From non-technical founder to CPTO: Road to CTO with Jennifer Woodard

In this episode of Road to CTO, Jennifer Woodard shares her remarkable journey from founding a startup as a non-technical leader to becoming the CPTO of an AI-native company. Jennifer breaks down the reality of earning technical credibility, the importance of European AI sovereignty, and why the "imposter syndrome" is a constant companion even for established experts. We also discuss the shifting landscape of tech hiring and the lessons learned from a six-figure technical mistake.

Transcript

From Non-Technical To Tech Leader

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I do not have a technical background. I'm fascinated and like admiring of people who do, but I would never have seen myself in a role like that as a technology leader. The bar is going to raise or rise for any sort of a role. So I've talked to people who are like, oh, okay, well, I'm in the media business. I'm not even hiring like intern levels anymore or entry-level positions anymore. I'm hiring people that are more like at the mid-level because all of the other stuff that's underneath is being generated by AI. I mean, I think there's two kind of traps here. One thing is to fake that you know things that you don't know. That's a disaster always. And then the other trap is that you defer too much to other people. AI sovereignty, data sovereignty is super important. It's like oil for, you know, a nation. But of course, you feel imposter syndrome as a starter, uh, a startup founder, especially as a non-technical startup founder. First time you're in the room with, you know, technical investors, highly technical investors getting questions that you may not know how to field. Imposter syndrome as a woman working in technology, as a female founder in Spain. Like there's like all of the different things that kind of come into play here. Okay, how do you become a senior journalist engineer? Just like honing the chops every day, like learning your craft, making code, coding mistakes, right? Doing things wrong and screwing it up and losing things. And if you lose this kind of piece of your career, which actually hones your skills to make you a senior in whatever it is that you're doing, which one has been your most expensive fuck up? Relegating really important technology decisions in the wrong person.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Okay, can you give a ballpark of how much money was burned there?

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Hundreds of thousands. Lovely to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Long time. I I was gonna say long time nocino. Actually, we we we met in in conferences and and so, but our first contact was 12 years ago. 12. When you were the founder of Cisulaps. And and and you approached us, one of your employees approached us to to to hire us for a project. We eventually didn't get to work together, but we somehow stayed in touch also through your years at Softonic and other initiatives. So it's been a uh it's been a great pleasure to be able to reconnect with you after all these years.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Yeah, over a decade knowing each other.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Exactly. And uh one of the things that I I really want to first off, by the way, congratulations on selling your company.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

And Sync AI.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Now you've become the CTPO or CPTO of the C. CPTO, yes. I don't know the order.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Yeah, CPTO, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Why does the P precede the T?

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Oh, in my case, I'm more of a product person than a technology person, but I I just think that that's just a naming convention somehow.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Okay. When was the first time, because this is a the first question we usually start off with. When was the first time you heard the word CTO or the acronym CTO?

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Oh wow. Well, I've been I'm going to date myself, but I've been in the technology world since the beginning of my career. So obviously, um, I don't know, maybe the late 90s would be when I first heard the term CTO working in a technology company in San Francisco.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Because you've been always working or for at least the amount of time I've known you and also take taken a look at your at your career. And all of the roles have been heavily involved with now with AI, but then you know, public security as well, the the work that you've done with governance and the EU, public speaking, advisory, stuff like that. But then founding also technical companies. Yes. So all of this has compounded over the years. And uh one of the things that we have here, they always say like the road to CTO is very complex. I don't think there is a specific canonical road to CTO, and that's why we want to give this visibility of hey, I'm not saying anybody can become a CTO, but there are many ways to reaching this. When you first heard it, I don't know, I've had the impression that you probably didn't think like, oh, eventually I'm gonna be a CTO someday, or I want to be that role in a company.

Building Credibility Through Product Thinking

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Absolutely not. I would have thought I do not have a technical background. I'm fascinated and like admiring of people who do, but I would never have seen myself in a role like that as a technology leader.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

But this comes in in huge contrast with founding technical companies and heavily technical companies. Not you know, 10, 15 years ago, anything was tech. Oh, I'm a tech company, they were like a freaking e-commerce or like a uh cap hailing app and stuff like that. That's not very tech. But your companies are very, very tech. So you thought that you were not entitled to have the CTO role, yet you were founding companies that were pretty intricate. So how do you how do you make easy with that?

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Well, I must say that, you know, I founded both of my companies as a co-founder. Yeah. So obviously a technical co-founder together with me as let's say the business leader of the company. So that's that's how these things have come together. Now, over the course of the many years that I've been in this space, which I met you at the beginning of the journey, right? I have acquired, you know, technical fluency. Of course, I'm never going to be the most technical person in the room, but the ability to kind of translate product needs into technical requirements and work with, you know, really good technical deputies and understand what they need and what I can give to them is really kind of how I got here.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

And how do you find the technical co-founder? Let's get this out of the way. Because usually I don't get to ask this question because usually they are the technical partner. Right. But a huge part of your career, you had to search for this technical counterpart. And so what were you assessing? What are you looking for in this technical co-founder? Like it was a complement 100% of the things that you don't know. There was some overlap, or how did you distribute it?

