CTO Connection Podcast
138 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 20 ratingsIf you run an engineering organization, connect with and learn from your peers at CTO Connection - the premier community for senior software engineering leaders. Learn from the experiences of successful engineering leaders at fast-growth tech startups. Whether you want to learn more about hiring, motivating, or managing an engineering team, the CTO Connection podcast is a great resource for learning from your peers! Our podcast and weekly newsletter provide you with access to hard-won wisdom from top engineering leaders and associated experts. And join our summit series (online or in-person) to share problems and get answers.Learn more about CTO Connection and their virtual summits at https://www.ctoconnection.com/
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Episodes
Boulder Startup Week 2017 Dev War Stories
June 22, 2017 12:00 - 22 minutes - 13.1 MBHi and welcome to a very special Boulder Startup Week episode. This week we’ve got some stories from a session entitled “Dev War Stories”. If you’re a longtime listener, you know that this is one of our favorite questions to ask interviewees. There are 3 speakers giving war stories in this episode. The first is Ed Johnson, CTO of Goally The second is Jason Cole, CTO of a few startups around town. The third is Greg Lems, CTO at Door to Door Organics. One last thing. If you hear a flashlig...
How to CTO with Andy Pai, Full Contact
June 15, 2017 12:00 - 12 minutes - 7.24 MBThis week’s guest is Andy Pai, VP Engineering at FullContact. FullContact is the most powerful, fully-connected contact management platform for professionals and enterprises who need to master their contacts and be awesome with people. As VP of Engineering, Andy is focused on growing the engineering organization, and building a secure, private and scalable data platform. Previously, Andy has helped build several data-oriented startups as CTO. He’s passionate about scaling platforms, driving ...
AI, Automation, Jobs & The Economy w. Jeff Rose of ThinkTopic
June 08, 2017 12:00 - 41 minutes - 23.7 MBJeff Rose presenting in a very special Boulder Startup Week 2017 talk. Artificial intelligence is undergoing a renaissance, with the number of relevant research papers, startups, applications, and new ideas expanding rapidly. These new capabilities will enable people and result in greater aggregate productivity, analogous to the invention of the steam engine that powered the industrial revolution. At the same time, many laborers, drivers, assembly line workers, and even some more skilled...
Programmable Money w. Piper Merriam
June 01, 2017 12:00 - 39 minutes - 22.5 MBCryptocurrencies have the potential to be TCP/IP of money. What does the future look like if they do to money, what the internet did for information? Learn about Ethereum, one of the top cryptocurrencies of 2017. Piper Merriam, Ethereum developer, presenting at Boulder Startup Week. Video of this talk available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPoaMC1qNFY and embedded below:
Crypto and the Law with EFA Colorado
May 25, 2017 12:00 - 1 hour - 37.2 MBEFA Colorado presenting in a very special Boulder Startup Week 2017 talk. What is Cryptography, and why does it matter? What is the history of cryptography, and where is it going in the future? Join this joint presentation of the Future of Tech + Legal tracks at Boulder Startup Week to learn more about the civil rights battles of the 21st century. Video of this talk is posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RN0F2CmXPU and embeded below:
Your Startup is a Pirate Ship w. Jack Dietrich & Ryan VanMiddlesworth
April 27, 2017 12:00 - 32 minutes - 18.9 MBOur guests this week are Jack Dietrich and Ryan VanMiddlesworth of Fount Studio. Join the partners of Fount as they explain The Pirate Code Of Startups how Pirates were doing workplace democracy before it was cool. Awesome.
Optimize Your Learning Velocity w. Scott Carleton, Andela
April 06, 2017 12:00 - 42 minutes - 24.6 MBOur guest today is Scott Carleton. Scott has a passion for building communities and empowering self-growth through education. Scott is currently the VP of Technology at Andela, a global engineering organization dedicated to fostering the next generation of elite tech talent across Africa. Previously, Scott co-founded Artsicle as CTO, building a global community of visual artists now featuring over 6000 creators in 100 countries. His work on Artsicle’s discovery engine, which was able to cre...
