PODCAST · technology
1st10 Podcast
by 1st10podcast
Welcome to 1st10 Podcast, where we dive deep into the world of building early engineering teams. Join us as we sit down with engineers, founders, and investors to uncover the strategies, challenges, and successes behind assembling and nurturing the foundational teams that drive innovation. Whether you're a startup enthusiast, a tech leader, or an aspiring entrepreneur, our conversations provide valuable insights and practical advice on crafting the perfect engineering team from the ground up. Tune in to learn from the best and get inspired to build your own successful early-stage team.
Episodes
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He said “Winter Is Coming.” Now He’s Joining Anthropic. Philip Su on What’s Next for Engineers
Philip's three-word warning drove this channel's most commented video. People are still arguing about it. Now he is back. On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, host Boris Epstein sits down with Philip Su and asks him about his prediction about winter coming for developers that got 900k views (and...
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When Should You Leave Big Tech for a Startup? | Kobi Hudson, Ex-Waymo
The hardest part of leaving Big Tech is the certainty and stability of Big Tech. Kobi Hudson spent his entire adult life at Waymo, and he still left to join a startup. On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris Epstein sits down with Kobi Hudson, Founding Engineer at Coval.ai and asks him the...
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An AI That Rewires Its Own Code?! Inside Exo & The Next Era of Software Development with Alex Krentsel
What happens when an AI agent gets permission to rewrite the code that runs it? On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, host Boris Epstein sits down with Alex Krentsel, a senior researcher at Google Research and a systems PhD student at UC Berkeley to dig into why efficiency, and not accuracy, may…
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The Post-LLM Era Is Coming: World Models, AI CEOs, and the Autonomous Enterprise | Sam Pasupalak, Skyfall AI
What comes after ChatGPT and Claude and Gemini? A founder who sold an AI company to Microsoft for $160 million just told us that LLMs are heading toward a dead end. And he's betting his next company on what comes after. On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Sam Pasupalak, Co-Founder & CEO of...
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Autonomous Agents Will Replace Traditional Software: Ex-Waymo Tech Lead's Prediction
The easy part of voice AI takes 10 minutes. The hard part is everything that follows. Voice AI can handle a basic appointment in 10 minutes - but handling tens of millions of calls without failing is the one Brooke Hopkins left Waymo to solve. On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, host Boris...
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AI Is Making Top Performers MORE Overworked, Not Less! | Ex-Amazon VP Ethan Evans
An Amazon VP who helped build Prime Video from a team of six is now telling people inside the FAANGs to seriously consider leaving... On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris Epstein sits down with Ethan Evans, former VP at Amazon, to talk about the conventional wisdom around AI, management…
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Inside OpenAI, Google Gemini & the Next AI Gold Rush With Google DeepMind's Logan Kilpatrick
What do you do when the guy who helped launch GPT-4 (and now leads Google Gemini) tells you that competing with trillion-dollar AI labs is actually the EASY part?!On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris Epstein sits down with Logan Kilpatrick, a leader who has been stationed at the absolute...
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OpenAI Backed These Founders Before They Were Old Enough to Buy a Beer
The long-trodden path to wealth-creation (through job-security) is completely broken. So, the next generation of elite founders is taking control of their own trajectories in a different way!On this episode of the *1st10 Podcast*, Boris Epstein sits down with Alkis Toutziaridis and Shashi…
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The Founder's Guide to Hiring World-Class Engineers l Boris Epstein
Boris Epstein built the tech-recruiting firm Binc over 19 years and got acquired by Robinhood in 2021. Then, he walked away from all of it...On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, host and founder of 1st10, Boris Epstein, shares the origin story of 1st10 and why he decided to get into the hardest...
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Agentic AI is Why the Best Engineers Are 10x More Productive | Peter Terrill, Grounded Agents
The biggest shift in software isn't AI itself - but the moment software started *talking back*... semantically!On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris Epstein sits down with Peter Terrill, former Stripe engineering leader and CTO/Co-founder of Grounded Agents, to unpack the real meaning of...
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Agentic AI Is Rewriting Work (You’re Not Ready) | Alex Vogenthaler explains
Alex Vogenthaler built a billion-dollar product at Google, ran the P&L for 93% of Stripe's revenue and then... simply walked away from it all because he wanted to build the exact AI tool that could improve his job!On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris sits down with Alex Vogenthaler,...
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What a Top VC Actually Looks for Before Writing a Check
A new class of AI-native startups is accelerating at a pace that feels unnatural, while SaaS companies that looked "perfect" two years ago are suddenly stuck… On this episode of the 1st 10 Podcast, Luke Beseda goes into detail about why the traditional logic of startup hiring - build headcount,...