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Uh it wasn't even a search, it was serendipity. We met uh on a project that we were collaborating on. I was coming from uh a non-technical background. He was coming from even back then, an AI background, a machine learning background, and we came together and it was really kind of a match made in heaven in terms of personalities were completely different. So he's a very, very quiet, reserved person. Um, we compliment each other in the sense that, you know, someone like that is extremely good on at technology, and someone like me is better on, let's say, the people, the softer side of things. So we came together, we founded the company, and then we eventually pivoted it into the company that you mentioned before that has been acquired. But we've been together for many, many years. So it's always been kind of almost like a, you know, a long-term friendship, almost like a marriage because you do everything together, you go through good times and bad times. And that's how we got we got together. We just really just met.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

And the you mentioned that you're never gonna be the most technical person in the room. Um, I don't know if that creates some sort of doubts in the people that you've got underneath. And like, oh, if she's not that technical, why she's the CTO? Do you think that could be somebody thinking like, I could do a better job because I'm more technical, but obviously they're missing on so many other things. Right. But some arrogant people might think like that, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I think it can definitely happen. It probably has happened even with without my own, you know, knowledge. But I think when you acknowledge this, that you are not the, you know, the know-it-all person and every aspect of technology, people do respect that. Um, I think they also see the complementarity of bringing, you know, kind of linking what we're building with reality, because you know, a lot of technology people are about, you know, this is the code and this is the tech stack. They're not actually thinking about the product. So since I do bring that kind of product perspective, that is a way that I'm kind of earning credibility. But I think credibility actually just comes with many, many years of working in the space. You know, I've been working in this space for many years. Obviously, something has gone right because I've been able to scale a company and sell it. Um, that alone probably is, you know, some level of credibility, but it is true. And I'm never going to fake that. I mean, I think there's two kind of traps here. One thing is to fake that you know things that you don't know. That's a disaster always, right? I own I always admit what I don't know. Um, and then the other trap is that you defer too much to other people, right? So if you're constantly just, okay, well, I don't really understand this technical problem, then I'm just gonna let, you know, so-and-so go deal with it. No, I need to understand it. And I need to trust the people that are around me and that are around me. And I've had a lot of luck with this. So, right now, I work with a really great engineering team, really great AI team. My VP of engineering, I don't even have to ask really, you know, why he's making certain decisions because I trust him so much. But this is based off of years and years of experience of working together. It's not about hiring someone tomorrow and just deferring all the decisions or hiring someone tomorrow and being, you know, getting on top of them and trying to impose your views on them. So, and also, I mean, right now, you know, technology is moving so quickly. Like everything has changed over the past, you know, three to four years. It's hard to know everything. Even the most technical people in the room don't know everything. So I don't pretend to know everything. Other people shouldn't either. And I think like my yeah, my approach to this is just to be humble about what you don't

Two Traps: Bluffing And Deferring

SPEAKER_00 9:35

know.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

In fact, there's one common denominator uh with all the people who have sit on this couch, um, is that the CTO over the course of the years, when you're transitioning to like, you know, technical lead, VP engineering, then CTO eventually, you get decoupled from being hands-on, from coding, from the tech stack. So, as a matter of fact, the CTO probably can afford to not know the technical stack or the technicalities of writing code. And and so when you mentioned, like, I'm probably not the most technical person in the room, uh, being too technical is perhaps uh not very good as a CTO. Maybe the VP engineering and stuff like that should, but the CTO should assist in other areas of the company that usually these people on the way up they don't know they're gonna

What A CPTO Does Daily

SPEAKER_02 10:24

face, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

So how do you disrupt your day nowadays? Because also you've got the product part of it, right? But uh if you were to say between like people, business, um, management slash operations, and tech stuff or product, like what would be in percentages?

SPEAKER_00 10:41

I don't know, in percentages, every day is different, but it's heavy heavily skewed towards product and business.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

And how does that happen? I mean, you know, product development goes hand in hand with understanding your customers, sitting down with them, talking to them, understanding what's gone wrong in some cases, what's gone right, and crafting the product that way. And obviously that feeds into how you build technology. So I would say it's heavily skewed towards those two areas. Obviously, as CTO, you also have other sorts of kind of duties like, you know, meeting with the board and you know, kind of the executive role type things. But yeah, it's it's really more about that. Um, the day-to-day technology leadership is in the hands of really the VP of engineering at this level.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

I've got so many questions. So let's let's see if I can retain all of these potential questions. The first uh the first one, since you brought it up, uh you got a VP engineering, right? Um is that the person that was your co-founder or is that somebody else? Or how do you find a good VP engineering and how do these three the tasks between um CTO should be doing this, but they spar you from doing that?