Optimize Your Learning Velocity w. Scott Carleton, Andela
April 06, 2017 12:00 - 42 minutes - 24.7 MBOur guest today is Scott Carleton. Scott has a passion for building communities and empowering self-growth through education. Scott is currently the VP of Technology at Andela, a global engineering organization dedicated to fostering the next generation of elite tech talent across Africa. Previously, Scott co-founded Artsicle as CTO, building a global community of visual artists now featuring over 6000 creators in 100 countries. His work on Artsicle’s discovery engine, which was ab...
Find a Niche and Be The Best w. Courtland Allen of IndieHackers.com
March 23, 2017 12:00 - 40 minutes - 23.4 MBOur guest this week is Courtland Allen; MIT graduate, Y Combinator alum, full-stack web developer, and professional designer. He’s spent over 8 years building, designing, and marketing web-based products and companies, and is currently running IndieHackers.com. This episode is for you if you’re into bootstrapped businesses, side projects, and community. Favorite Quotes I’ve been doing startups ever since graduating from school. The idea behind Indie Hackers is that it’s completely transp...
People First Organizations w. Dave Zwieback
March 16, 2017 12:00 - 36 minutes - 21.2 MBOur guest today is Dave Zwieback, the author of Beyond Blame: Learning from Failure and Success and an engineering leader in various organizations in & around New York City. Dave does workshops for organizations looking to build People First cultures. If you’re interested in hosting a highly-rated, practical, hands-on workshop based on the book at your company, please contact [email protected]. You’ll learn the theory and, most important, get to practice conducting Learning Review...
People First Organizations w. Dave Zwieback
March 16, 2017 12:00 - 36 minutes - 21.3 MBOur guest today is Dave Zwieback, the author of Beyond Blame: Learning from Failure and Success and an engineering leader in various organizations in & around New York City.
Mission Driven Tech w. Zack Bomsta, Owlet
March 09, 2017 13:00 - 37 minutes - 21.3 MBOur guest today is Zack Bomsta, CTO of Owlet, which produces the Owlet Baby Monitor. In addition to growing the team, he is involved in electronic hardware design and miniaturization, manufacturing, firmware, and embedded systems development. Join us to hear war stories from the founding story of Owlet. Owlet is hiring engineering leaders in UT.
Understanding People is a Superpower; @rands, VP Engineering at Slack
February 23, 2017 14:00 - 40 minutes - 23 MBMichael Lopp (also known as @rands) is a Silicon Valley-based engineering leader who builds both people and product at companies such as Borland, Netscape, Palantir, Pinterest, and Apple. While he’s not worrying about staying relevant, he writes about pens, bridges, people, poker, and werewolves at the popular weblog, Rands in Repose. He works as the VP of Engineering at Slack in San Francisco where he’s furiously working on helping teams reinvent work. Michael has written two books. His fir...
Understanding People is a Superpower; @rands, VP Engineering at Slack
February 23, 2017 14:00 - 40 minutes - 23.1 MBMichael Lopp (also known as @rands) is a Silicon Valley-based engineering leader who builds both people and product at companies such as Borland, Netscape, Palantir, Pinterest, and Apple. While he’s not worrying about staying relevant, he writes about pens, bridges, people, poker, and werewolves at the popular weblog, Rands in Repose. He works as the VP of Engineering at Slack in San Francisco where he’s furiously working on helping teams reinvent work. Michael has written two books...
From Startup CTO to Acquired by Google — Anant Jhingran, CTO @Apigee
February 16, 2017 14:00 - 39 minutes - 22.7 MBAnant Jhingran has been in the tech industry for 27 years and has a Ph.D. in Database Systems from Berkeley. He’s been at IBM, CTO of Apigee, and then after Apigee was acquired, at Google. Apigee manages an API & data layer for various large enterprises. They look at the data exhaust of those systems and understand patterns so people can improve what they’re doing through the APIs. Apigee was recently acquired by Google, and Anant is working on integrating its technologies into Google’s ...
