1st10 Podcast

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.

1st10 Podcast is a technology podcast hosted by 1st10podcast, with 42 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

1st10podcast hosts 1st10 Podcast, a technology show with 42 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #9

  AI Is Making Top Performers MORE Overworked, Not Less! | Ex-Amazon VP Ethan Evans

  Aug 11, 202652 minS4

  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, and career growth and how it may all be backwards. Ethan spent over 15 years at Amazon - rising from engineering manager to VP, launching Prime Video, the Amazon AppStore, and Prime Gaming. He retired in 2020 to coach the next generation of leaders through his "Level Up" community. Tune in to hear them discuss:The Illusion of Efficiency: The assumption that AI-driven productivity means fewer managers has run headfirst into a very different realityThe New Fiefdom Bottleneck: AI has accelerated individual productivity but ONE bottleneck is choking the market agility of AI tools.The "Reverse Centaur" Danger: Artificial intelligence is leaving top-tier ICs feeling overworked rather than liberated. Riding the Wrong Tide: A blunt, numbers-based question Ethan uses to tell people whether it's time to leave their companyThe Coming Cleansing: One of AI's longest-standing believers still thinks "Winter is coming..."Ethan spent fifteen years riding a wave that lifted an entire generation of Amazon careers along with his own. Now he's doing the math, out loud, for anyone still waiting for the water to rise again. Whether you're an engineer, founder, hiring manager or executive navigating the AI era, Ethan's sharp insights are definitely the candid look you need into where technology careers (and the companies behind them) may be heading next.Chapters00:00 Preview: A Prediction That Challenges AI00:51 Introducing Ethan Evans04:04 A Blind Job Offer That 'Unboxed' Amazon08:12 Amazon's 700 VPs (Who Are Actually CEOs)10:08 "Terminal Status" Versus The "Climbers"13:28 Amazon vs Startups - Hack vs Hustle18:18 Amazon Has Always Been "Relentless"23:50 Is AI Killing The Management Career?27:57 The 24/7 Assembly Line In The New Age31:39 FAANG Employee? Play This Chapter NOW!34:52 Teams of 90 People - Teams of 90 Agents39:29 Is This an AI Bubble?43:13 Who Will Win the AI Revolution?45:23 A Simple Math to Help Plan Your Exit49:21 "Winter Is Definitely Coming BUT..."50:55 Connect With Ethan EvansQuotes:"If one worker now does the work of ten... great! But you have to organize 10 times as much work!" - Ethan Evans (26:22)"The current belief, at least for many mid-to-senior level ICs, is AI has made them more productive, but also more overworked." - Ethan Evans (29:15)"I'm relatively negative on the same large corporations that, frankly, made me successful and wealthy. I'm rooting for those companies because I own their stock, but I'm actually like in this podcast talking myself into some selling!" - Ethan Evans (32:41)"Many of the big companies are in trouble. They are in the IBM position and it's going to be very hard to be nimble into the future." - Ethan Evans (41:22)"Waves sweep deadwood into shore. It's what they do! And I'm not saying be deadwood. I am saying at least be a surfer or a swimmer." - Ethan Evans (48:43)Follow:Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/1st10podcast Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7e8ec9af-f38c-4cd9-8c68-1c1dd4516b 27/1st10-podcastApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1st10-podcast/id1760411207 Podcast: https://www.1st10.com/podcast RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f951319c/podcast/rss YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@1st10podcast Links:Ethan Evans on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/Website: https://www.ethanevans.com/Newsletter: https://levelupwithethanevans.substack.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EthanEvansVPEthan Evans AI Announcement Post: https://levelupwithethanevans.substack.com/p/announcing-ethan-evans-aiMusic by Roman Senyk from PixabayProducer: Shrikant Joshi

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  Episode #8

  Inside OpenAI, Google Gemini & the Next AI Gold Rush With Google DeepMind's Logan Kilpatrick