SPEAKER_00 11:47

It's not my technical co-founder. So the our my co-founder actually leads the AI development team. So I have two teams. Uh well, actually I have the product piece as well, but I have two technical teams, and one team is the AI team, the other team is the engineering team. So the VP of engineering was another one of those lucky things where we actually at one point in, you know, you know, shaky startup days decided we need extra hands on board for doing these very specific things. We found him uh randomly, and we've just it was the same thing. It was like a very good match on personality, ways of working, work ethic, like, you know, just really cr crazy people, right? People who are just really, you know, driven, let's say. And uh he and he followed us over into the company that acquired us. So that's how he became R VP of Engineering.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

How do you distribute your tasks? Because like some people, when they become CTO, they're like, oh, I really want to retain the people part of it. Right. Some people don't like that part that much. So the the distribution of these areas between the VP engineering and the CTO is never sort of defined on paper. And sometimes you inherit it when you go into a role that was already established, and sometimes you have to create it. Right. So how did you do it in this specific case?

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Yeah, no, it's interesting because that you mentioned inheritance, because that's like part of the whole acquisition journey, right? You come into an organization that was already existing and you try to form, you know, your own way of doing things. And I think what works the best for us is that, you know, I he and I work so closely together, and also on the AI development side, which is key to the product that we're building, that the day-to-day tasks are distributed by those two leaders who report into me, but we work so closely together that I don't actually need the day-to-day, like, oh, tell me like what's on Jira today. We're not, I'm not at that level, right? We're talking about, you know, strategic problems that we have, how to tackle them, resourcing, staffing, all those types of things. But but yeah, and I think one of the most important things about that relationship is that when you're the person that's in the seat of like dealing with the board or dealing with the customers, you really need to transmit to them what this looks like, you know, at the end of the year, two years from now, three years from now, because when you're building technology, you need to future proof that, right? You're we need to always be staying ahead of things. And that kind of business perspective is what you know feeds into the way we work together.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

What else have you inherited in in the process of an acquisition? Because I think we've had a couple episodes in which the CTO was, you know, had a company, got acquired. Yeah. But we didn't discuss this subject very specifically because we focus on other areas. But like in this case, you have got a culture of engineering in your company, then somebody comes, acquires. They probably have got, I don't know, they probably had a larger team. So therefore, you cannot come in with your specific ideas or opinions, say like, oh no, now we're gonna do things. Like we do because they bought you for a reason. Right. So they probably they want to take some good ideas from you, otherwise they wouldn't have bought you. But at the same time, it's like, look, uh, we're a larger organization. This is how we do things here. Yeah. We can adapt. But how much of this, you know, plasticity did you find there? And what what things did you have to inherit and and adapt

After Acquisition: Making AI Native

SPEAKER_02 15:07

to it?

SPEAKER_00 15:07

Yeah, I mean, so the acquisition happened two years ago, and the organization looked a little bit different. It was more skewed towards engineering than it was to AI development. And I think one of the reasons why we were acquired was to build a truly AI native company. So there was a huge engineering team and um also decent-sized AI team, but the it was more a software development focused company.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

How large were the teams?

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Uh the teams themselves, 50, 60 people as a whole, like that whole like technology function. Um but yeah, that I think what was inherited there was that like engineering culture. And the challenge was to kind of shift that towards AI development, which is not the same thing, right? It's not, it's not the same mindset. There's uh they move in different at different paces, especially even two years ago, things were different, right? The way we were doing developing AI. So that's kind of what I walked into with a mandate to make it an AI first company. So that that's what I walked into. It took a lot of iterations. So, you know, are these the right roles on the engineering side? Do we need more heavy AI roles? Like, what do we do? So it's been like bits and pieces of kind of iterating on top of what the team looks like, what the mandate looks like. That's really how it's gone.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

And the the the the other part that is really interesting is somehow CTOs, you know, or potential CTOs are they always focus on, oh, I want to be able to like lead the team and have uh architectural roles and stuff like that. Because like most of them come from a pure engineering background, computer science and whatnot. So they've been always coding. So they think on like larger technical challenges every time. However, the reality is like the technical challenges will grow, but the other non-technical challenges will grow as well. So you will not always be focused on 100% technical things. And so, and one of the things that they don't know they're gonna face when they become it, like especially in CTO, is like a seat on the board.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

Or a road show for an IBO or investor relationships or you know, fundraising and stuff like that. Because you founded companies, you had acquired already all of their skills. But otherwise, like otherwise, it would have been an assist surprise to find. Like, how do you train yourself in acquiring these skills? Because also, on the one hand, when you create a company and you've got a board, um I wouldn't say like that board is not as big or as influential as the board of a bigger company. So maybe even like the roles, protocols, etiquette are not the same, right? So how do you adapt to these more, I don't know how to say it, it's more like a performance, but a performance non-technical ballet.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Yeah, like the the softer side of things, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Dancing around protocol and politics.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

