The Breaking Into Startups Podcast is a platform where we feature stories of people who broke into tech from non-traditional backgrounds. Curious about how startups work, how to get a job without a degree or what technical and non-technical careers are out there? We have news for you - tech fields are booming and you don’t need the best technical degree in information technology to break in and get a six figure job in technology.
Our podcast gives you an inside look at the most disruptive startups by sharing success stories of people from all walks of life, including college drop outs, professional and student athletes, army veterans, teen parents, corporate folks, investment bankers, consultants, venture capitalists who acquired new skills and found jobs in technology.
Our guests attended coding bootcamps and immersive programs like Hack Reactor, App Academy, General Assembly, Dev Bootcamp, Flatiron School, Iron Yard, Tradecraft and more. After graduating they found well paying jobs in big time startups focusing on education, medicine, financial services, healthcare, AI, machine learning, automation, sharing economy and more. If you listen to 500 Startups, Learn to Code With Me, Twenty Minute VC, This Week In Startups, Startup Radio, Startup Podcast, The Tim Ferris show, Startup School Radio, Course Report or other tech stuff news, then this podcast is for you my friend.
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#126: Marcelo Claure - Why Softbank Invested in Career Karma (00:39:05)
Marcelo Claure is a Bolivian tech entrepreneur who founded Brightstar which was later sold to Sprint after they reached $10 billion in revenue, becoming the largest Hispanic-owned business in US history. Currently, Claure serves as Chief Executive Officer of SoftBank Group International and Chief Operating Officer of SoftBank Group Corp.
Claure oversees the vast portfolio of the Group’s operating companies, including Arm, WeWork, Brightstar, Fortress, SB Energy, Boston Dynamics, among others, along with SoftBank’s ownership in T-Mobile US. He also runs Club Bolivar, Bolivia’s most popular and successful soccer team, and is Chairman and Owner of Club Internacional de Futbol Miami (Miami Beckham United).
Today, he talks about why he decided to invest in Career Karma and why data is now the future of work.
#125: Erik Torenberg - What Is Venture Capital? & How It Helps Job Seekers (01:05:23)
Not only a true believer in the power of networking, Erik Torenberg definitely walks the talk. Erik is big on community building and networking. He is known for organizing huge events as well as intimate meetups called On Deck, where they allow people to get to know each other on a personal level instead of a professional level.
Back in Michigan, Erik started his career by creating rapt.fm, which led him to go to 500 Startups, that also led him to become the first employee of Product Hunt. Later on, he started the Product Hunt Podcast. He then ventured into investing, having seeded notable companies including Omni, Metaverse, Bot.me, and Tribe.pm, to name a few.
In 2017, he launched a $100-million fund called Village Global, built around the concept of networking embedded in their company’s DNA. He has curated a group of people including some of the world's greatest in technology - Amazon's Jeff Bezos, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, Marissa Mayer, Mark Zuckerberg - to believe in him. How did he do that? Let’s find out!
Recently, he also launched another podcast called Venture Stories Podcast by Village Global. Another one of Erik’s passion project is The Rise Awards, an awards series and community celebrating top talents across all positions.
#124: Jake Schwartz - CEO of General Assembly on COVID-19 Response (01:02:25)
Jake Schwartz is the co-founder and chief executive officer of General Assembly, a global company advancing the future of work. Jake leads GA's growth, creating sustainable talent pipelines for businesses, and building transparent career pathways to the most transformational work.
In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, about 33 million Americans have lost their jobs in the last seven weeks. GA has around 120 campuses globally which they had to shut down in two days and go completely online.
Today, Jake talks about how they’re disrupting the marketplace landscape and getting creative so they could be more accessible to students. It’s all about merging business excellence and education excellence!
#123: Dan Friedman - COVID-19 Response from the Co-Founder of Thinkful (00:50:12)
Dan Friedman is the Co-Founder of Thinkful, a coding bootcamp that provides online courses Software Engineering, Design and Data Science courses. Dropping out of Yale, Dan is proof that you don't need a college degree or certain qualifications to find your way to success.
Thinkful is the first coding bootcamp that came out and created offerings for people impacted by the COVID-19. Listen in to find out more about their initiatives. Another thing Dan emphasized today is the principle of reversibility.