From Zero to Sphero w. Ian Bernstein, CTO @Sphero
February 09, 2017 10:00 - 1 hour - 35.3 MBOur guest this week is Ian Bernstein, CTO of Sphero. Sphero is creating a new category of toys called “Connected Toys” that take the best of what kids and adults love about their smart devices and fuse it with our robots that exist in the real world. Ian’s passion is in electronics and robotics. Ever since he was 12 years old he has been building robots. Learn about how he parlayed his love of robotics into one of the most successful robotics company in the country. Sphero is a robotic ...
Reinventing the Organization w. Dan Kador, CTO of Keen.io
February 02, 2017 12:00 - 50 minutes - 29.1 MBDan Kador is the co-founder & CTO of Keen.io. He’s responsible for building the technology and team responsible for analytics via APIs (among a million other things) at Keen — a leader in the analytics space. Join us to learn about the growth of Keen.io at 3, 10, 30, and (soon) 100 team members; and Dan & his co-founders journey to building a different type of organization — with a team that’s got the autonomy, purpose, and tools they need to deliver great analytics software.
Reinventing the Organization w. Dan Kador, CTO of Keen.io
February 02, 2017 12:00 - 50 minutes - 29.1 MBDan Kador is the co-founder & CTO of Keen.io. He’s responsible for building the technology and team responsible for analytics via APIs (among a million other things) at Keen — a leader in the analytics space. Join us to learn about the growth of Keen.io at 3, 10, 30, and (soon) 100 team members; and Dan & his co-founders journey to building a different type of organization — with a team that’s got the autonomy, purpose, and tools they need to deliver great analytics software.
Building for Massive Scale w. Tim Jenkins, CTO of SendGrid
January 26, 2017 12:00 - 34 minutes - 19.8 MBToday we are honored to be joined by Tim Jenkins, CoFounder & CTO of SendGrid. SendGrid solves problems for companies sending transactional e-mail. Tim is currently involved with back-end development, operations, and support, and has worn many hats as SendGrid has grown from 3 team members to over 300 over the last 8 years. Join us to hear the founding story of one of the most successful email deliverability providers on the web, take a journey through the ebb & flow of a CTO’s r...
Building for Massive Scale w. Tim Jenkins, CTO of SendGrid
January 26, 2017 12:00 - 34 minutes - 19.7 MBToday we are honored to be joined by Tim Jenkins, CoFounder & CTO of SendGrid. SendGrid solves problems for companies sending transactional e-mail. Tim is currently involved with back-end development, operations, and support, and has worn many hats as SendGrid has grown from 3 team members to over 300 over the last 8 years. Join us to hear the founding story of one of the most successful email deliverability providers on the web, take a journey through the ebb & flow of a CTO’s responsibi...
Cross-Training with Sales & Marketing w/ Patrick McKenzie (@patio11)
January 19, 2017 14:00 - 46 minutes - 31.7 MB(BONUS EPISODE FROM THE ARCHIVES) Learn about how Patrick McKenzie combined his technical skills with marketing/sales skills to launch & grow several successful internet businesses. Patrick is the creator of Bingo Card Creator. He learned marketing and sales to launch and grow Kalzumeus Software; He has worked with 37signals, Fog Creek Software, and is now in content & community at Stripe. Find Patrick on Twitter at @patio11 and listen to Patrick’s podcast here. Don’t miss out on future ...
Bend the Learning Curve by Consistently Putting Yourself into a Place You’re Uncomfortable — Kathy Keating
January 12, 2017 14:00 - 42 minutes - 24.5 MBWe’re joined this week by guest co-host Diana Pfeil to interview Kathy Keating — Kathy is a Colorado-based Startup CTO who has helped build several successful technology startups, founded her own technology consulting business, guided product strategy for companies and implemented many complex software applications. Join us for the first episode of StartupCTO.io in 2017 to discuss Kathy’s approach to building a startup from the ground up, data & analytics, being involved in the community...