  Jul 28, 202642 minS4

  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 epicenter of the Generative AI revolution. Logan Kilpatrick has helped shape the AI tools that millions of developers use every day. And he thinks most founders are thinking about competition completely wrong. Now leading Gemini AI Studio, the Gemini API, and Kaggle as part of Google DeepMind, Logan breaks down why the ground shifting beneath our feet creates unprecedented opportunities for early-stage founders. Tune in to hear them talk about:The Big Lab Paradox: Why competing against elite AI frontier labs is much easier than it appears.The Understanding Boundary: The critical cognitive boundary you shouldn't let AI coding assistants cross.Accidental Research: Everyday software tinkering could be accidental cutting-edge research exploration.An Underdog Story: Logan's "mind-bending" decision to choose Google at the height of OpenAI's momentumPrompting vs Understanding: The difference that will separate good engineers from the great ones.Abundance to Exits: Why AI-powered software creation will unlock a 1000x explosion of new markets and massive startup exits.AI labs may be building the future - but Logan Kilpatrick genuinely believes the biggest winners will be the founders who build on top of them!Chapters00:00 Preview Of The Episode00:48 Introducing Logan Kilpatrick01:52 AI & The 4-Day Work Week Hypothesis 04:09 Why Is Staying On The Frontier SO Hard?*06:22 The Habit That Keeps Logan Ahead of AI09:19 From Apple to OpenAI, via PathAI14:45 Being Inside The Room When ChatGPT Exploded17:04 How to Pick the Right Startup 20:48 What DevRel @ OpenAI Really Looks Like23:10 Should Founders Fear OpenAI and Google?23:56 Competing With Trillion-Dollar AI Labs28:39 Why Logan Left OpenAI for the "Underdog" Google31:43 Inside Google DeepMind's AI Culture36:07 What A Successful Developer Looks Like Today38:38 Logan's Bold Prediction for 202640:12 What To Say When You Connect With LoganQuotes:"I have a hypothesis that actually if everyone was only working four days a week, we would probably have greater AI adoption in the world." - Logan Kilpatrick (02:17)"The delta between engineering work, product work, and research discovery is actually very blurry." - Logan Kilpatrick (04:23)"I'd be really excited to go build a coding startup right now." - Logan Kilpatrick (25:26)"You can outsource intelligence, but you can't outsource your understanding." - Logan Kilpatrick, quoting Andrej Karpathy (36:42)"It's not like, 'Software creating is solved and thus there's no opportunity anymore!' It's actually like, 'Software creating is solved and thus there's a 1000x more opportunity than it was before!'" - Logan Kilpatrick (39:18)Follow:Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/1st10podcast Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7e8ec9af-f38c-4cd9-8c68-1c1dd4516b 27/1st10-podcastApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1st10-podcast/id1760411207 Podcast: https://www.1st10.com/podcast RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f951319c/podcast/rss YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@1st10podcast Links:Logan Kilpatrick on:- LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/logankilpatrick/- Twitter/X: https://x.com/officiallogank- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Kilpatrick- GitHub: https://github.com/logankilpatrickMusic by Roman Senyk from PixabayProducer: Shrikant Joshi

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  Episode #7

  OpenAI Backed These Founders Before They Were Old Enough to Buy a Beer

  Jun 19, 202647 minS4

  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 Salavath, the prodigy co-founders of Tacit Intelligence, a stealth AI startup backed by Entrepreneurs First, Berkeley Skydeck, and the OpenAI Startup Accelerator. Tune in to hear them talk about:Alkis' opinion on critical difference between "doing a startup" and "starting a company".Shashi's theory for how he decides which work is worth doing which has nothing to do with salary or prestige.A refreshingly unique (and surprisingly mature) way to think about using AI in your codebase from two young builders.Their mutually-agreed take on why founders should never be in a hurry to hire a salesperson.A framework for thinking about startup valuations or "the Collapse of Terminal Value" as Alkis calls it!A mutually-shared deep optimism about what AI unlocks for human creativity and job creation.From winning national Economics Olympiads and publishing clinical AI research as teenagers, to dropping out of school to build in the relentless San Francisco startup ecosystem, Alkis and Shashi share what it truly takes to pursue outlier greatness.Chapters00:00 Preview: Three Lines That Set the Tone00:48 Introductions and ice-breakers04:03 Alkis and Shashi's Origin Stories 09:26 Of Battery Drain and Michael Jordan14:19 Managing Family Fear and Financial Realities17:32 Joining an Accelerator vs. Going It Alone22:09 The Accelerator Timeline29:16 "Collapse of Terminal Value"32:56 What Is Tacit Intelligence?36:23 When Do They Start Hiring?39:14 On Being AI-Pilled 41:23 Bold Predictions for 2026 43:51 How to Get in Touch with Alkis & ShashiQuotes:"You drain your battery every single day when you're doing a startup!" - Shashi Salavath (09:59)"TL;DR, the reason I'm doing it is for the pursuit of greatness." - Shashi Salavath (10:44)"A very, very small subset of people have the confidence and the delusion - the early-stage delusion - to take the risk to start a company." - Alkis Toutziaridis (13:26)"If we're Mr. Robot, huddled in a corner, hoodies on, just like coding 24/7... there is a mental aspect that needs to be serviced to make this successful." - Shashi Salavath (21:05)"If you're a founder and you can't sell your own product - or you don't learn what's your go-to-market motion and structure - then who's going to do it?" - Alkis Toutziaridis (37:15)"We don't outsource any of our thinking to AI. None of it. We outsource 0% of our thinking to AI." - Shashi Salavath (39:46)Follow:Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/1st10podcast Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7e8ec9af-f38c-4cd9-8c68-1c1dd4516b 27/1st10-podcastApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1st10-podcast/id1760411207 Podcast: https://www.1st10.com/podcast RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f951319c/podcast/rss YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@1st10podcast Links:Alkis Toutziaridis on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alkistoutzi/Shashi salavath on LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/shashi-salavath/Tacit Intelligence: https://www.tacitintelligence.ai/Music by Roman Senyk from PixabayProducer: Shrikant Joshi