I think it's all about um perception and watching and adapting to this new environment for people that have not been in it, right? I mean, like you don't learn what this protocol is, like you're referring to, or the way, you know, like the way boards function or the way you should be speaking to your investors until you've actually done it and or screwed up several times doing it, made a fool of yourself. Um so I think it's just like trial and error and time, just like everything else, just experience, experience getting in front of people, practicing, like if it's an investor thing, practicing your pitch in front of, you know, maybe low-stakes investors so you can make up make make all your screw-ups at the beginning uh with people that you're not as interested in. Um, and I don't know, there's things that no one ever teaches you, like executive presence. Like you need to, you know, have an executive presence.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

You don't have to What is an executive presence?

SPEAKER_00 18:50

I don't even know what it is, but I've heard I've heard it many times, like uh, you know, so-and-so wasn't right for the role because he or she didn't have executive presence. I I guess it's around, you know, having gravitas and being a very good speaker, very good communicator. Um so that is something I see. Like, for instance, I I consult for um some PE backed companies. And that's something that's like, yeah, you have to have this sort of presence if you're speaking before a large board, like a P backed board.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

So the order in which you address the people there or knowing your timing.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

It's like a code. It's their own code, I think.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

I was gonna say, like, I wouldn't know what to say. I've never sat on any board. Yeah, yeah. We still don't have a board because Marsbase is an independently owned company, so therefore, like the board could be me and my two best friends.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

And that's it. So if we were to be acquired, or we decided to create a board because we'll raise funds or something like that, we'd be like, now how do we even behave? Like, and and that's one thing that we've gotten from a few CTOCs, like, oh yeah, we're invited to the board, and and I didn't know how to keep there. So how do you train yourself? Is there any sort of like documentation reference or coaching?

SPEAKER_00 20:02

I don't think so. And if if there were, I mean, maybe there are there's like of course there's executive coaching, but things come off as really contrived if you're just pretending to, like you said, like a performance, right? I mean, I think also just depends what you're walking into. If a company is like a you have a a group of VCs and they are your board, they understand what level of like experience you have in this because they know what stage of a startup you are. So I don't think you have to be perfect. You don't have to learn like the rules at the beginning. Um, but yeah, it's it's it's a curiosity, I would say.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

Aaron Powell But I I also understand that if you don't behave as per the rules, then you're probably signaling that you're a rookie in this matter. Yeah, I would think so.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Yeah.

Boardroom Skills And Executive Presence

SPEAKER_02 20:41

How have you felt, like, have you ever felt like the imposter syndrome in any of these situations? Or and how have you battled it?

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Aaron Powell I haven't felt imposter syndrome in almost every type of situation. Okay. I think it's natural, right? I mean, um that's one of those things. I think this is a lave motif of this conversation, but like it's one of the things that can dissipate with experience and with time and with extra confidence. But of course, you feel imposter syndrome as a starter, uh, a startup founder, especially as a non-technical startup founder. First time you're in the room with, you know, technical investors, highly technical investors getting questions that you may not know how to field. Um, imposter syndrome as a woman working in technology, as a female founder in Spain. Like there's like all of the different things that kind of come into play here. And, you know, uh, how do you get over it? You do you just try to like dust yourself off and get up and continue and and build upon, you know, the successes that you do have. But I think, yeah, uh there's a lot of room for imposter syndrome in the startup world and you know, being a founder, being acquired, everything.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

But it's curious because at the same time, like you've built yourself a career of authority in certain subjects, like your work and defense and AI and regulation. And ethic and in technology as well. So you are an authority figure in this space, yet you claim to have this imposter syndrome. It's like I know a million times more than the rest of the people in these specific fields, but about these other things, I don't know. So these this lack of a balance must be must must be hard. I don't know if that feeds farther your imposter syndrome when somebody's approaching you on like on the technical things, like you ought to know that this and that.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Yeah. I mean, I think, well, you're never gonna be the smartest person on any topic, right? That's the thing. Like I maybe hold myself to a standard of like, oh, I need to know everything about AI these days because now everybody knows everything about AI. I started an AI company.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