Hire Engineers that are Smarter Than You Are w. Jud Valeski
January 05, 2017 14:00 - 44 minutes - 30.5 MBThis week’s episode is from the archives. It’s an interview with Jud Valeski. Jud was a co-founder of Gnip (acquired by Twitter), a real-time data portability software initiative. From client-side consumer-facing products to large scale back-end infrastructure projects, he has enjoyed working with technology for over twenty years. He’s been a part of engineering, product, and M&A teams at IBM, Netscape, onebox.com, and AOL. He has played a central role in the release of a wide range of pro...
Engineering Values Roundup
December 29, 2016 14:00 - 15 minutes - 9.12 MBWe ask each of our guests what their engineering values are. What we love about this question is that the answers boil down the brass tacks of leadership into 2-3 minutes of fundamentals. We’ve got a fun little thematic episode this week, with 5 answers to this question “What are your engineering values?” jammed packed into a 15-minute episode. In order of appearance: Nader Akhnoukh– CTO of Kapost Travis Kimmel — CEO of GitPrime Julia Austin — CTO of Digital Ocean Manuel Mattk...
Engineering Values Roundup
December 29, 2016 14:00 - 15 minutes - 9.1 MBWe ask each of our guests what their engineering values are. What we love about this question is that the answers boil down the brass tacks of leadership into 2-3 minutes of fundamentals. We’ve got a fun little thematic episode this week, with 5 answers to this question “What are your engineering values?” jammed packed into a 15-minute episode. In order of appearance: Nader Akhnoukh– CTO of Kapost Travis Kimmel — CEO of GitPrime Julia Austin — CTO of Digital Ocean Manuel Mattke — Chief...
Advancing Your Career is like Playing Great Chess w. Chris McAvoy
December 22, 2016 13:00 - 45 minutes - 26.1 MBWe are joined this week by Chris McAvoy to talk about growing your people & their careers. Learn why advancing your career is like playing great chess; It’s not about having a great strategy; It’s about playing positional chess so that you have all of your pieces in place so when an opportunity presents itself you can take advantage of it. Chris is a technology leader with a passion for open source communities, innovative products, software, and architecture. He is presently a mentor at ...
Advancing Your Career is like Playing Great Chess w. Chris McAvoy
December 22, 2016 13:00 - 45 minutes - 26.2 MBWe are joined this week by Chris McAvoy to talk about growing your people & their careers. Learn why advancing your career is like playing great chess; It’s not about having a great strategy; It’s about playing positional chess so that you have all of your pieces in place so when an opportunity presents itself you can take advantage of it. Chris is a technology leader with a passion for open source communities, innovative products, software, and architecture. He is presently a m...
Great Engineering War Stories
December 15, 2016 14:00 - 23 minutes - 13.4 MBLast week, @owocki’s startup released a new product — The battles last week during this release reminded us of some of our favorite engineering war stories. We ask every CTO on our show “What is your favorite engineering war story?”, and this episode we’re going to play 4 of our favorites. These four stories are ordered by scale. We’ll start with “just a guy in the garage with a product” to a war story from a large venture scaled startup. In order of appearance: Patrick McKenzie...
Great Engineering War Stories
December 15, 2016 14:00 - 23 minutes - 13.4 MBLast week, @owocki’s startup released a new product — The battles last week during this release reminded us of some of our favorite engineering war stories. We ask every CTO on our show “What is your favorite engineering war story?”, and this episode we’re going to play 4 of our favorites. These four stories are ordered by scale. We’ll start with “just a guy in the garage with a product” to a war story from a large venture scaled startup. In order of appearance: Patrick McKenzie – indepe...
Building Successful Distributed Teams – Gevorg Hovsepyan
December 08, 2016 13:00 - 40 minutes - 23.2 MBGevorg was the Co-Founder/CTO of LionSharp, where he led the development of Gesture and Voice controlled systems. After he left Lionsharp, he became an Agile product/project manager. Join Gevorg as we chat about collaborative leadership, agile teams and organizations, customer engagement, and delivering business and customer value at breakneck speed.