#122: Vaibhav Sahgal - Head of Growth at Reddit - How to be a Growth Product Leader (00:53:14)
Vaibhav Sahgal is the Head of Growth at Reddit, Inc. which has 500 million unique users around the world. Prior to this, he worked at Zynga for 8 years as a product manager. He led teams building games like Words with Friends, Cityville, and Mafia Wars.
Vaibhav immigrated from India to the U.S. to get a degree in Computer Science at Purdue University. Today, he talks about his journey into tech, the qualities of effective engineers, and how to build and grow products to millions of users.
#121: Kesha Lake - How a Mom from Atlanta became a Remote Software Engineer at Stitch Fix (01:27:22)
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Kesha Lake is a member of the Career Karma community from Atlanta.
She joined Career Karma in the beginning of 2019. Less than a year later, she got a job as a remote software engineer at Stitch Fix.
Today, she talks about her life as a mother, her transition from nursing to tech, her bootcamp journey, and her job search experience.
#120: Jerrick Warren - How Career Karma's first member became a Software Engineer at Gemini (01:09:52)
Jerrick Warren has an inspiring story of breaking into the Blockchain Tech Startup Gemini coming from a background in medicine.
He went from joining the Career Karma community, to getting accepted into Lambda School to getting a Software Engineering job in a year!
Today, he shares with us the many struggles he had to overcome and how Career Karma helped him pave his way to success.
Career Karma is a community that helps you figure out a road map that is customized to you, your preferences, and your needs. Lambda School is a coding bootcamp that offers a unique pay structure to its students. Find out more about them.
#119: Career Karma Origin Story (by the CEO of Free Code Camp) (01:19:07)
#119: Career Karma Origin Story (by the CEO of Free Code Camp) by Breaking Into Startups
#118: Darrell Silver - CEO of Thinkful (00:51:49)
Darrell Silver is the CEO and Co-Founder of Thinkful.
Their mission? To build the world’s next workforce.
Since its inception in 2012, Thinkful has graduated thousands of students. Founded based on two elements – transparency and return on education – Thinkful has recently been acquired by Chegg.
Together, they continue to help transform how people acquire tech skills in the most efficient way possible.
On this episode Darrell covers how Thinkful help career transitioners acquire tech skills through income sharing agreements and living stipends. Tune in to learn more.
#117: Chok Ooi - CEO of Kenzie Academy (00:56:28)
Coming to the states with two suitcases and a pocketful of dreams, Chock Ooi is currently the CEO of Kenzie Academy.
Chok is a startup veteran working at places like Loopt and AgilityIO, and is a 500 Startups mentor. He has a background in Finance and Technology at Goldman, Bank of America, and BNP Paribas during the financial crisis.
Today, Chok talks about how he has realized his dreams to help people break into tech and his thoughts on income share agreements (ISAs).
Career Karma now has over 30,000 members. Please come check it out and learn more about income share agreements where we've put together a comprehensive report highlighting emerging players, innovators, and potential influencers.
#116 - FFTSquad – A Career Karma Squad of Highly Motivated People Breaking Into Tech Together (01:35:23)
Today, we have a special group of people joining us who go by the #FFTSquad.
#FFTSquad is a group of people on Career Karma who are working together to help each other grow, learn how to code and switch careers into tech.
They were with us early from the very beginning. In fact, a lot of the members of the FFT Squad were part of Career Karma before the app even came out.
Here are their names:
Meet the FFT Squad:
Melanie Harris (Ms. CEO, Lady Savage)
Jennifer Weaver (J-Smooth)
Elisabeth Earley (Lady Boom)
Benjamin Earley (Benny Boom)
Tyrone Smith (Fly Ty)
Elise Spain (Famous Amos)
Levar Morris (The Wizard)
Jennifer Carney (J-Chill)
Gregory Jordan (Papa Smurf)
Kesha Lake (Rose Code)
For those of you who may not know, Career Karma was started by Artur, Ruben & Timur as a result of us breaking into tech and launching the Breaking Into Startups Podcast together.
Today, Career Karma is a community that matches people to the best coding bootcamps and gives them support for the rest of their careers.
