Binary to Billions unveils the human stories behind technology's greatest successes, exploring the journeys of visionary leaders who've transformed from humble beginnings into category-defining companies. Join host Rob Scott as he discovers the pivotal moments, tough decisions, and invaluable lessons that shape both technological breakthroughs and the people behind them.
EP2 – Youmon Tsang: I Ask My Founders Every Month... Do We Deserve to Exist?
Binary to Billions - Season 2 Episode 2 with YouMon Tsang, Founder and CEO of ChurnZero. When ChatGPT launched in November 2022, YouMon Tsang's first reaction was "oh no." He thought he'd started the wrong company, at the wrong time, with the wrong people, and was ready to hand the keys back to his investors. Then he spent the holidays asking one question: if AI's only goal was to kill ChurnZero, what would it take? In this episode of Binary to Billions, Rob Scott sits down with YouMon Tsan...
2 Nov 2026
EP1 – Melissa Solis: Everyone Is Looking For Employees Who Are AI Forward
Binary to Billions is back for Season 2! In this episode of Binary to Billions, Rob Scott sits down with Melissa Solis, CEO of Inbenta, the AI company she bought just three months before ChatGPT changed everything. Meliassa's father left when she was seven and took everything: the furniture, the car, and every dollar in the bank. Thirty years later, she started a company with her brother and $300 from her purse, and sold it for a reported $610 million. Melissa grew up with no electricity, ...
5 Mar 2026
EP12 – David Karandish: Scaling Big & Starting Again
David’s story starts with a discarded 486 computer his dad brought home from work. Where most people saw junk, he saw possibility. While teaching himself to code, David discovered something that still drives him today: with software, you can take an idea in your head and make it real within hours. In his early 20s, he co-founded what became Answers.com - a company that would eventually sell for nearly $900 million. The journey was anything but smooth. He describes running the business l...
19 Feb 2026
EP11 – Vlad Shmunis: When Ignorance Becomes a Billion-Dollar Opportunity
In this conversation, Vlad reflects on his early life growing up in Odessa during the Soviet era, and how emigrating to the United States as a teenager fundamentally reshaped his worldview. He shares what it was like arriving in California with engineering parents, navigating a new culture, and gradually discovering a passion for computers at a time when computer science was anything but fashionable. Vlad walks through his early career as an engineer in Silicon Valley, before founding his fir...
23 Jan 2026
EP10 - Craig Walker: Building the Future of Work, One Conversation at a Time
In this conversation, Craig reflects on his unconventional path from law to venture capital, before being dropped into his first CEO role during the depths of the dot-com crash. Tasked with effectively shutting down a failing VoIP company, he instead rebuilt it from the ground up - cutting costs, reinventing the business model, and ultimately selling the company to Yahoo. That hard-won experience set the foundation for what came next: founding GrandCentral, the startup that would later become...
8 Jan 2026
EP9 - Vasili Triant: Scale, Strategy, and Survival
Join host Rob Scott as he sits down with Vasili Triant, CEO of UJET and a long-time builder at the intersection of cloud communications, contact centers, and customer experience. From the early days of IP telephony to today’s rapidly converging CX, CRM, and AI landscapes, Vasili’s career offers a front-row seat to multiple technology inflection points. In this wide-ranging conversation, Vasili reflects on his unconventional path into entrepreneurship, scaling businesses inside fast-growing co...
18 Dec 2025
EP8 - Michael Walrath: From Ad Tech Pioneer to the AI Marketing Revolution
Join host Rob Scott as he sits down with Michael Walrath, pioneering digital advertising entrepreneur and current CEO of Yext. Their sweeping conversation spans the dot-com boom, the rise of programmatic advertising, and the tectonic shifts reshaping marketing in the AI era. From selling banner ads in the 1990s to building the world’s first at-scale ad exchange, Michael’s story is one of vision, timing, and relentless reinvention. In this candid chat, Michael reflects on the leadership lesson...
4 Dec 2025
EP7 - Kirin Sinha: Turning AI Research into (Virtual) Reality
Join host Rob Scott as he sits down with Kirin Sinha,founder of Illuminix - the company behind the perception stack powering the next generation of XR, wearables, and physical AI. From entering MIT at 16 to building one of the world’s most advanced computer vision startups, Kirin’s journey is a masterclass in intellectual curiosity and fearless innovation. In this far-ranging conversation, she reflects on the transition from academia to entrepreneurship, the early days of developing mobile AR...
20 Nov 2025
EP6 - Danny Jenkins: The Zero Trust Pioneer Who Built a $1.5B Cybersecurity Empire
Welcome to Binary to Billions, where we explore the human stories behind technology's greatest success stories. In this episode, host Rob Scott sits down with Danny Jenkins, co-founder and CEO of ThreatLocker, whose extraordinary journey from bullied school dropout to cybersecurity pioneer embodies the power of turning adversity into innovation. Danny's story begins in Telford, where he was bullied and dropped out at age 15, teaching himself to code and writing scripts to delete his bullies' ...
6 Nov 2025
EP5 - Ifty Nasir: How One Man's Mission Changed How We Share Success
Join host Rob Scott for an inspiring conversation with Ifty Nasir, the visionary founder and CEO of Vestd who literally created an entire industry category. Born in Bradford to immigrant parents in a cramped terrace house with nine siblings, Ifty's remarkable journey took him from teenage hustler selling refurbished sewing machines to becoming one of the youngest Vice Presidents at BP, before making the bold decision to walk away from corporate success. That leap of faith led to Vestd - the U...
23 Oct 2025
EP4 - Ray Nolan: The Programmer Who Refused to Play by Silicon Valley Rules
In this episode, host Rob Scott sits down with Ray Nolan, the Irish tech legend who turned college dropout into billion-pound business builder—all without venture capital. Ray's story demolishes Silicon Valley mythology with cold, hard pragmatism and customer-funded growth. Starting as a self-taught programmer who abandoned electrical engineering, Ray stumbled from telephone billing software into the global hospitality empire that became Hostelworld. His unconventional approach? Skip the Powe...
9 Oct 2025
EP3: Tomas Gorny - No Exit Strategy, Maximum Impact: Rethinking Entrepreneurial Success
What does it take to transform from a young immigrant surviving on dollars a day to building one of America's most successful unified communications companies? In this powerful episode of Binary to Billions, we sit down with Tomas Gorny, founder and CEO of Nextiva, whose extraordinary journey embodies the American entrepreneurial dream. Born in communist Poland where his village had just one telephone, Tomas dreamed of America from age seven. His father's gift of a secondhand Atari computer s...
25 Sept 2025
EP2 - Mark Bunnell: Disrupting Telecommunications One Innovation at a Time
Join host Rob Scott as he sits down with Mark Bunnell, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Nuwave Communications Inc., for an inside look at building and scaling a telecommunications company in today's rapidly evolving digital landscape. Mark shares his entrepreneurial journey from the early vision that sparked Nuwave Communications to the operational challenges of growing a telecom business in an industry dominated by established giants. Discover how he and his co-founders identified m...
11 Sept 2025
EP1: Michael Tessler - From Two-Person Startup to $1.9B Cloud Communications Empire
Join host Rob Scott for an extraordinary conversation with Michael Tessler, the visionary co-founder and former CEO of BroadSoft who literally created the Unified Communications-as-a-Service industry. In 1998, while others focused on hardware, Michael saw the future: enterprise communications would shift to software delivered over the internet. Discover how he and co-founder Scott Hoffpauir grew BroadSoft from humble beginnings into a global powerhouse serving 50 million users across 80 count...
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