S11 Bonus: Dr. Alex Kihm, POMA AI

S11 Bonus: Dr. Alex Kihm, POMA AI

Author: Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO August 28, 2025 Duration: 24:42
Alex Kihm just turned 40, and has been into computers for 36 years. He was given his first hand me down computer at the age of 4 by his parents, and also grew up with lego bricks and building things. He is an engineer by training, but eventually switched to econometrics on the big data side. Outside of his professional life, he is married and describes himself as water affectionate. He enjoys swimming, diving - and free diving. In fact, he studied diving during his semester abroad. His free diving is mainly a hobby, but he has deep respect for the professional free divers of the world. At his original startup, Alex started to dive into LLMs and immediately ran into RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation). When he observed the wrong information being returned, along with a ton of resource consumption in the process - IE cost - he set out to solve the problem, and figured out the solution was in the chunks. This is the creation story of POMA AI. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Behind every successful software product is a story, often untold, about the pivotal choices and challenges that shaped its journey. Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders brings those narratives to the forefront, hosted by Noah Labhart, a startup founder and CTO who understands the terrain. This podcast moves beyond theory to focus on the real-world experiences of SaaS founders, engineers, and product leaders. You'll hear firsthand accounts of building an initial MVP, the grind of securing those crucial first customers, and the delicate process of finding true product-market fit. Conversations delve into the technical and strategic crossroads that define early growth, from foundational engineering decisions and pricing experiments to the unforeseen infrastructure bottlenecks that emerge when scaling accelerates. It’s a resource for technical founders in the trenches, offering practical insights into navigating the complexities of building, launching, and growing a software business. Each episode of this podcast serves as a candid case study, revealing the lessons learned behind the code.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders
Podcast Episodes
S11 E20: Alex Halkin, Competera AI [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:59
Alex Halkin can't remember a time where he wasn't doing tech. Funny enough, he does remember a time before internet was common place. In 6th or 7th grade, he got a computer and immediately disassembled it. And eventually…
S11. Bonus: Harish Chandramowli, Flaire [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:24
Harish Chandramowli grew up in a small town in India. The goal was simple early on - study well, go to university, and get a job. After undergrad, he realized he can do so much more, eventually coming stateside to get hi…
S11 E19: Madhavan "Maddy" Malonan, Reclaim Protocol [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:22
Madhavan "Maddy" Malonan has always been in - and around - technology, and fell in love with building things early on. He got a video game console early on, and found it a little boring. BUT, when his Dad got a computer…
S11 Bonus: Chris Kline, BitcoinIRA [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 22:24
Chris Kline grew up in Aurora, Colorado, and went to school in Boulder to study finance and leadership. He has lived through several significant events that led him to take a risk, and spend some time in small business a…
S11 E18: Theodore Bergqvist, Turbotic [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 19:53
Theo Bergqvist is an entrepreneur who enjoys working a lot. He started his first venture in 1999 in the gaming industry, building Paradox, which is now listed on the Nasdaq. Of all his ventures, the common core to them a…
S11 E17: Jens Neuse, Wundergraph [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:59
Jens Neuse grew up in Germany, originally planning to be a carpenter. In his 2nd year as an apprentice, he was in a motorcycle wreck that thrust him into a process of surgery and healing. Eventually, he decided he wouldn…
S11 Bonus: Simon Ritter, Azul [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:09
Simon Ritter has been in the IT industry for 40 years. He went from university to work on Unix in the early days, employed by AT&T and programming in the C language. In 1996, he switched gears to join Sun Microsystems, p…
S11 E16: Adam Cohen, Weave [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 16:36
Adam Cohen grew up in Toronto, in North York. He showed early signs of entrepreneurship by putting his lemonade stand on a wagon, and taking it door to door - or hustling his friends to buy souvenirs on a school field tr…
S11 Bonus: Alan Fisher, KinetiX at Wabtec Corporation [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:20
Alan Fisher started his career as a computer programmer. Early on, he was hired by the 1st or 2nd largest freight railroad in the world, Union Pacific. He describes their technology group as having a punk rock spirit, le…