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Keith Pitt is the co-founder and former CEO of Buildkite, a devtools company that started in Melbourne and grew to have some of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies as clients.
In this interview we dig into:
Starting Buildkite as a side project
Running out of money and having to go back to investors
The challenges of growing into a venture capital valuation
Finding your product voice
Scott Handsaker (SH): Tell me who Keith Pitt is in 30 seconds or less.
Keith Pitt (KP): I'm a dad with three kids. I'm someone who loves to explore with his hands and code, and I love exploring ideas.
It's no surprise that I ended up in developer tools. Before I was a programmer, I was a magician doing magic shows. That's all about pleasing people, bringing joy and excitement to someone's day, subverting expectations and having them walk away with a memorable experience of something you spent a lot of time working on.
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