Especially Fredboys.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Especially, exactly. Exactly. But I mean, I started an AI company when we met before AI was being talked about all the time, right? So that actually puts you in a situation where it's like, okay, well, who's the actual expert anymore, right? Everybody's an expert. But I think, you know, it's impossible to be fluent on every single topic. Um, the topics that you mentioned where I have had, you know, have been exposed to or have had, you know, kind of different experiences in my career. I feel that I, yeah, I've delved into them, I've gotten involved in them. So if you think about things like, you know, AI governance, when the AI Act came, you know, was kind of coming on the scene, wanted to learn everything about it, but not because I wanted to become an AI act or, you know, AI governance expert, is because I had an AI company in Europe. And I'm like, how is this going to affect us? Like this regulation, is it gonna like put us out of business? Like, especially since we're working like in the areas of like defense and law enforcement, high risk, what the the EU was classifying at that time as like high risk or potentially high risk. So I just delved into it. And you get involved and you meet the people and you get involved in the conversations and then you become a part of what's happening, right? So that's just one example of of how, you know, I kind of positioned myself into that. But it it came from a need. It didn't come from a like, I want to be an expert on this. That's that's never that's never the right way.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

So how did you so how do you do it to manage um keeping up with all the latest changes, especially

Staying Current By Filtering Noise

SPEAKER_02 24:14

nowadays?

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Back in the day, it was already difficult because perhaps of the sheer complexity of the things that they were happening with the creation or at least the the maybe going more mainstream with the LLMs uh or machine learning, remote learning, and stuff like that. It was pretty complex at the time for not being an engineer. Like I myself, I I don't understand most of these topics fully. Yeah, but nowadays, on top of the complexity, we've got the rapid adoption of many multiple things happening at the same time. Like the models and the models in China, the local models, small language models, or the agents, yeah. Agents, loop engineering, fableslash mythos being released and released and now re-released and stuff like that. So how do you stay on top of all of that? How much how much time per day do you dedicate to keeping that? A lot of scene?

SPEAKER_00 25:08

A lot. A lot of reading, a lot of scanning, um, but a lot of filtering because like you all the things you just mentioned, not all of them are super important or affecting my day-to-day life, whether mythos or fable or whatever, like these things are just it's they're headlines, right? So really understanding what is important to the knowledge that I need to maintain to keep the business running and to keep the product going and to become competitive or remain competitive, I just filter out the noise. So, but I do spend a lot of time reading and and trying to understand what's happening.

SPEAKER_02 25:43

I struggle a lot with that. Yeah. Like for me, I don't know, maybe it's because I'm CEO, I'm just catching the flashy, shiny things. And so therefore I'm heavily attracted, like, you know, the like mm-hmm to the to the flame.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

And I see this, oh, I gotta try that new thing. I never try them. Yeah. Because I all what I do is I save them on a WhatsApp group, I have it with myself is like save for later. Thing is, like, I never check that. Of like, oh, I have saved it.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

Good. So that's my filtering process. Yeah. What's yours? How do you separate the signal from the noise?

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Yeah, well, I mean, like I said, it's around relevance. So one thing that is an important signal for me, which is probably not an obvious one, is I read a lot of scientific papers. So, you know, when we first started building um stuff with LLMs way back in the day before everybody knew what an LLM was, we were just basing off of things that we were reading in papers. And I find that what's most important for AI innovation is what's coming down the pike from, in some cases, from academia or companies that are actually doing very revolutionary things. So, you know, recently we um we did a project that was completely based on an idea that we grabbed out of a scientific paper that I happened upon and I shared it with uh my um AI director, and we iterated on top of that. And that's kind of also the way we got into working with agents, because of course, agents are the thing right now, but two or three years ago, not everybody was talking about agents. So staying ahead of things that are gonna be critically important for AI innovation versus like what the headline of today is for the mainstream audience.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

What do you have to say to the AI doomers? Because I remember from our previous conversations that you're like, yeah, uh I just got burn out of the all of these AI impending doom that's gonna be sealing our like destroying all the jobs, or like AI is going to be like so bad and all of that. I like I also have seen that AI is giving us more work than ever. As a matter of fact, like uh at the beginning of this year, when things changed with uh I think it was December 2025, Claude released the newest models, and therefore like we stopped from using the uh uh sophisticated autocomplete that we're doing with cursor and stuff like that to actually AI writing all the code and we just review, plant, implement, and um and follow this, you know, we were upskilled immediately, right? And so that completely transformed the company, but we took a conservative approach and we said, like, look, we don't know where it is. It's headed. Supposedly AI is going to take away our jobs, so therefore we'll not hire anybody. We'll just like, hey, pause a little bit, see what's happening, and adapt and just be uh more conservative. The reality is we've gotten more guilt flow than ever, larger projects than ever, more budget. People are going back into buying a mentality, which they were helding holding back for like three, four years now. And so it is interesting. Like maybe it's uh I'm skewed and maybe I'm b I'm biased because that's happening to us. So this is a rubbish.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Why why do you think that is? Why are why why the uptick?

SPEAKER_02 28:54

I have no idea.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

That was what I was gonna ask you. Like, what's your video? You're probably more exposed to a wider audience or a wider uh you know, landscape than we are. So why do you think this is happening and what's your general view on this?

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Why do I think that more people are in a buying mentality these days?

