From Devs, to VPs, to Co-Founders: 10Xing a Startup 5,000 Miles Apart

**Conor Bronsdon** (0:00)
Hi, I'm Conor Bronsdon, your guest host for today's Dev Interrupted.
Usually, I'm behind the soundboard, producing the podcast, but I managed to convince our host, Dan Lines, to come on with his co-founder, Ori Keren, to answer some questions about their own journey to creating a startup that grew tenfold in 2021 We had an incredible conversation about the lessons these two co-founders have used to create LinearB while being 5,000 miles away from each other, with Dan in Los Angeles and Ori in Tel Aviv. They talk about their experience of helping build Cloudlock, what that company's $300 million acquisition taught them about what they did and didn't want from their careers, and how to build a cohesive, driven team when employees are rarely, if ever, in the same room, let alone country. I hope you enjoyed this pod as much as I did, and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review Dev Interrupted on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcasting app of choice. Hey, everyone. Welcome to Dev Interrupted, LinearB COO and co-founder Dan is our guest today, along with his co-founder LinearB, CEO Ori Keren. Ori, Dan, thanks for taking the time to sit down with me today.

**Dan Lines** (1:02)
Thank you, Conor.

**Conor Bronsdon** (1:03)
Yeah, awesome to be here. Dan, I gotta ask, does it feel a little strange for the other side of the mic? It feels great. First of all, thank you for being a great producer, and I feel honored to be on the other side of the mic. We have so many great guests that come on to Dev Interrupted, and I get to be a guest now. It feels awesome.

**Dan Lines** (1:19)
Great.

**Conor Bronsdon** (1:20)
Well, I'm really excited to be here in person and awesome with you both, and I can't wait to go in depth about your careers as engineering leaders, the founding story of LinearB, and also recap our first year of Dev Interrupted and talk about what's next.
I want to begin by giving the community a chance to get to know you both better. Dan, let's start with you. When did you know you wanted to be an engineering leader?
Yeah, great question. I never had a goal to be an engineering leader. I never said like, oh, I'm a software developer, I'm an engineer. What I wanted to do was create great products. That's what I was really into. So like growing up, like I was reading about Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs. You can get a small group of people, software developers, that can create like a world impacting piece of software. That's what I wanted to do. So I was more into that. And then software development was a means to actually get that done. That's the right tool. Perfect tool. Although that's kind of how I got into it.
And Ori, I have heard you say that you knew you were going to be an engineer in fifth grade.

**Dan Lines** (2:21)
Actually, I don't know if I knew I was going to be an engineer, but yeah, in fifth grade, my parents bought me my first computer. And I started by playing some games there. But then I found that there's another thing, that it was basic and you can type commands and build small programs.
And it was magic. I forced my parents and my sister, hey, look at this crappy thing I built. Hey, push the buttons and it does this thing.

**Conor Bronsdon** (2:44)
You ever tried to make a game with this?

**Dan Lines** (2:47)
Sitting there and seeing them trying to do stuff, it's a magic. I actually did meet other stuff in my childhood. I was an athlete at the basketball, so I didn't know I wanted to be an engineer. But when I got my first job, it was actually like to the equivalent of Yahu in Israel. And I was like doing data entry, putting websites into an index. Yeah.
And the room next door, there was the developer, and I said, hey, what are you building?
And I got the basic book. I said, it's the same thing that I did like eight years ago. I'm gonna start, and this was my first job. And ever since then, like then, I'm super excited, like building stuff, seeing what people are doing with the things that we're building, that's still like the kick.

**Conor Bronsdon** (3:26)
So I know that you both met at Cloudlock, but not all of our audience knows that. In fact, Adam and our Discord asked for the story. So let me ask two questions.
One, how did you both end up in Cloudlock? And two, how did you meet and decide to eventually become co-founders together?