ExtraHop’s Jesse Rothstein: You judge a leader by the team they’ve built

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ExtraHop CEO Jesse Rothstein wants to help the folks who “keep the lights on” in your IT department spend more time innovating. The Seattle startup, backed by Madrona Venture Group, Meritech Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, is developing a platform for enterprise IT organizations to manage applications in complex technology systems. What does that mean for… Read More…

Big Fish CEO Paul Thelen: ‘I’m an idea guy and that can be dangerous as a CEO’

Big Fish Games CEO Paul Thelen at Casual Connect

Big Fish founder Paul Thelen didn’t think he’d become a technology CEO. But after an illness brought his life into sharp focus, Thelen decided to quit his job at RealNetworks and start Big Fish. The 11-year-old company now employs 700, and is making a big push into mobile and cloud-based gaming. In 2011, it posted… Read More…

Startup junkie Kyle Kesterson on how he mashes creative design with technology

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Freak’n Genius co-founder Kyle Kesterson is a creative guy. After quitting his job as a professional toy designer, he got a call from a friend inviting him to Startup Weekend. Though he initially dismissed it as too “geeky,” his friend wouldn’t let it go. The next morning, Kyle found himself surrounded by entrepreneurs, bitten by… Read More…

Q&A: Clipboard CEO Gary Flake on breaking down data silos

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Clipboard founder Gary Flake and his team are developing a new way for consumers to save information that they discover on the web. Find out what this former machine learning researcher-turned-CEO has to say about building a business, running the startup marathon, and how they are trying to break down the data silos created by… Read More…

DailyCred’s Dave Matthews on the power of simple sign-ins

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DailyCred co-founder Dave Mathews wants to solve really big problems. The latest Internet foe he’s facing off against: The user login field on your website. Website owners are spending time and energy creating sign-in fields, but none of that work “computes back to the core product,” Matthews says. “That’s not why someone came to your website.”… Read More…

Q&A: Chao Zhang explains how humans will interact with computers in the future

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Chao Zhang has followed technology around the world — from China to Germany and finally to Seattle, where he joined the Microsoft Accelerator for Kinect to help launch his company, UBI Interactive. What’s next? Touch screens on any surface and exploring the future of human computer interaction. Find out more about how Zhang sees this new… Read More…

Q&A: OfferUp’s Nick Huzar on startup lessons from facing off with a rhino

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OfferUp CEO Nick Huzar knows you have a bunch of stuff in your garage, and he wants to help you sell it. With a history in startups and a passion for solving big problems, Nick shares his ideas on simplicity and “the rhino principle” on the latest episode of Nextcast. “I like to build and… Read More…

Q&A: Gatherball’s Paul Watts on how his startup survived a big pivot

Nextcast's Jeff Dickey interviews Paul Watts of Gatherball

Gatherball co-founder Paul Watts has hung around startups for a long time, working as a software engineer at companies like WildTangent and WildSeed. And yet he still says there’s no feeling like having people wanting to provide a hug for the software that you create. “That’s what drives me every day,” says Watts. In the latest… Read More…

Q&A with Contour’s Marc Barros: The best entrepreneurs have a ‘gut instinct’

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“I was supposed to be an accountant,” says Marc Barros, who’s now the co-founder and CEO of Contour, one of the fastest-growing technology companies in the Pacific Northwest. The former University of Washington soccer player set out to solve a simple problem — find a way to shoot high-quality video while skiing. From that simple idea,… Read More…

Q&A: Social media maven Jenni Hogan on reshaping the TV news business

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Jenni Hogan wants to change the way you interact with news — and the way it interacts with you. With a vision for connectivity, communication, and entrepreneurship — not to mention more than 50,000 Twitter followers — the traffic reporter and Social7 creator is working with her KIRO news team to evolve the conversation between… Read More…