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Developer on Fire

Episode 293 | Debo Olaosebikan - Serving Billions

Dec 7 '17

Guest:

Debo Olaosebikan

Debo Olaosebikan talks with Dave Rael about shooting for the stars, lessons from physics, learning from mistakes, thinking positively, and delivering solutions

Debo Olaosebikan is the CTO and co-founder of Gigster. He worked formerly at IBM where he worked on theoretical/computational frameworks for analyzing experimentally observed transitions in spin transfer devices in collaboration with Yaroslaw Bazaliy and Barbara Jones He has a Ph.D. and Masters from Cornell where he worked on building world's first electrically activated silicon laser. Hme went from Nigerian rapper to co-founder of high flying Silicon Valley startup in just three short years and was a part of the Y-combinator class of 2015.

Chapters:

2:01 - Dave introduces the show and Debo Olaosebikan
4:56 - Sources of Debo's lofty goals
9:22 - Physics in Nigeria and Debo's scientific origin
12:57 - Debo, the poet and musician
19:03 - The intent and implementation of Gigster
23:12 - Gigster and dealing with uncertainty and innovative ways of using data to manage risk
28:15 - Debo's role as Gigster
28:53 - The impact of building technology
31:39 - Roles in creation and the importance of authenticity
34:44 - Debo's story of failure - going too general in building a network
39:51 - Debo's book recommendation
42:17 - How Debo stays current with what he needs to know
43:45 - Debo's top 3 tips for delivering more value
47:47 - Keeping up with Debo

Resources:

Debo's book recommendation:

Debo's top 3 tips for delivering more value:

Have an attitude of anything is possible and start from a positive lens
Think before you build
Work backward from the impact you want to make