team in your codebase. See how other teams are using this awesome feature at about.sourcegraph.com/code-insights
              • Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com

                • Featuring:

                • Jack Dorsey – Website, GitHub, X
                • Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

                Show Notes:

                • Block.xyz
                • Square Unboxed 2022
                • Square Unboxed 2022’s replay on YouTube
                • Square Unboxed 2022’s recap blog post
                • Jack Dorsey on Lex Fridman (#91)

                  • Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

                  44 min
                • From GitHub TV to Rewatch

                  Connor Sears, founder and CEO of Rewatch, joins Adam to share the journey of creating Rewatch. What began inside of GitHub to help them thrive and connect is now available to every product team on the planet. Rewatch lets teams save, manage, and search all their video content so they can collaborate async and with greater flexibility. We talk about where the tool’s inspiration came from (spoiler alert, inside GitHub it was called GitHub TV which you’ll hear during the show), how teams leverage video to reduce the constraints of communication, how Connor and his co-founder knew they had product-fit and how they grew the team and product, and of course the flip side of that — we talk about some of Connor’s failures along the way, and knowing when it’s the right time to take a big swing.

                  Join the discussion

                  Changelog++ members save 7 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!

                  Sponsors:

                  • WorkOS – A platform that gives developers a set of building blocks for quickly adding enterprise-ready features to their application. Add Single Sign-On (Okta, Azure, Google, Microsoft OAuth), sync users from any SCIM directory, HRIS integration, audit trails (SIEM), free magic link sign-in. WorkOS is designed for developers and offers a single, elegant interface that abstracts dozens of enterprise integrations. Learn more and get started at WorkOS.com
                • Sourcegraph – Move fast, even in big codebases. Sourcegraph is universal code search for every developer and team. Easily search across all the code that matters to you and your organization: find example code, explore and read code, debug issues, and more. Head to info.sourcegraph.com/changelog and click the button “Try Sourcegraph now” to get started.
                • FireHydrant – The reliability platform for every developer. Incidents impact everyone, not just SREs. FireHydrant gives teams the tools to maintain service catalogs, respond to incidents, communicate through status pages, and learn with retrospectives. Small teams up to 10 people can get started for free with all FireHydrant features included. No credit card required to sign up. Learn more at firehydrant.io
                • SignalWire – Build what’s next in communications with video, voice, and messaging APIs powered by elastic cloud infrastructure. Try it today at signalwire.com/video and mention “Go Time” to receive an extra 5,000 video minutes.

                  • Featuring:

                  • Connor Sears – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
                  • Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

                  Show Notes:

                  • Video keeps your team connected and inspired
                  • Rewatch raises $20M in Series A funding
                  • Zoom fatigue no more: Rewatch raises $20M to index, transcribe and store enterprise video content
                  • Investing in Rewatch

                    • Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

                    1 hr 55 min
                  • Leading GitLab to IPO

                    This week Sid Sijbrandij, Co-founder and CEO of GitLab, is back talking with Adam about all the details of their massive IPO last October 2021. To set the stage, this episode was recorded on Feb 1, 2022. During the show Adam mentioned they IPO’d at a $13B market cap, but they actually ended their opening day at approximately $15B. That’s a massive win for open source, GitLab, Sid, and the rest of the team. For loyal listeners you know we’ve had Sid on this show before, so of course we had to get him back on the show post-IPO to get all the details of this new journey.

                    Join the discussion

                    Changelog++ members save 5 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!

                    Sponsors:

                    • FireHydrant – The reliability platform for every developer. Incidents impact everyone, not just SREs. FireHydrant gives teams the tools to maintain service catalogs, respond to incidents, communicate through status pages, and learn with retrospectives. Small teams up to 10 people can get started for free with all FireHydrant features included. No credit card required to sign up. Learn more at firehydrant.io
                  • Square – Develop on the platform that sellers trust. There is a massive opportunity for developers to support Square sellers by building apps for today’s business needs. Learn more at changelog.com/square to dive into the docs, APIs, SDKs and to create your Square Developer account — tell them Changelog sent you.
                  • Rewatch – Rewatch gives product and engineering teams async superpowers and helps them move faster with greater clarity. Imagine all of your team’s videos, all in one place. Record, organize, and share the videos that your team needs to ship great work. Get started for free with 14-day trial at rewatch.com.
                  • SignalWire – Build what’s next in communications with video, voice, and messaging APIs powered by elastic cloud infrastructure. Try it today at signalwire.com/video and mention “Go Time” to receive an extra 5,000 video minutes.

                    • Featuring:

                    • Sid Sijbrandij – Website, LinkedIn, X
                    • Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

                    Show Notes:

                    • GitLab’s roadmap

                      • Sid’s appearances on Changelog.com podcasts (in reverse chronological order)

                      • Founders Talk #70
                      • Spotlight #8
                      • The Changelog #220
                      • The Changelog #103

                        • Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

                        1 hr 11 min
                      • Making an open source Stripe for time

                        This week Peer Richelsen, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Cal.com, joins the show to talk about building the “Stripe for Time” — with a grand mission to connect a billion people by 2031 through calendar scheduling. Cal has grown from an open-source side project to one of the fastest-growing commercial open source companies. We get into all the details — what it means to be an open source Calendly alternative, how they quantify connecting a Billion people by 2031, where there’s room for innovation in the scheduling space, and why being community first is part of their secret sauce.

                        Join the discussion

                        Changelog++ members save 7 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!

                        Sponsors:

                        • WorkOS – A platform that gives developers a set of building blocks for quickly adding enterprise-ready features to their application. Add Single Sign-On (Okta, Azure, Google, Microsoft OAuth), sync users from any SCIM directory, HRIS integration, audit trails (SIEM), free magic link sign-in. WorkOS is designed for developers and offers a single, elegant interface that abstracts dozens of enterprise integrations. Learn more and get started at WorkOS.com
                      • Square – Develop on the platform that sellers trust. There is a massive opportunity for developers to support Square sellers by building apps for today’s business needs. Learn more at changelog.com/square to dive into the docs, APIs, SDKs and to create your Square Developer account — tell them Changelog sent you.
                      • FireHydrant – The reliability platform for every developer. Incidents impact everyone, not just SREs. FireHydrant gives teams the tools to maintain service catalogs, respond to incidents, communicate through status pages, and learn with retrospectives. Small teams up to 10 people can get started for free with all FireHydrant features included. No credit card required to sign up. Learn more at firehydrant.io
                      • SignalWire – Build what’s next in communications with video, voice, and messaging APIs powered by elastic cloud infrastructure. Try it today at signalwire.com/video and mention “Go Time” to receive an extra 5,000 video minutes.

                        • Featuring:

                        • Peer Richelsen – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
                        • Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

                        Show Notes:

                        Cal.com Series A and v1.5

                        Cal.com open dashboard
                        Cal.com is an open startup

                        Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

                        1 hr 27 min

                      About Founders Talk: Startups, CEOs, Leadership

                      From the publisher's feed

                      In-depth, one-on-one conversations with founders, CEOs, and makers. The journey, lessons learned, and the struggles. Let's do this! Host Adam Stacoviak dives deep into the trials, tribulations,…