automation
(203)
Dean Benson and the habit of changing the game
A childhood tweak to Pong became a career in building things that work differently. From Visualsoft to student scholarships and a fresh round of automation, Dean Benson keeps returning to the same question: what could work better?
Mikko Tamminen and the Business of Getting Out of the Way
He built Taskeater around the work other companies needed off their desks. As Quantanite’s founder and chairman, Mikko Tamminen has had to make room for a successor, for software, and for ambitions beyond the office.
Shamira Jaffer and the business of getting time back
An early touchscreen kiosk gave Shamira Jaffer an idea. Building Signifi meant learning how to move quickly, sell across borders, and wait for a market that took years to catch up.
Andrew Hider and the problem with being right
He learned that a good answer can still leave a team behind. After eight years running ATS, Andrew Hider has brought that lesson - and a factory-floor approach to change - to Baxter.
Jim Fish and the education of a 2 a.m. executive
An accountant learned the waste business by showing up before dawn. As Jim Fish prepares to leave WM, his career asks a practical question: what does putting people first look like when the machines arrive?
Lars Sneftrup Pedersen and the art of removing a step
Six installation disks gave Lars Sneftrup Pedersen a problem worth solving. Decades later, the Admin By Request founder is still working on the same bargain: tighter control, less fuss.
Jordan Nemrow and the trouble with a good idea
A music startup taught Jordan Nemrow the cost of building before listening. At Woflow, he turned his attention to the work people were already tired of doing.
Lior Pozin wanted a phone. He found a business.
A $40 sale sent Lior Pozin into online retail. The more interesting discovery came later: the software he wrote to escape the daily work was a business of its own.
Sectigo and the disappearing deadline
The internet runs on credentials with an expiry date. Sectigo is betting that keeping them alive will matter more than selling them one at a time.
Randall Lipps and the education of an impatient observer
Before Omnicell, Randall Lipps learned to count the wasted minutes at an airline. Building his own company taught him how much else an inventor has to learn.
Dickey Singh’s theory of the twenty cooks
A tortilla machine, an unread dashboard, and a very specific ambition: to be useful. The Cast.app co-founder has spent his career asking what software can take off someone else’s plate.
Babu Sivadasan and the long way home
He built software in California and kept making room for a team in Kerala. Now the JIFFY.ai co-founder is asking what artificial intelligence can do for advisors - and for the people whose work it changes.
Scott Sperling and the advantage of a smaller stage
He promoted concerts at Purdue, helped invest Harvard’s endowment, and joined THL in 1994. Scott Sperling’s career now turns on a question familiar to anyone booking a show: how much room do you really need?
Blip puts business on the other end of “hello.”
A Brazilian company built its future around a familiar habit: sending a message. The hard part was getting the business on the other end to remember, respond and finish the job.
Sigma Design makes the parts between the breakthroughs
A running rig, 58 wiring harnesses, and a factory retrofit reveal what this Washington engineering firm sells: fewer gaps between an idea and a working product.
Andrew Joiner Has Spent 25 Years Teaching Machines to Read the Mess
Before enterprise AI had a fashionable name, Andrew Joiner was sorting the unruly information it depends on. His career, from a Wall Street-inspired startup to Hyperscience, is a long argument that the future begins with getting the paperwork right.
HGS wants AI to earn its keep
After a $1.2 billion healthcare divestment, HGS is building its next chapter around technology that does the work. The revealing details are in the queues, case files and calls it helps companies handle.
Bryan Urioste Keeps Marketing’s Wild Ideas on a Short Financial Leash
The Redwood Software CMO has spent three decades joining creative nerve to commercial proof - from an irreverent SXSW campaign to a Thursday ritual built around the pipeline.
Janette Hausler Keeps Asking What the Work Is For
From candy campaigns to cloud platforms to AI workflows, Rewst's chief marketing officer has built a career around the seams between people, partners and technology - and the useful work that appears when those seams disappear.
BJ Dodenbier Is Still Climbing
A zombie film, a career in marketing systems, and a 13,528-foot reset: the former Aequor CMO has spent years turning messy journeys into stories people can follow. Now the next journey is his own.
Anubhav Saxena Is Teaching AI to Look Up From the Chatbox
After two decades spent automating work, the Chooch CEO is betting that AI's next useful trick is not better conversation. It is sight - deployed where shelves empty, machines fail and cameras never blink.
Anshul Paul Is Building the Map Before the Automation
Before companies can automate the work, someone has to notice where the work actually goes. The BaseFrame co-founder has spent his young career making invisible workflows visible - from phone calls and freight operations to the busywork hiding on an employee’s computer.
Amiad Soto Started With Cleaning Supplies. Now He Is Automating the Messy Middle of Travel
Guesty began with two opinionated twins, a beach interrupted by guest messages, and a pair of founders holding cleaning supplies. Thirteen years later, Amiad Soto is still chasing the same idea: make the invisible work of hospitality disappear.
François Séguin Is Building the Factory Behind the Thermostat
The products promise comfort. François Séguin's job is to make the machinery, data and people behind that promise work at industrial scale - from a Saint-Bruno factory floor to a 17-site North American manufacturing network.
The Quiet War To Turn Your Documents Into Software
Coda, Notion, and Airtable all sell the same dream - one place to write, plan, and run your team. Look closer and they are three very different bets on what a document is even supposed to be.
85% of Your Customers Still Want a Human. Draw the Matrix.
The automate-everything camp and the automate-nothing camp are both wrong, and most teams have no framework for deciding. The fix isn't a philosophy — it's a matrix: volume against emotional stakes, frequency against how much context a resolution needs.
Akshay Dodeja Is Making the Shipping Container Legible
A failed trucking prototype gave Akshay Dodeja a better problem: the scattered, stubborn data behind global trade. Terminal49 is his long campaign to turn that mess into software people can act on.
The 23-Year-Old Company Wiring AI Into Enterprise Plumbing
Jade Global built its business in the unglamorous gaps between enterprise systems. Now it is turning that integration muscle into AI agents, data-readiness tools, and managed operations for companies that cannot afford a messy handoff.
The Quiet Machine Room Behind Wall Street's Trades and Your Favorite Brand's Homepage
Two Wharton classmates started a "virtual" outsourcing shop in a small South Mumbai office in 2000. Twenty-five years later, eClerx settles trades, cleans data, and builds e-commerce pages for the Fortune 500 - and is betting its next chapter on AI that reshapes work instead of replacing people.
The Firm Buying Back America's Factory Floor - Then Handing It to the Workers
Two brothers watched private equity buy their father's factory and shut it down. Their answer was to build a manufacturing group that ends with the employees owning the whole thing.