Brian Pontarelli talks with Dave Rael about doing both business and software, appealing to people, extroversion, and doing what is needed
Brian Pontarelli is founder and CEO of FusionAuth, a Denver-based software company that provides a free identity management platform. Brian start programming at 8 on an Apple 2e using Apple Basic. He taught himself Pascal, Assembler and C during middle and high school. Initially thinking that he had enough programming for a while, we started studying electrical engineering at the University of Colorado, only to quickly realize that differential equations and circuits gave him recurring heartburn. He switched to electrical and computer engineering midway through and started helping teachers review books, teach classes and tutor students. After college, Brian coded at various companies including XOR, US Freightways, BEA, and Orbitz. Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs, Brian always knew he would start his own company. In 2007, Brian quit his day job and took the plunge into starting a software company. Outside of work, Brian is an author and a regular speaker at numerous conferences and meetups.
Chapters:
0:32 - Dave introduces the show and Brian Pontarelli3:13 - How Brian got started in software7:22 - FusoinAuth and what Brian is trying to do11:55 - Origins of the idea of FusionAuth13:30 - Becoming an entrepreneur17:24 - Brian's story of failure - scaling up an organization without the need to do so20:52 - Balancing writing software and running a business24:32 - Teaching, communicating, speaking, and writing28:48 - Living in the Denver area30:33 - Brian's book recommendation32:46 - How Brian stays current with what he needs to know34:28 - The importance of emotional response37:45 - The things that have Brian most excited44:03 - Brian's top 3 tips for delivering more value45:55 - Keeping up with Brian
Resources:
FustionAuth
Brian on LinkedIn
The Story of Elasticsearch
Guide to User Data Security - Brian Pontarelli
Fortress of Solitude
Google Alerts
Apple News
Josh Holmes on Developer On Fire
Kotlin
JetBrains
IntelliJ IDEA
Brian's book recommendation:
DAEMON (Daemon Series) - Daniel Suarez
Programming Kotlin: Create Elegant, Expressive, and Performant JVM and Android Applications - Venkat Subramaniam
Brian's top 3 tips for delivering more value:
Think about your users
Stop thinking about code so much
Have fun