SPEAKER_02 29:11

Or yeah, or or why AI is not going to take away our jobs as software developers specifically.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Yeah, well, as software developers, I mean, I don't I do think that that was overhyped. I feel like what I'm exposed to now is kind of similar to what you're talking about. Like people are, I don't know, maybe we've c we met the hype and come back down again in terms of the perception or the perceived value of AI-driven technology development. Um I know that there is increasing mistrust. Uh, I know that there is kind of, you know, real engineers supposedly are gonna be like the premium versus, you know, vibe coding type of a situation. Um, but that is what I I have seen. And I haven't seen anyone be like, okay, well, you know, screw this. I'm gonna use Claude for that. You know, I haven't seen that actually up close and personal. What I've seen are people who were increasingly putting things into their work workflow, people that you never thought would adopt AI ever are adopting it. But I don't see this, you know, doom and gloom that you're referring to. Um, and I think we're past it now.

AI Raises The Hiring Bar

SPEAKER_02 30:20

But reading between the lines, you mentioned there's going to be some sort of a triage of the great engineers versus the average one. So um what will it be like? People or companies will be hiring only senior engineers, only super qualified engineers, AI native engineers.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

What's your I think that's that's an interesting one because it's not just in the engineering sector or the technology sector. I think that the bar is going to raise or rise for any sort of a role. So I've talked to people who are like, oh, okay, well, I'm in the media business and um I'm not even hiring like intern levels anymore or entry-level positions anymore. I'm hiring people that are more like at the mid-level because all of the other stuff that's underneath is being generated by AI, right? I've seen this in the communications business, large communications firms, in the marketing world. Like there is this kind of disappearance of this entry-level position. So I think that will potentially happen in the case of engineering as well. But I think one thing that I've talked about before with people that I find interesting and kind of worrying is that, okay, how do you become a senior journalist engineer? Just like honing the chops every day, like learning your craft, making code, coding mistakes, right? Doing things wrong and screwing it up and losing things. And if you lose this kind of piece of your career, which actually hones your skills to make you a senior in whatever it is that you're doing, isn't that also kind of dangerous that you're like relegating all of that experience? So, what would a then now a senior engineer look like in 20 years from now? If that whole piece is missing and you're a technology person, you're a technical person. Like what would it have been like for you had you not had to go through all of those things at the beginning? Would you have learned so much? That's just really my question.

SPEAKER_02 32:12

The thing is, I think we've been particularly lucky in the software engineering sector because we've never had the the we've never had to go through certifications and university titles and stuff like that. It's not like, of course, you could have your diploma. And uh that's gonna help you because I think like in any super big company, if you are to have the CTO role, probably you are required to be have some sort of university certification. Engineering. Engineering, blah, blah, blah. At the same time, it's not really required. It's not as standardized. There's not such a protocol like in other, like a psychologist. You cannot be a psychologist and operate and diagnose people if you don't have the degree, right? Or the degree and now the master's. Um, and or you know, a doctor or a surgeon, stuff like that. That's super standardized, that's super rigorously um specified. Software engineering, like, oh, you know how to code. You're you know, you're technically brilliant, and yeah, you know, you're chops and you're creative and you like doing this. Like there was such a demand that we uh we had to forego these kind of requirements, right? And that was also like that was a blessing and a curse at the same time because the blessing was like more people had access to it. And therefore, some people that probably they didn't have like probably the qualifications or the money to go through a university degree, uh, they could access this job market. Um, of course, because sometimes when things go bad, they go awfully bad. At the same time, people don't die because you just missed a coma or a bracket uh programming. Sometimes they do, but it's not the same as a surgery. Yes. You wouldn't trust your heart.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Yeah, the stakes are a lot lower, yeah. Correct.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

Like or building a skyscraper. Right. You know, there ought to be some sort of uh qualification there. Point being, um, I think with AI is more or less the same. Like the technology is advancing so rapidly that the moment you build a university degree for this, it will be heavily outdated. So we will not be able to certify and qualify people with AI. Yeah. So for me, the seniority here or the kind of engineer that we'll need now will be somebody with a go, uh like a can-do attitude. Um but with the understanding, and perhaps in my opinion, they have to have this vector of historical background of having worked in, having seen different scenarios because they know what is the right question to ask to the AI. And that's what maybe I'm not the most technical person in the room right now, having been coding for 15 years. I'm going back now. But I still retain, like, hey, why aren't you taking this decision? Why are you like But that's what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 35:03

Had you had AI 15 years ago, you wouldn't have that wealth of knowledge to give you the opportunity to ask the right questions. So that's the that's the piece that would have been lost, right? So that's what I'm just wondering about.

