Teja Yenamandra, CEO of gun.io, a staffing and placement firm for software engineers, talks about why he took money after boot strapping his business successfully. Tom and Teja discuss the future of software engineering, automation, and ChatGBT. Teja sees automation being used for invoicing and other parts of running his business, but not for writing code just yet. Tom talks about how insight hasn’t been automated yet.

Teja has been a CEO for ten years, though he’s less than 40. Teja loves working with people and solving problems. Teja describes how business is a canvas for solving problems, and that solving problems and making money are the most fun parts of being a CEO. “People assume I’m smart because I’m a CEO, so I’m challenged less because I have this silly job title,” says Teja. Teja talks about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and how he enjoys it as a domain where nothing is expected other than respecting others. Practicing Jiu Jitsu helps Teja get space away from work to improve his problem solving. Teja talks about how he obsesses about problems even though he knows intellectually that getting away from a problem for a while sometimes helps solve the problem. Tom talks about how meditation helps him when he’s stuck even though he can never quiet his mind. Teja tells Tom what’s the right cycle on which to update his clients about the progress of their engagement and how gun.io prevents surprises and avoids conflict with its clients. Teja discusses the psychology of raises and how no matter how much we’re paid, we get aggravated if we go a year and don’t get a raise. The conversation gets cut off when Teja loses power because of tornado winds in Nashville, but everybody ends up OK.