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  Episode #6

  The Founder's Guide to Hiring World-Class Engineers l Boris Epstein

  Jun 9, 202645 minS4

  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 version of Tech Recruiting viz., recruiting for early-stage startups. Tune in to hear Boris share super-valuable insights from the world of early-stage recruiting such as:Why most recruiting firms are optimizing for the wrong thing entirelyWhy the ceiling on the quality of your team is set well before your first engineering hire.Why founders consistently lose top candidates at the offer stage.Why it's a HUGE mistake to rely on the most popular industry compensation databases.What makes early-stage hiring SO "ridiculously hard".What *actually* makes a founder attractive to top engineering talentAlong the way, Boris shares a VERY uncomfortable truth about startups and founders that reveals why the ultimate ceiling of any startup is a very specific skill possessed by its leadership - tune in to find out!Chapters00:00 Episode Preview 00:42 Starting a Recruiting Firm After the Dot-Com Bust02:04 Dropping Recruiting SWAT Teams into Pinterest & Airbnb04:53 The Decision To Walk Away...07:09 The 1st10 Origin Story10:01 How 1st10 Decides Who They Work With11:53 Embedded & Retained Recruiting16:21 5 Startups From The 1st10 Portfolio22:53 "Talent Magnet" Founders And Their Blueprint25:56 3 Recruiting Mistakes Made by Startup Founders32:10 Why IS Early-Stage Hiring "Ridiculously Hard"? 36:32 3 Values That Define How 1st10 Operates39:56 The Truth of Truths For ALL Startup Founders41:28 A 30-Year Vision for the Next Tech Renaissance43:41 Contact Details & ConclusionQuotes:"I watched Stripe go from these two founders building this early team, to now where they're one of the most-storied technology companies in Silicon Valley worth $50 or $100 billion right now. And it all started from the ambition of the founder, the recruiting ability of the founder, and the talent-dense team that they built." - Boris Epstein (09:00)"We've made the decision to work with a fewer number of startups at a deeper level than working with a broader number of startups at a more superficial level. I believe one of the problems with recruiting is that they optimize for the latter." - Boris Epstein (11:53)"You have to be THE ONE for these candidates to want to join you! Not the 'one of many', not 'the ones building in this space'... You have to be THE ONE!" - Boris Epstein (30:19)"The startup's ceiling - from a talent perspective - is the recruiting abilities of the founder." - Boris Epstein (38:04)"Not AI, not technology, not executive assistance, not even third party recruiters - NOTHING will replace the founder's need to invest at that level. And the founders who invest at that level are the ones who build the standout teams." - Boris Epstein (40:42)Follow:Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/1st10podcast Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7e8ec9af-f38c-4cd9-8c68-1c1dd4516b 27/1st10-podcastApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1st10-podcast/id1760411207 Podcast: https://www.1st10.com/podcast RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f951319c/podcast/rss YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@1st10podcast Links:Boris Epstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/borisepstein/Contact Form: - Founders: https://www.1st10.com/wt-founders- Engineers: https://www.1st10.com/wt-engineersEpisodes Referenced:Alice Zhang - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcejiN-6JOAAshley Pelzel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hyOIi8h95cShashank Chiranewala - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwDaut7XGHcMusic by Roman Senyk from PixabayProducer: Shrikant Joshi

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  Episode #5

  Agentic AI is Why the Best Engineers Are 10x More Productive | Peter Terrill, Grounded Agents

  May 18, 202637 minS4

  <p>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 "agentic software" in 2026. Peter systematically breaks down the transition from "words-to-JSON" software into fully semantic systems where both the input and the application itself are powered by LLMs and shares his opinion on why the industry may still be underestimating what AI agents can actually do.Tune in to hear them talk...

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