Rethinking Education from First Principles w. Manuel Mattke
December 01, 2016 14:00 - 41 minutes - 23.6 MBManuel Mattke is an innovator, entrepreneur, tech product guy (and from time to time developer), with a background in finance, technology, and innovation consulting. This week is an extra special episode. Manuel was Kevin’s CTO mentor at the last startup he founded, and Kevin is super excited to share some of the insights that Manuel shared with him, with all of you. When he’s not mentoring up & coming CTO’s, Manuel is building his own startups. He has founded and built several startups...
Quantifying Engineering w. Travis Kimmel of Gitprime
November 24, 2016 14:00 - 29 minutes - 17.2 MBWe’re taking this week off; If you’re in the US, you’re celebrating Thanksgiving. If you’re not in the US, you can still give thanks — Listen to one of our favorite episodes from the archives: Quantifying Engineering w. Travis Kimmel of Gitprime. Travis Kimmel is the CEO of GitPrime. GitPrime analyzes a team’s codebase to quantify engineering progress. They make it easy to identify engineers who are stuck or bogged down with refactoring and quantify the amount of effort spent paying down...
Scaling the Rocket Ship w. Julia Austin of DigitalOcean
November 17, 2016 14:00 - 43 minutes - 25.1 MBJulia Austin is the CTO of DigitalOcean and a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School of Entrepreneurial Management. Hear about her experiences scaling at rocket ship speed leading DigitalOcean’s engineering and product teams. Find Julia on Twitter at @austinfish and find DigitalOcean at DigitalOcean.com
Scaling the Rocket Ship w. Julia Austin of DigitalOcean
November 17, 2016 14:00 - 43 minutes - 25.1 MBJulia Austin is the CTO of DigitalOcean and a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School of Entrepreneurial Management. Hear about her experiences scaling at rocket ship speed leading DigitalOcean’s engineering and product teams. Find Julia on Twitter at @austinfish and find DigitalOcean at DigitalOcean.com
Web Security for Startup CTOs w. Andrew Useckas
November 10, 2016 13:42 - 35 minutes - 20.5 MBAndrew Useckas is the CTO of Threat-X; a 10 person startup based out of Colorado that provides Web Application Firewalls as a Service. Join Andrew as we discuss the most relevant threats to software startup companies today and we learn how he and his team built a next-gen security company. Find Andrew on Twitter at https://twitter.com/daronin and Threat-X at https://threat-x.com/ Favorite Quotes: An engineer has to be a self starter. I look for someone who can really take initiative; some...
Building Teams that create Customer Success w. Ingrid Alongi
November 03, 2016 14:18 - 41 minutes - 23.8 MBIngrid Alongi is the co-founder of Quickleft, a software development firm in Boulder Colorado which was acquired by Cognizant in March of 2016. In this episode, Ingrid takes us through the founding story of QuickLeft, and how QuickLeft used Net Promoter Scores to drive great outcomes for end-customers. Find Ingrid on Twitter at @electromute and check out QuickLeft at QuickLeft.com. Favorite Quotes: My biggest engineering value is pragmatism and collaboration. Things get done better when ...
ZCash ($ZEC) – A blockchain for Privacy with Zooko Wilcox
October 28, 2016 14:00 - 17 minutes - 9.79 MBWe’ve got a special bonus episode for you all this week. Episode 0.8 of our Podcast was a Boulder Startup Week talk about ZCash by its founder; Zooko Wilcox. ZCash is a privacy-centric blockchain. Zcash payments are published on a public blockchain, but the sender, recipient, and amount of a transaction remain private. A lot of people are really excited about a blockchain that enables truly anonymous transactions on the web and believes that ZCash could be a top 5 blockchain within a year...
Crossing the Chasm w. Brandon Purcell
October 27, 2016 13:00 - 45 minutes - 25.9 MBBrandon Purcell is the CTO of SpatialKey; a leading geospatial intelligence analytics platform. SpatialKey started as a proof of concept prototype in 2007 and has grown into a full-fledged profitable business over the last seven years. Listen to this episode to hear SpatialKey’s founding journey; from finding a core customer who was willing to pay for their product, to growing into a SAAS provider serving several prominent paying customers.