The FFT Squad is a living testament that developing your technical skills can totally change your life. No matter who you are, what color you are, what race you are, or what religion you are – you DEFINITELY can do this!
#115: Angela Ceresnie - CEO of Climb Credit on Helping to Finance People's Career Transitions (00:54:05)
Angela Ceresnie is the CEO of Climb Credit. She has experience working in and starting multiple startups. She has led teams at Citibank and American Express. Interestingly, she studied computer engineering at the University of Michigan with a technical background.
Today, Angela talks about skill-building and the work she's doing at Climb Credit as she tries to build the future for her own kids.
#114: Phaedra Ellis - CEO of Promise on How to Build Power and Take Control of Your Career (01:02:30)
Phaedra Ellis is the CEO of Promise, a startup that uses technology for good in the process to change the criminal justice system.
Prior to this, she was the leader of the South Bay Labor Council, managing over 110,000 members.
Before that, Phaedra was also the CEO of Green for All and is known as a music industry icon for having helped Prince get his master's back as his manager, without having any legal background.
What’s interesting is Ruben met Phaedra when he worked with her at Honor. She became his mentor and also was responsible for hiring former podcast guests Rita Henderson and Natasha Vianna.
#113: Tonio DeSorrento - Income Sharing Agreements Explained by CEO of Vemo (00:52:28)
Tonio DeSorrento is a New York-native who spent time in the Marines as a captain. He has also worked at several institutions including SoFi.
Currently, he serves as the CEO of Vemo Education, a leading provider of income share agreements, which is an innovative financing model not only for coding bootcamps, but also for traditional universities. They are working now with 22 colleges and universities!
If you're someone looking to manage your finances as you're preparing for a career transition, this episode is a must-listen!
#112: Chasing your Dreams with Young Guru & Rodney Sampson (00:55:02)
Rodney Sampson is the CEO of OHUB while Young Guru is widely known as Jay-Z's DJ. On today’s episode, Ruben joins Rodney & Young Guru to discuss how and why they came together and why they're passionate about creating opportunities for people outside of tech. OHUB has also partnered with Flatiron School, to give $1M in scholarships to people with color who wish to pursue a career in tech through coding bootcamps.
#111: Ameer Brown - Coding Bootcamp Graduate who is a Software Quality Engineer at Adobe (00:53:41)
Ameer Brown is a Software Quality Engineer at Adobe. He talks about what it takes to be a successful engineer at Adobe. Outside of work Ameer also organizes parties. He also covers how that helped him take it to another level hosting parties in multiple cities.
From being a journalism major, he suddenly left his job, flew to LA, and applied to General Assembly. Through the bootcamp’s Opportunity Fund, Ameer’s coding education was fully funded by Adobe until ultimately getting hired (and he didn’t even apply for it!)
#110: Dan Rosensweig - CEO of Chegg, the Playbook for the Modern Day Student (00:50:28)
Dan Rosensweig is the CEO of Chegg, an American education company with the aim to provide education that is less expensive, more available, more affordable, and more relevant. On the podcast, Dan explains how it's their responsibility to learn from, listen to, and build for young people.
He was formerly the COO of Yahoo! and CEO of Guitar Hero. He's also on the board of several amazing companies.
Dan admits Chegg was considered a failure for most of its first 7 years. 8 1/2 years later, they're a $3.5 billion Education Technology company and is considered a leader in their space.
#109: Cameron Yarbrough - CEO of Torch, on the Importance of Mental Health & Coaching (00:26:28)
Cameron Yarbrough is the CEO of Torch and one of the best leadership and executive coaches in the world.
In this episode, Cameron talks about coaching for everyone! How Torch got its start and the problems that many CEO’s as well as startup employees have when they are faced with pressure.
#108: Dan Sommer, CEO & founder of Trilogy Education, workforce accelerator for leading universities (00:59:25)
Dan Sommer is the CEO and Co-Founder of Trilogy Education Services. Dan has launched partnerships with over 37 of the world's leading universities, providing alternative forms of education on their campuses.
smarturl.it/trilogy_learn_more
They have instructors teaching 200 classes every week. They have thousands of students who have completed Trilogy-powered programs, and 1,500 companies employ them.
