Range’s Post

I’m excited to share that I've joined Range as CTO during an incredible milestone - our $28M Series B! Why Range? It's simple - we're tackling a massive challenge that no one has truly solved yet: using AI to rethink wealth management. The technology has finally caught up, and we have a chance to democratize financial planning for millions of people who have been left out of sophisticated wealth strategies. This funding announcement isn't just about dollars — it's about building a world-class team that can solve a complex problem. We're attracting best-in-class talent who see our vision of transforming an industry that hasn't meaningfully changed in 75 years. As CTO, I'm ready to help scale our engineering team and continue building a product that puts powerful financial tools in everyone's hands. We're just getting started. Read more about the funding announcement here: https://lnkd.in/gPFz3jYh

The financial industry has remained trapped in outdated, manual processes for far too long. Range is changing that—reimagining wealth management for the modern era. Today, I am proud to announce Range’s $28M fundraise, led by Cathay Innovation. With this fundraise we take steps close to actualizing our vision of making sophisticated financial planning holistic, fast, and accessible. At Range, we’re tackling one of the biggest challenges in wealth management: making financial advice smarter, faster, and more accessible. Rai, our AI engine, processes complex financial data in real-time to deliver advice that’s 10-20x faster than traditional advisors—and at a fraction of the cost. We’re not just building a financial app; we’re creating a unified platform that integrates investment management, tax planning, estate planning, retirement advice, and insurance. Each of these domains has its own unique challenges, but the real opportunity lies in stitching them together into one seamless system. This new round of funding allows us to invest deeply in our engineering team. If you’re passionate about AI, financial systems, or building scalable infrastructure, this is a chance to solve real-world problems at a massive scale. The work we do here isn’t just about hitting metrics—it’s about redefining an entire industry.

We're busy building the VentureOS at Cap! 👨💻 10 pilot customers are ready for onboarding 🧑✈️ and almost 200 venture funds are waiting 🕰️👀 So I thought it was about time we scaled up... 3 new employees are joining the team to help us ship something even faster: 2 are very experienced Senior Engineers converting caffeine to code. 1 is an ex-founder taking over and streamlining our operations and more. BUT ☝️ We are still looking for more team members, advisors, board... 👀 We are especially looking for engineers and advisors experienced in AI. 🤖 Let me know if that is you or someone you might know. 🙏 #hiring

Work with Cathy Guo (and me!) on Iterative. We're hiring a Senior Associate / VP on the Iterative Investments Team. We vet 1K+ companies every 3 months and invest in roughly 1.8% of those companies. We want to scale our investments function and are looking for a rockstar who is: a) passionate about pre-seed / 0-to-1 investing (~50% of our investments are pre-product!) b) deeply thoughtful and first-principles driven about what good founders look like and how they solve problems (we never invest based on FOMO and rarely even ask about founder backgrounds) c) able to handle complexity and scale alongside clear thinking (we invest in 40+ companies every year but don't sacrifice on the quality of thought we put into each investment) d) have a thesis about the next 10 years of tech and tech-enabled opportunities in Southeast Asia Details about the role in the comments

Friendly reminder that just because you see "100+ people have applied" doesn't mean that's the case. First: it tracks how many people have clicked apply, in addition to how many people actually answer "Yes, I applied", which pops up on the listing once you head to the job board. Second: if you look at this post, you'll see that while you are competing with real people....not every application is equal, to say the least. Now, I'm not saying "spray and pray" is a great approach. Far from it. But if you really see a job here that you think would be a great fit, Why NOT apply? Tailor your resume. Write a cover letter.* Do something different. Just remember it's an incredibly competitive market, so getting your hopes up for a dream can...well, it can hurt. It's always good to steel your heart and have mature expectations. * I can speak from experience that cover letters can help. They aren't a silver bullet, but it doesn't hurt to have a generic cover letter template that you can spend 10-15 minutes on when you find a job you want to go the extra mile over.