SPEAKER_02 35:16

Yeah, because because people are lazy, but I don't know. For me, when the good thing is like I could be going into lazy mode, autopilot mode with AI, which is like slash goal, create this, make no mistakes. But I'm the kind of person who actually converses with AI. Yeah. Why have you done this? Explain the concept between behind this, logical reason, and blah, blah, blah. And why did you make this decision? And uh coming from, you know, I I used to do Java 15, 20 years ago. Uh, what is the parallelism? What's the like the you know, the kind of most similar thing that there is to Java when we do this with and the AI would give me. So I'm actually having these conversations with AI. So I'm not going into autopilot. For me, this is the kind of person I want to hire.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and you're learning also along the way.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

It's like AI is doing the job, but I'm learning.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Right. Well, then it comes down to the colour. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

Lazy boss.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Yeah. Then it comes down to the person, right? The making of the right hiring decision, not about skills or certification. Like who actually has curiosity, work, work ethic, like the things that are most important.

SPEAKER_02 36:19

But then that's not everything, of course.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

No, it's not that they know they need to understand things as well.

SPEAKER_02 36:24

The other thing is like what happens when there is a power outage or there's no internet, the services are down because for whatever reason, Cloudflare's down and GitHub is down, or Cloud is down, uh, these people, people who go into autopilot mode, they will not be able to be protected. Right, right. Exactly. What what what is your impression on, like, for instance, the the there's been a lot of discussion now with uh local language models, smaller language models, and and also with regards to privacy. Because right now we're outsourcing all the context, all of our brains, all of our engineering capacity, the US-based company.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

So in maybe we're based in Barcelona. I know you're originally from the US.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:05

But uh in terms of like the sovereignty and independent independence and stuff like that, um, and the lack of dependence on third parties, that maybe they just go out of service for whatever reason. What's your vision on what's gonna happen in the next two years? Next year.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

I have no idea. I have no idea what's going on. However far you want to go. No, I mean, I have more of a vision. I have an opinion on this.

Sovereign AI And European Confidence

SPEAKER_00 37:31

I do think that, you know, AI sovereignty, data sovereignty is super important. Um not gonna get super political, but given the current geopolitical situation, I think it's more important than ever. I'm involved in lots of initiatives around this. I really do think it is, I mean, it's a key asset. It's like oil for, you know, a nation. And it needs to be protected and it needs there needs to be more incentive to develop things homegrown. It's but that's a really complicated one, right? I mean, there's lots of kind of barriers to that, everything from funding to, you know, regulations to um procurement. Um, so for instance, if you are a large company like a Google or uh, you know, now even like open AI, it's really easy to kind of embed yourself in lots of different opportunities and grow. And you can't really do that as a smaller company. And our companies here in Europe tend to be smaller, tend to have less resources, tend to have less funding. So all these things kind of tie together. The ability to have sovereign AI or to have, you know, this kind of uh independence really depends on the investment that's being made in the companies that are building these models, uh, and you know, just in the technology sector in general, which I mean, of course there's support, but it's fragmented. And I don't think that it's focused on like domination in the way that China's, you know, investment is focused or the US's investment is focused and relegating, yes, of course, like, you know, our IP or our most personal thoughts or everything, our data, to companies that may or may not have the same, even just values, right? I mean, like one thing that comes up, I don't know if this actually exists. People have, you know, said they don't know what what you mean what when we say this, but there's, you know, the term European values, right? Of course, it's quite, you know, broad. But what does that actually mean? Well, it's kind of aspirational. It's like, what are we trying to do? We're trying to be an ethical society, we're trying to be, you know, have social cohesion, like all these things. So I think we're we started talking about technology, we're moving towards like things that are completely soft, but they're all really tied together. So the interests of a large um publicly traded US company may or may not be aligned with the values that the citizens of like Europe might have.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

In fact, there's also another aspect that comes into play here. Um, the perception of US software is better. We've always had it.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

Like I I even remember uh more or less around the time we met, uh Typeform was coming up, as a company, right? And most people thought of Typeform that was a US company because their tone of voice, the graphical UX, everything was like, no, they're obviously from California, right? Right. And so I'm gonna I'm gonna be using Typeform instead of these other things because they're American, they they know how to do it best. It's like, well, no, they are from Barcelona. Yeah, yeah. Even people in the US, they thought they were from the US. And uh, and so why do you think this happens? Like historically, I understand software from the US has been more like enterprise ready, for instance. Everything we used here back in the day. I'm thinking like um uh WebEx and uh like uh I was gonna say Zoom, but no, not not Zoom, but like Cisco and stuff like that came from the US, right? So historically the browsers, Microsoft, whatnot. So I don't know if that's something that has permeated into like nowadays, like the startups as well. But I see like so many other good examples of software. But still we think now I take the US um version better.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

Do you think that still persists? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 41:08

My impression is that it still does. It's like we still have this sort of like um we're how how to put it imposter syndrome? Maybe it's imposter syndrome, but like we are belittling ourselves. Like, no, it's we're way more modest. Like, uh I'm using this email provider from Spain, but you know, when when the company will go big, then I'll switch to MailChimp.