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The 5,000 Engineers Every Startup Is Fighting For | The Brutal War for Early Startup Talent
Almost every founder is hunting the exact same 5000 people. And most of them are losing without even knowing it?On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Samantha Price breaks down the uncomfortable reality of early-stage hiring: it's not meritocratic, it's not efficient, and it's definitely not...
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The REAL Reason College Grads Can't Find Jobs in 2026
You've sent hundreds of applications and landed ZERO jobs because you are playing a game that quietly ended years ago... On this solo episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris Epstein dismantles the dominant narrative that AI is killing entry-level jobs and replaces it with a harsher truth: companies...
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He Was BORED at Meta so decided to Built 2 Startups | The Story of Shashank & Plutus
What if everything your financial advisor ever told you was designed to benefit *them*, not you? On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris Epstein sits down with Shashank Chiranewala, founder of Plutus, to unpack the unconventional journey that took him from investment banking to product...
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How AI Cut Drug Discovery From 8 Years to 4 Years | Alice Zhang's Moneyball Approach
What happens when you realize in middle school that the greatest impact you can make is solving humanity's most complex diseases? On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, host Boris Epstein sits down with Alice Zhang, founder and CEO of Verge Genomics, to unpack why drug discovery has been stuck for...
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2026 Startup Predictions: Why This Year Changes Everything (Bitcoin, IPOs & The Great Divide)
The startup world is splitting into two radically different realities - and 2026 will be the year this divide becomes impossible to ignore. On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris grades his 2025 forecasts (4.5/5 - not bad!), revealing which bets paid off and where he missed the mark on...
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The AI Leaderboard Every Top Lab Watches - Inside LMArena's Real-World AI Battleground
What happens when three PhD students accidentally build the infrastructure that every major AI lab depends on? OR What if the AI benchmarks everyone trusts are measuring the wrong thing entirely?On this episode of the *1st10 Podcast*, host Boris Epstein sits down with Anastasios Angelopoulos,...
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This Founder built at NVIDIA, Exited to Harvey - Now He's Betting AI Can Finally Fix Taxes
What if the biggest failure of AI today isn't creativity - but math?On this episode of the *1st10 Podcast*, host Boris Epstein sits down with Sreerama Tripuramallu, a repeat founder whose career spans NVIDIA, a Sequoia-backed startup exit to Harvey AI, and now a stealth consumer product tackling...
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Inside the AI Startup Tackling the U.S. Radiologist Shortage - Rustin Rassoli
What kind of founder decides to build a full radiology practice, an AI research lab, and a software company - all at once?On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris Epstein sits down with Rustin Rassoli, founder of Epsilon Labs to talk about why solving the U.S. radiology crisis requires…
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The Recruiting Industry's Hidden Crisis: Gem CEO Steve Bartel on Fraud, AI, and the Future of Hiring
56% more job openings, 3x more applications, but 8 MORE days to fill roles! CEO of Gem.ai shares data that explains why most recruiting careers are about to hit a wall…In this eye-opening conversation, Boris Epstein sits down with Steven Bartel, CEO of Gem.ai, to explore the shocking…
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Breaking Into AI: A Former FAANG Recruiter's Inside Guide
On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris Epstein, founder of 1st10 and former FAANG-level recruiter, reveals a shocking reality behind AI startup hiring practices and why the most talented engineers in tech might be getting left behind. Drawing from his decade of experience recruiting for top...
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The Wild World of AI M&A: Inside Silicon Valley's Billion-Dollar Talent War with M&A Expert Sara Ali
In this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris Epstein sits down with Sara Ali, Senior Director of Corporate Development & Strategy at Yahoo, to dissect the frenzy around AI-driven M&A. From Meta's $14.3 billion partial acquisition of Scale AI to Google's talent-grab deals with Character.AI, Sara...
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AI Won’t Steal Your Job (But It Will Change Everything) Insights from Wharton Professor, Daniel Rock
On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris Epstein sits down with Daniel Rock - economist, professor at Wharton, and co-founder of Workhelix - to decode the messy reality of AI's impact on jobs, productivity, and enterprise transformation. Daniel brings a unique perspective as both an academic...
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Inside Meta's AI Talent War: The Strategy That's Reshaping Silicon Valley
Mark Zuckerberg dropping $100 million each on SIXTEEN engineers (and counting) might be a wild strategy that could hand Meta the AI crown.On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, host Boris Epstein dives into Meta's jaw-dropping AI talent acquisition spree that's sending shockwaves through Silicon...
