Nearshore Talent in Latin America: How to Hire Top Remote Teams Faster & Cheaper | Brian Samson

Matt Hines opens season three of Hines On Air from Atlanta and interviews entrepreneur Brian Samson, now based in Hawaii, about nearshoring and hiring Latin American talent through his company Plugg Technologies. Samson contrasts offshoring (often Asia, time-zone gaps) with nearshoring (Latin America, aligned workdays) and explains how COVID accelerated remote, cross-border teams. He discusses Latin America’s depth of talent—from engineers to managers and leaders—highlighting scrappiness and adaptability, including among Venezuelan professionals. Sampson shares his 11 years in nearshoring, founding Plugg four years ago after running an Argentina-based fintech software development firm, and explains venture fundraising basics (seed through Series rounds, equity dilution, SaaS vs AI investor interest). He closes with how companies can contact Plugg at plugg.tech for guidance and hiring. 00:00 Season Three Kickoff 00:40 Meet Brian Samson 01:45 Failures and Golf Swings 02:53 What Plugg Technologies Does 03:35 Offshore vs Nearshore 07:04 Why Latin America Talent 09:15 Remote Work and Venezuela 11:43 Scrappy Talent Mindset 15:22 How Plugg Was Built 17:32 Argentina FinTech Software 18:12 Buy vs Build Software 19:49 Brian’s Recruiting Roots 20:52 VC Funding Stages 24:36 Equity Deals and Valuations 26:01 SaaS Versus AI Hype 29:50 AI Arms Race and GEO 32:17 Trusting AI Search 34:08 Hallucinations and Prompts 36:32 Hiring Nearshore Talent 38:41 Wrap Up and Contact Sponsor By Hines Law https://hineslaw.org/ Sponsor By Bravos Leadership https://bravosleadership.com/#