This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey to make complex code understandable for business leaders. My guest is Matt Van Itallie, Founder and CEO of Sema.

Matt has a diverse background spanning law, consulting, education, and tech, and he has held leadership roles at edtech and govtech companies like Social Solutions, and PeopleAdmin.

He earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School after studying history at Swarthmore College. He's also a thought leader on the impact and responsible adoption of AI in the tech industry. This multidisciplinary experience gives him a unique perspective as a tech founder and CEO.

In September 2017, he founded Sema, a codebase scanning tool.

Their mission: to bridge the gap between the technical and non-technical worlds, particularly in the context of software development.

And this inspired me, and hence I invited Matt to my podcast. We explore how most tech organizations carry more debt in their codebase - and the business risks that brings. Matt shares his vision of how to solve this - in a world where AI-generated code and Open Source are rapidly gaining popularity. He discusses the learning process he had as a founder in creating a singular, non-consensus vision for the company - and how their unusual approach upfront helped them gain deep differentiation and first-mover advantage.

Here's one of his quotes

What I know now that I didn't know as a baby entrepreneur was there are so many different versions of 'No,' except 'Here is some money.' Everything else is 'No'

"I love it. So interesting. I can really see this helping. This is a pain point. Yes, I want to pilot Yes, I want to tell my friends." That's all No. It's all versions of No, except "here is some money."

During this interview, you will learn four things:

1. How he uncovered a new, totally overlooked, target market where his product quickly became mission-critical, rather than a nice-to-have. 2. Why he's prioritizing building trust-based relationships with key players in the industry and how he's achieving this. 3. What he's doing differently around creating a team that is more than the sum of its parts. 4. His recommendations on choosing your business model wisely.

For more information about the guest from this week:

Matt Van Itallie • Website: Sema