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Winter Is Coming – Philip Su, early OpenAI Engineer's Warning to Engineers
What if the AI revolution doesn't take all jobs but *just* enough to crash society?On this first episode of the latest season of the 1st10 Podcast, host Boris Epstein is joined by ex-Microsoft, ex-Meta, and ex-OpenAI engineer and founder of the AI-powered podcast app Superphonic, Philip Su for a...
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The Founder's Hiring Playbook: 7 Steps to Building Your Dream Early-Team
Summary On this final episode of Season 2 of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger outline a comprehensive Hiring Playbook for founders building early-stage startups. They list seven critical steps to attract and hire top talent, emphasizing the importance of storytelling, leveraging...
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From YC and Beyond: Matrix Ventures GP Ilya Sukhar on Startups, Acquisitions, and Venture Capital
Summary On this episode of the 1st10 podcast, hosts Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger sit down with Ilya Sukhar, a seasoned entrepreneur, engineer, and venture capitalist. Ilya shares his journey from immigrating to the U.S. as a child to founding Parse, getting acquired by Facebook, and eventually...
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From Engineer to Leader: AngelList Lead Engineer Kevin Liu on Building, Managing, and Innovating in Startups
Summary On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, hosts Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger sit down with Kevin Liu, Engineering Lead at AngelList and a seasoned builder in the tech industry. Kevin shares his journey from being a fresh computer science graduate during the post-dot-com bust to becoming a...
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Pinterest First Front-End Engineer Josh Inkenbrandt on Building Teams and New Ventures
On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, hosts Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger sit down with Joshua Inkenbrandt, Pinterest's first frontend engineer and a seasoned builder. Josh shares his journey from being one of Pinterest's early engineers to transitioning into product management, and eventually...
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From Facebook to Formation: Sophie Novati on Building Formation and Empowering Engineers
On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger sit down with Sophie Z. Novati, founder and CEO of Formation.dev. Formation is a company dedicated to build a more equitable tech industries by helping underrepresented engineers reach their full potential. Sophie shares her...
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Lessons from Pinterest’s First Engineer: Yash Nelapati on Building, Scaling, and Trusting the Process
Summary On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, hosts Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger sit down with Yash Nelapati, Pinterest's first engineer and first-ever employee! Yash shares his journey from being a young engineer navigating the challenges of the 2008 recession to joining Pinterest in its...
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How Dropbox’s Recruiting Culture Shaped Gem’s Success: Steve Bartel’s Recruiting Playbook
On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, hosts Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger sit down with Steve Bartel, founder and CEO of Gem. Steve was employee no. 25 at Dropbox and went on to found Gem, a leading all-in-one recruiting platform. He offers valuable insights into building early-engineering…
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From Hedge Funds to Hard Tech: Ashley Pelzel, COO of Astro Mechanica Shares Lessons in Adaptation and Leadership
On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, hosts Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger sit down with Ashley Pelzel, COO of Astro Mechanica, to explore her unconventional career journey from Bridgewater Associates to joining a cutting-edge aerospace startup. Ashley shares her philosophy of embracing...
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The Quiet AI Revolution: Eddie Siegel, Fractional AI CTO talks about Solving Real Problems Behind the AI Hype
On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris and Alexis sit down with Eddie Siegel, the brilliant mind behind Fractional AI, to explore the realities of AI beyond the hype. Eddie shares his unique perspective on how AI is transforming industries, the importance of building strong engineering…
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From Mars to Startups: Sailesh Ramakrishnan's Journey in Engineering and Investment
On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger engage in a captivating conversation about the intricacies of building early engineering teams with Sailesh Ramakrishnan, the managing partner at Rocketship Ventures. They dig into the evolution of technology in startups and…
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Predictions for 2025: What Founders and Engineers Need to Know Before It's Too Late!
On this episode of the 1st10 podcast, hosts Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger share 5 predictions for the future of startups and technology as we begin 2025. They discuss the possibility of a financial boom, the transformative role of artificial intelligence, and the concept of American dynamism,...
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Tough Truths of Early-Stage Hiring: 6 Lessons From 2024
On the first episode of the second season of the 1st10 podcast, hosts Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger share valuable insights on the critical lessons they learned during the past year helping early-stage startups build early engineering teams. They discuss the challenges of attracting talent, the...
