Author Archive

Thats my desk (the ‘empty’ one in the middle)… I am always out and about in the offices…

Hello, my name is Mike Agostino and I recently joined Snap as Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

First, what’s a CTO do? Typically a big-company CTO drives technology and product strategy by combining an in-depth understanding of technology trends with financial and market trends. Being a CTO is a somewhat tricky task because you want to influence product direction, but not control it. The development and product teams need to own the process and the last thing they need is a CTO becoming a bottleneck in this process. The CTO also serves as a champion of the company’s direction with customers, analysts, and potential hires. But, Snap is a startup and everyone wears many hats in a startup and that includes the CTO…

A little about me. I grew up in Silicon Valley and have been around startups and technology all my life. In my career, I have been an entrepreneur, startup manager, product developer and venture capitalist. One of my first jobs while in high school was writing technical manuals for semiconductor manufacturing equipment. My love of cool technology probably started with that first part-time job. I moved on to working with startups while in college. I’ve worked for many startups in my career – some successful, some not – but I’ve learned from those experiences that a small group of well-motivated people can accomplish almost anything. The most relevant aspect of my experience for Snap was my time at Infoseek. While at Infoseek, I led development of the web search technology used by millions of Internet users. I started my career in product development as a software engineer writing compilers and kernel software. I received a BS degree in computer science from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

So, what am I doing for Snap? I am leading the Search team that develops our search engine. Snap has a full search engine team that works on core information retrieval algorithms (indexing, ranking, crawling, anti-spam) and sophisticated software infrastructure to support a high-volume website. I am also overseeing the engineering team (QA, Ops, Reporting, front-end dev) while Gladys, our VP of Engineering, is out on leave. I also work with the product management team to help set (but again not control) direction for our product. Additionally, our CEO Tom McGovern asks me to weigh in on strategy decisions and to participate in potential business opportunities. Needless to say, my job demands that I multi-task very well and contribute in many different areas.

More to come in a future entry …

Hi, in my last blog post (now almost three weeks ago) I introduced myself as the new CTO for Snap. I have been so busy that I am just now able to continue my posting. Here’s more on what I did in my first week.

In a startup you need to hit the road running – there is no time to be spend “getting the lay of the land”. Shortly after finding my desk and getting my laptop on the network, it was time to have a discussion about product direction. As many of you know, we’re recently launched our new product. We are happy with the reception we’ve received, but we’re not satisfied with Snap as it is today. As you might have read on Erik’s blog post, the three most important attributes search engine users look for in a search engine are Speed, Relevancy, and Trust. The first meeting was to decide that we’re focusing on Speed and Relevancy (surprise!) with the belief that Trust will come later once we have proven ourselves on the first two. I’ll write more about our Speed efforts in a future blog post.

After the product meeting, it was on to meeting the entire Snap team. I was introduced to 20 people in one hour which is always fun, but keeping the names straight for me isn’t easy (remember I am technology guy, not a sales guy). We’re located in Pasadena near Cal Tech, so we’ve got a number of big brained guys from Cal Tech. During my first week, I spent much of my time getting to know the team. And here’s what I found: this team is just a little bit weird. Okay, maybe “eclectic” would be a nicer word. We have a guy who survived an Africa vacation by hunting with a bow and arrow, a guy that plays the banjo but calls it a guitar to impress others, and a guy that decided to shave his head just for the heck of it. Anyway the people at Snap are interesting and that’s part of the fun!

Let me give you a glimpse into our physical environment at Snap. Everyone sits in big rooms, called pods. Thirty or forty people sit in a pod mixed together with other Idealab companies. There are no walls to separate. The philosophy is “no walls, no communication barriers”. All of our conference rooms have transparent walls. In true startup fashion, our desks are fashioned out of hollow core doors and sit on top of filing cabinets.

I’m excited to have joined Snap at such a great time. We’re busy working on making Snap a great search engine for you. More on our efforts in future blog posts. We welcome your feedback and thanks for your support.

Title: Manager, Product Development Job Description THIS POSITION HAS BEEN FILLED Snap is looking for a hands-on Manager of Product Development to lead its software engineering team in delivering innovative Snap Shots products. Reporting Relationship: Reports to Chief Technology Officer Responsibilities 1) Make Snap successful. 2) Grow and manage a high performance, experienced software engineering team that delivers new Snap Shots products [...]

We are seeking a highly intelligent, innovative, quantitative and technically savvy individual to analyze process complex data sets related to online advertising marketplace. • Are you a pioneer looking to apply your skills to an emerging market? • Are you innovative, driven and enjoy scouring data and a market to come up with better ways of doing things? • Do you [...]