Angelneers: Insights From Startup Builders

Lessons from Two Decades of Digital Transformation in FSI with Yakov Kofner of C-Suite Counsel

Our guest in this episode is Yakov Kofner, founder of C-Suite Counsel and publisher of FSI Digital Transformation Weekly. Yakov brings over two decades of hands-on experience in digital transformation across the financial services and insurance sectors. His background spans leadership roles at Gartner, Oliver Wyman, MasterCard, Bridgewater Associates, American Express, and McKinsey, as well as deep involvement in startups, operational leadership, and strategic advisory. In this conversation, we examine the key lessons Yakov has drawn from driving and advising on digital transformation initiatives—focusing on what has enabled lasting change, where transformation efforts commonly stall, and how financial institutions can better align innovation with business outcomes.

https://csuitecounsel.com/

https://fsidigitalweekly.substack.com/

Technical Debt Dumpster Fire with Yuri Kolesnikov

If your organization is burdened with technical debt, it’s not a matter of if something will go wrong—it’s a matter of when. In this episode, we sit down with Yuri Kolesnikov to explore one of the most persistent and often overlooked challenges in the tech industry. From fast-moving startups to well-established enterprises, technical debt can slow progress, increase costs, and undermine product quality.

Yuri shares his insights on the root causes of technical debt, the impact it has on teams and systems, and practical strategies for managing, mitigating, and preventing it. With deep experience building scalable, resilient architectures from the ground up, Yuri brings a wealth of real-world knowledge to the conversation. Most recently, he served as Head of IT at Skydio, the leading U.S. drone manufacturer and a global pioneer in autonomous flight.

Whether you're a startup founder, engineering leader, or just curious about how to build for long-term success, this is a conversation you won't want to miss.

Transforming Cyber Defense with Human-AI Partnership with William MacMillan of Andesite

The future of cybersecurity isn't about better technology alone—it's about reimagining how humans and machines work together. In this episode, we're discussing with William MacMillan the potential of the human-AI partnership to transform defense against increasingly sophisticated modern cyber threats. William is a Chief Product Officer at Andesite, a cybersecurity company dedicated to delivering cutting-edge technology to overburdened cybersecurity teams.

 

https://www.linkedin.com/company/andesiteai/

thisishowtheytellmetheworldends.com/

An Entirely New Way of Building with Yan Grinshtein of Nsight

A crippling decision-making gridlock that paralyzes companies when they need to move fast remains a constant challenge. As teams strive to create products people love—solving real-world problems—they are constantly hampered by conflicting priorities, limited resources, and a lack of clarity on what matters. Whether it's roadmap planning, backlog grooming, or deciding which features to prioritize, this indecision eats away at time, money, and, most critically, momentum.

In this episode, we've invited Yan Grinshtein to discuss the realities of building a startup and leveraging design partnerships to improve the odds of crossing the proverbial chasm. Yan is the founder of Nsight Intelligence Corp. which addresses the problem of fragmented and time-consuming decision-making and prioritization processes in data-rich environments for design and product teams. Specifically, they solve the following challenges: Data Overload, Data & Analytics Disconnect, Inefficient Task Management, Predictive Insights, Productivity Bottlenecks, and Inconsistent Prioritization.

 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nsightapp/

Yan's wWebsite: https://www.yangrinshtein.com/

Yan's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yangrinshtein/

Accelerating Startups with Embedded Recruiting with Tiffany Sieber

Hiring the right people is critical for startup growth. While startups often don't have resources to leverage internal recruiters, an alternative way could help solve that challenge.  In this episode, we invited Tiffany Sieber to discuss how startups can benefit from high-touch embedded recruiting.  Tiffany founded Embedded Recruiting which helps startups scale with full-cycle marketing, recruitment, and executive performance coaching.

The Copilot for Your Documentation with Puneet Arora of Ekline

External documentation is key to making products easy to use, but we’re always way behind in creating it. So can AI replace the need to create documentation altogether? In this episode, Puneet Arora joins us in exploring the future of product and user documentation in the age of AI. Puneet is an expert in building large-scale, user-facing, data-intensive systems. Most recently, he founded Ekline, an NLP-powered platform for automated content optimization and standardization.

AI: The Evolution of Precision, or How We All Went Down the Wrong Path with Dr. Alex Kostikov

In this episode, we are excited to bring on Dr. Kostikov, a doctor in neurophysiology and an independent researcher, to discuss one of his recent articles on the evolution of AI and particularly how we went down the wrong path.  Dr. Kostikov has spent the last 30 years developing the concept of individual AI based on the integration of the human brain and computer system into a single functional complex using a scanning-type brain-computer interface.  His concept of individual AI is based on the hypothesis of the existence of a dual system of initiation of nerve impulses in the synapses of the human neocortex and the dynamic concept of quantum spin in a new relativistic or high-speed model of our three-dimensional space.

https://bdtechtalks.com/2023/01/06/ai-evolution/

 

A Powerful Backend for No-Code Apps with Prakash Chandran of Xano

We live in a world where organizations are constrained by engineering resources and outsourcing is increasingly not viable. This has led to more product owners turning to no-code to build the software they need.

In this episode, we are excited to bring on Prakash Chandran to talk about what enterprise-grade no-code should look like. Prakash is a co-founder and CEO of Xano, a low-code platform for anyone looking to develop a backend for their no-code application quickly and efficiently. This trusted scalable backend for the no-code community passes the strict enterprise security and compliance requirements handling millions of API requests and processing millions of transactions in over 84 countries each day. 

 

https://www.xano.com/blog/

RadioMD.com

Creating Audio and Video in the Age of AI with Jay LeBoeuf from Descript

We’re on the verge of a generational change in the way we create content — fueled by AI.  In this episode, we are excited to bring Jay LeBoeuf on to talk about how AI will transform the entire field of audio and video production.  Jay is the Head Of Business & Corporate Development at Descript, an audio and video editing platform that uses “voice cloning” technology.  He lectures on media technology and business at Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Michigan.  Jay was featured as a Bloomberg Businessweek Innovator, and interviewed by 60 Minutes, Forbes, Billboard, and on Alec Baldwin's podcast.

 

X

Meta

Medium

Building the Platform for Emotional AI with Ryan Benmalek from Daimon Labs

One thing that some are betting on is that emotions and emotional intelligence is something that's very different than what everyone else is doing right now with AI.  We are excited to bring Ryan Benmalek on to talk about the rise of emotional AI and how machines are learning to understand and respond to human emotions.  Ryan is a co-founder and CEO of Daimon Labs, a partially remote, partially NYC-based team from the top AI research labs like Google Brain, Microsoft Research, and FAIR.  They are innovating a new type of language model that provides human-like empathy and companionship.

 

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Blog: 1–7x Consumer GPU Scaling for Large Language Modeling Experiments

LinkedIn: The Rise of Emotional AI: How Machines Are Learning to Understand and Respond to Human Emotions