I recently talked with a seasoned CTO who asked me for feedback as they contemplate starting their own company as CEO. When CTOs want to start a company, they must find a business co-founder and focus on the tech. Right? However, product-minded engineers are increasingly attracted by the top role, focusing on product development and strategy while surrounding themselves with development, sales, and marketing talents. But what should they build? When playing the VC game, the “magic formula” to successfully raise a seed round currently looks like this: Credible Founders + Underserved/Unsexy/Legacy Market + <AI> Hard-to-Reproduce Tech </AI> + High Growth Potential (i.e. scaling to $30M ARR in under 20 months) Another alternative is to start a DevTool/Cloud/Infrastructure company where they could leverage their past experiences to bring credibility and insight into solving real pain points. As in: “When I was CTO of XXX, I had a big problem and never found a good enough product to solve, so I decided to build it myself.” What do you think? Should this CTO start their own company or build the tech serving someone else’s vision?

With Freddie, I'm doubling down on 'small tech'. So, what does 'small tech' mean? It means building for a small, focused audience, not for the next billion users. It means getting to know your users on a human level and working to acquire new users who you believe your product will genuinely help - not because you need to show seven-digit user adoption for VC money. And yes, it means finding alternative ways to fund your start-up beyond VC money. It's where you're not working toward an IPO, but toward profitability to establish an employee profit-sharing plan. Where you understand that high continued growth is never a good idea and should never be the sole measure of success. Who else is building 'small tech' out there?

Interesting reflection on "hypergrowth" (hiring a large number of people after raising a large funding round) by Tuomas Artman, who went though all of this at Uber: (Tuomas is the cofounder and CTO at Linear. From him:) "At Uber, I learned enough about hypergrowth in headcount that I never want to experience such a level of headcount growth again." Here is the typical path he's seen for companies that find product-market fit, while raising capital aggressively: 1. Try and find product-market fit (PMF). Try out a bunch of stuff. 2. Found PMF. Hooray! 3. Scale, fast: partially by hiring. 4. Hire *lots* of people! 5. Firefighting, because you don't have much time to invest in infrastructure (need to keep up with the competition, and also onboard) 6. You (finally) get room to breathe! Usually a year or two after you hoped you would. 7. Rewrite it all. 8. Migrate and rebuild that will take years So, back to hypergrowth: "The big problem with hypergrowth in headcount is that after a while, barely any of your engineers work on the product. I noticed that a few years into hypergrowth, it felt like 70-75% of engineers worked on infrastructure, and no one was really working on the product. Having a large number of people work on infrastructure is one of the major things we at Linear want to make sure that we do not do. We want to keep software engineering as a product problem. Every single engineer should be focused on making things better for the customer, not having to worry about the infrastructure." And hence the deliberately slow hiring pace at Linear! The above was an excerpt from the story of Linear, published in The Pragmatic Engineer. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/eqxyrh4M

An immediate reflection I had while reading this post is that any software product needs to be revisited and eventually rewritten after it gets to some level of maturity. The reason is that many decisions were taken down the way towards development speed over quality. This is neither sustainable nor scalable. Personal opinion: there are two cost vectors of a software life: development/evolution vs operation. Investing less in the development (product quality, automation, testing, observability) means spending more in operations (personnel, infrastructure).

At Pilot, every day fuels my passion for learning and my drive to refine my craft—we're not just another FinTech software company; we're the catalyst that empowers the back office of countless startups and small businesses, helping them thrive. We don't merely solve software challenges; we master the intricate world of financial back-office operations where precision isn't just a goal—it's a necessity. Working here is no walk in the park. We tackle complex financial concepts head-on while delivering an unparalleled customer experience. The margin for error? Zero. The responsibility? Immense. Yet, it's precisely these challenges that make our team extraordinary. I live by the mantra: "If I am the smartest person in the room, then I am in the wrong room," and at Pilot, I’m surrounded by some of the brightest minds in the industry. Being part of a team that constantly pushes my intellectual boundaries is humbling and inspiring. Every day, I absorb knowledge like a sponge, learning from colleagues who turn challenges into opportunities for growth. To my fellow Pilot engineers and teammates: Your dedication, creativity, and relentless pursuit of excellence make Pilot more than a workplace—it’s a community where innovation thrives. Thank you for making every day a learning adventure and for setting the bar impossibly high—in the best possible way. Here's to the brilliant minds at Pilot—pioneering the future of FinTech, one impeccable solution at a time. 💜