In May, Dan secured a $50-million Series B and he's been doing a lot of exciting things related to future work. Prior to Trilogy, he was the President of Zeta Global, also a large education company.
Interesting takeaways from this episode: learning how to learn, developing your superpowers, and being aware of not just engineering jobs but specific technologies companies are hiring for in different geographies!
#107: Rich Smith - How A College Dropout Became A Senior Engineer at Netflix (01:07:57)
Announcements: Watch the video recording of this episode on Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Rg8SHeq1Ns
Rich Smith is a Senior UI engineer at Netflix but did you know this was his 17th job?
Today, he talks about how he started hustling as early as 4th grader and eventually discovered his interest in coding!
On the episode he covers a lot of topics as what it was like growing up with role models who were athletes, which a lot of us could relate with. And how not until he dropped out of college that Rich stumbled upon coding and later realized that this could be a viable career path!
Rich’s journey to become a Senior Engineer at Netflix was certainly not an easy feat, but he lays out the roadmap on this episode that anyone can follow to attain the same results.
Hint: it doesn’t involve a computer science degree :)
#106: Balaji Srinivasan - CTO of Coinbase, How Everyone Can be an Investor (01:10:20)
Balaji Srinivasan is the CTO of Coinbase. Prior to that, he was a co-founder of Counsyl, Earn, Teleport, and a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz.
Today, he talks about his insights into traditional education vs. alternative education, as well as numerous concepts on technical debt, voice vs. exit, idea maze, idea vs. education, and more!
Balaji has a very interesting mindset in that he believes that not everybody can be a founder, but everybody can be an investor.
#105: Rick O'Donnell - CEO of Skills Fund, Providing Financing to Coding Bootcamp Students (00:51:44)
Rick O’Donnell is the Founder and CEO of Skills Fund, a place that provides people with an opportunity to acquire skills and they also provide financing for students as they're doing a career transition.
Prior to Skills Fund, Rick worked as an Executive Director for the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies as well as the Director for the Department of Higher Education where he oversaw 29 public colleges and universities in Colorado. Since its founding in 2015, Skills Fund has provided over $100 million in students loans.
Today, Rick talks about how you should be thinking about your career transition and how you can afford it as well.
#104: Leanne Pittsford - Founder of Lesbians Who Tech & Tech Jobs Tour (00:49:17)
There are half a million open tech jobs, and yet, diversity in tech continues to be a problem. The key is in building relationships and connecting people with the right companies that need their skills the most.
Leanne Pittsford is the founder of Lesbians Who Tech, the largest LGBTQ community of technologists in the world with over 40,000 members.
She is also the founder of Tech Jobs Tour, connecting diverse, underrepresented, and nontraditional talent with companies across the country. Among other companies she has created are include.io, and Lean Impact.
Fun fact about Leanne is when she’s not helping people find jobs she really loves to surf.
#103: Madelyn Tavarez - How a Part-time Bootcamp helped her Become an Android Engineer (01:01:59)
Our guest on the podcast has a remarkable story.
Madelyn Tavarez did a part-time bootcamp, while holding a full-time job.
She taught herself how to code.
And became a software engineer at Pinterest now building products for hundreds of millions of people.
She is also a Dominican Republic-native who grew up in Washington Heights and due to her own drive and curiosity was able to change her circumstance.
Her senior year of college she went from being a bartender to an “eat, pray, love” moment which took her to Italy. Which eventually played a big role in Madelyn deciding to teach herself how to code.
Fast-forward to today, she works as an Android engineer at Pinterest. She also continues to get actively involved in different community projects, including the TECHNOLOchicas among others.
#102: Austen Allred - CEO of Lambda School (01:00:18)
Austen Allred is the CEO and Co-Founder of Lambda School. Recently coming out of Y Combinator, Lambda now has thousands of students. Prior to this, he served as a Growth Expert at LendUp.
Lambda School is an online bootcamp that gives students the tools and training they need to launch their career in software engineering at no upfront cost. Their end goal is to eliminate all the distractions related to income, living expenses & time so students can focus on transitioning into their dream careers.
They also don’t get paid, unless you get a job!
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