David vs. Goliath: From Making Customers Happy to “Battling” Against Amazon with Kurt Mackey of Fly.io

In this episode of The Anycast, Matt sits down with Fly.io CEO Kurt Mackey to talk about podcasting, the approach many have toward customer satisfaction, and going toe-to-toe against Amazon’s AWS.

• Matt talks about how, back in 2004-2005, today’s guest Kurt Mackey introduced him to something he had never heard of before and that he thought was the dumbest thing he had ever heard: podcasts.
• Kurt shares his origin story of growing up in the early age of the Internet and building a company from scratch in 2011, as well as his current company Fly.io.
• Matt and Kurt go over the expectation curve and how we approach technology with surprise and disappointment, then surprise again.
• Kurt has a wide experience with databases – he and Matt touch upon that, startups, and the two sides of funding.
• Kurt discusses how it feels to be competing against trillion-dollar businesses as the primary startup competitors.
• Matt and Kurt go over the edge, what the future of apps will look like, and the performance-perception of speed connection.
• Kurt opens up about how, in order to balance his work and his personal life, he needs something that actually makes him stop thinking about work (like going on an electric skateboard!).
• What role do processes and bureaucracy play in the startup world? Kurt shares his thoughts on that.
• At Fly.io, they have a very unique hiring process. Kurt takes back the curtain to illustrate what it looks like – plus, he shares what he considers the coolest thing Fly.io has built so far.
• Kurt talks about the best and worst days of his business career.

Mentioned in This Episode:

• Fly.io 
• Fly.io on Twitter (@FlyDotIO)
• RubyonRails.org
• MongoDB.com
• Jason Calacanis - Calacanis.com
• Hacker News