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#10, Tigran Sloyan, CodeSignal Founder: Looking Beyond The Resume To Decode The Startup Talent Dilemma
On this milestone tenth episode of the 1st10 Podcast, hosts Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger interview the founder and CEO of CodeSignal, Tigran Sloyan. They discuss Tigran's journey from Armenia, to MIT, to founding CodeSignal. Tigran also shares some incredible insights on identifying great…
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#9, Andrew Munn, Lindy.ai Software Leader: Insight Into the Risk and Reward of Early Stage Startups
On the ninth episode of the 1st10 Podcast, hosts Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger interview Andrew Munn, who's currently a senior engineering manager at Lindy.ai. Andrew shares some wonderful insights from his decade-long career in tech, spanning major companies like Facebook, Uber, and Nextdoor.…
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#8, Stripe Hiring Secrets, How Stripe Built its Early Team
On the eighth episode of 1st10 Podcast, hosts Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger explore how Stripe built its early engineering team. Using their combined two decades' worth of experience in recruiting engineers for various tech companies, Boris and Alexis list the key recruitment principles…
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#7, Kurtis Nusbaum, Sr Staff Engineer: Journey from Uber to Early Stage
On the seventh episode of the 1st10 Podcast, hosts Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger talk to Kurtis Nusbaum of Chronosphere. Kurtis is an experienced software engineer who recently transitioned from Uber to an early-stage startup. He shared some wonderful insights from his recent job search...
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#6, Hiring Trends in Building Early Engineering Teams
In this podcast episode, Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger discuss some recent trends in hiring for early-stage startups. The episode goes into details on a wide-variety of incredibly useful topics such as the rise of AI and how it impacts full-stack roles, interesting changes in interview…
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#5, Join The Perfect Early Startup, 7 Tips for Engineers Considering Early Startups
On today's episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger discuss 7 important tips for engineers considering a move to early-stage startups. Today's episode is full of insights accumulated by Boris and Alexis over their years of experience recruiting engineers for various tech...
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#4, Jono Spiro, Fractal Software Principal Engineer: Secrets to Hiring the Best Founding Engineers
On the fourth episode of the 1st10 Podcast, we are joined by Jono Spiro, the Principal Software Engineer for Fractal Software. Fractal is a unique venture studio that “provides ambitious entrepreneurs with the support, insights, and capital needed to build generational businesses.” Jono joined us...
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#3, The Art of Startup Recruiting: 7 Tips to Hire The Best Early-Engineers
On the third episode of 1st10 Podcast, hosts Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger draw from their experiences working with startups to come up with SEVEN simple tips for founders looking to build early-engineering teams. These tips cover a wide gamut of all things startup-related - ranging from...
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#2 Bobby DeSimone, Pomerium.io Founder: Building an Open and High Performing Startup Culture
On this episode of The 1st10 Podcast, Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger interview Bobby DeSimone, founder and CEO of Pomerium, an early startup building an open-source internal access control and security platform. Bobby shares insights on building and nurturing great engineering cultures, with a...
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#1 Prakash Janakiraman, Nextdoor Co-Founder, How to Design an Early Engineering Team
On the first-ever episode of The 1st10 Podcast, Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger interview Prakash Janakiraman, co-founder and former CTO of NextDoor. Prakash shares his experiences in the tech industry, focusing on the founding and growth of Nextdoor, the significance of building a strong and...
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Coming soon to your favorite podcast player - 1st10 Podcast!
Yeah, we know this is 30 seconds of silence but, believe me, we have a LOT to say! Follow this podcast and keep an eye out for our first episode featuring Prakash Janakiraman, the co-founder of Nextdoor, which drops in on 2nd August 2024!
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Welcome to 1st10 Podcast, where we dive deep into the world of building early engineering teams. Join us as we sit down with engineers, founders, and investors to uncover the strategies, challenges, and successes behind assembling and nurturing the foundational teams that drive innovation. Whether you're a startup enthusiast, a tech leader, or an aspiring entrepreneur, our conversations provide valuable insights and practical advice on crafting the perfect engineering team from the ground up. Tune in to learn from the best and get inspired to build your own successful early-stage team.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does 1st10 Podcast have?
1st10 Podcast currently has 49 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is 1st10 Podcast about?
Welcome to 1st10 Podcast, where we dive deep into the world of building early engineering teams. Join us as we sit down with engineers, founders, and investors to uncover the strategies, challenges, and successes behind assembling and nurturing the foundational teams that drive innovation. Whether...
How often does 1st10 Podcast release new episodes?
1st10 Podcast has 49 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to 1st10 Podcast?
You can listen to 1st10 Podcast on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts 1st10 Podcast?
1st10 Podcast is created and hosted by 1st10podcast.
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