SPEAKER_00 41:32

Right, right. Something more professional, more robust.

SPEAKER_02 41:36

As if we didn't trust this company. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Well, maybe that's kind of one of the reasons why we potentially will never dominate in technology, if that is what everybody thinks. If you know a Hungarian company thinks they're not as good as an American company, they're never going to. It's just probably, yeah, this kind of bias against what's homegrown versus what's foreign and you know traditionally dominated. I mean, obviously we have all this mystique around Silicon Valley, like, you know, Silicon Valley created everything, created literally everything, the computer, like the, you know, the internet. So that probably is just embedded in the way people think about things. But I mean, how many examples that you've seen them all? Because you have been here, you know, rocking the startup scene for so many years. Like you've seen really good examples of amazing companies built here in Barcelona and other parts of Spain. And that's you know, no different from the rest of Europe. So I think maybe what we just need to do is believe it ourselves a little bit more.

SPEAKER_02 42:34

Did that also happen like in in in regions of the US? You're from Houston, Texas. So is there like some sort of like competition between or Silicon Valley is just something else? We don't play in that league.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Yeah. Well, I think before, yeah. Before it would be very weird to be like, oh, okay, well, it's a startup from like Louisville, Kentucky, or something like that. That would be like, what the hell?

SPEAKER_01 42:54

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

But no, I think kind of Austin changed that, right? When people started uh moving out from the Bay Area or from New York area to to Austin. It's like, oh, there's other parts of the country where there's a lot of innovation happening, a lot of technology. Yes, yes, exactly. Um, but I think in the U.S. there is there has always been and there continues to be this idea that if it's not coastal, it's really what we they call flyover zones. Nobody really cares. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:22

I don't like that terminology.

SPEAKER_00 43:23

It's very, yes, it's very derogatory and incorrect, right? Because of course there are pockets everywhere. I think in almost every you know, major city in the US, even if it's something like a Cleveland, Ohio, there will be, you know, some amazing startup scene that's happening there. So and companies that obviously exited. So it's just I think it's just an old perception that you know everything comes from Silicon Valley.

SPEAKER_02 43:46

Aaron Powell And how about like you as a person coming from the US? There's always been the fascination here of uh I'm gonna be hiring her because she comes from the US. Therefore she's the expert. Have you encountered this situation as well where you're like favored over somebody local just because you come from abroad? We've always had this fascination for the I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

I mean, I I well I've also just been working on my startups since I almost since I got here. I do think there's like a yeah, for instance, if you're being invited to like speak or something, maybe people will be like, oh, she's coming from the US. It's like more authoritative.

SPEAKER_02 44:22

But somebody who speaks English decently, finally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Well, a British person wouldn't think that I speak English decently, but yes, yeah, yeah, no. So I think it's more around that or um and probably less about being from the US and more about being involved in a lot of the European initiatives that I'm involved in. So related to AI. But yeah, um I don't feel like I'm treated that differently. And I shouldn't be, obviously, because like from the beginning of the conversation, um I don't know everything.

Costly Mistakes And Closing Requests

SPEAKER_02 44:51

We we have to wrap it up, but before there's a signature question of the podcast, which is which one has been your most expensive fuck up?

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Oh God, most expensive fuck up. I think as a whole, hiring.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

Okay. Hired the wrong person. I mean everybody gives me that one.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

Yeah. No, do that. Does everybody say the same thing?

SPEAKER_02 45:11

I thought that was gonna be other than fire the that person. Yes. I hired the wrong people.

SPEAKER_00 45:15

Yes, both of those things, yes.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:17

Um hiring the wrong people, not firing the right people.

SPEAKER_02 45:22

Um and anything outside of HAR department. Uh well, I think like technical or probably positions.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Yeah, but probably related to that though is relegating really important technology decisions in the wrong person. Okay. In burning through resources or for instance, set I mean, I'm not gonna name any names, but uh, you know, a project that was based off of a technology that became extremely, extremely expensive, and at the end of the day, we didn't need it. And that was a major fuck up.

SPEAKER_02 45:53

Can you give a ballpark of how much money was burned there?

SPEAKER_00 45:57

Hundreds of thousands.

SPEAKER_02 45:58

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 45:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's I will say that that technology decision was inherited by me.

SPEAKER_02 46:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

But it is an example of a fuck-up.

SPEAKER_02 46:07

Thank you very much. Uh, one last question, and we're rolling out the red carpet for you. So how can we help you and your company nowadays?

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Um, well, you can help me by staying in touch with me. I'm not uh necessarily on social media or doing anything uh interesting like that. But yeah, just let's keep in touch and really love collaborating with you.

SPEAKER_02 46:26

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

Thanks.