# Surviving SVB's Collapse & Outsmarting Uber /w Kyte's Head of Product & Engineering, Nick Cobb | Dev Interrupted Powered by LinearB > Nick Cobb, the Head of Engineering at Kyte, discusses SVB, product innovation & what it takes to outmaneuver his former employer, Uber. _This is a markdown rendering of a live HTML page on linearb.io, generated for AI/LLM consumption — it is not a markdown-only site. To get the full HTML page instead, request this URL with an explicit `Accept: text/html` header (no wildcard, no markdown preference)._ ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "PodcastEpisode", "name": "Surviving SVB's Collapse & Outsmarting Uber /w Kyte's Head of Product & Engineering, Nick Cobb", "description": "Nick Cobb, the Head of Engineering at Kyte, discusses SVB, product innovation & what it takes to outmaneuver his former employer, Uber.", "url": "https://linearb.io/dev-interrupted/podcast/surviving-svbs-collapse-outsmarting-uber", "datePublished": "2023-04-10T23:04:50.000Z", "partOfSeries": { "@type": "PodcastSeries", "name": "Dev Interrupted", "url": "https://linearb.io/dev-interrupted/podcasts" }, "actor": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Nick Cobb", "jobTitle": "Head of Product & Engineering", "worksFor": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Kyte" } } } ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://linearb.io/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Dev Interrupted - Podcasts", "item": "https://linearb.io/dev-interrupted/podcasts" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Surviving SVB's Collapse & Outsmarting Uber /w Kyte's Head of Product & Engineering, Nick Cobb", "item": "https://linearb.io/dev-interrupted/podcast/surviving-svbs-collapse-outsmarting-uber" } ] } ``` [Home](https://linearb.io/) / [Podcast](https://linearb.io/dev-interrupted/podcasts) / Surviving SVB's Collapse & Outsmarting Uber /w Kyte's Head of Product & Engineering, Nick Cobb # Surviving SVB's Collapse & Outsmarting Uber /w Kyte's Head of Product & Engineering, Nick Cobb By Nick Cobb | April 10, 2023 ![NYC_Nick_Cobb_dev_to_a997742aa8](https://assets.linearb.io/image/upload/c_limit,w_2560/f_auto/q_auto/v1/NYC_Nick_Cobb_dev_to_a997742aa8?_a=BAVMn6ID0) It hasn't been smooth sailing for startups this year. As this week's guest Nick Cobb puts it "You can add bank runs to the list of things founders have to deal with." Of course, it hasn't been easy going for engineering leaders either. That's why Nick, the VP of Engineering & Head of Product at Kyte, sat down with us to discuss how to build an engineering culture with a bias toward action, why he deleted his team's staging environment, and what it takes to outmaneuver his former employer, Uber. An angel investor, Nick also touches on the aftershocks of the SVB crash and its lasting effects on the startup community. Recorded live at LeadDev New York, this episode is a must-listen for engineering leaders who want to place product innovation in the driver's seat of their engineering org. ### Episode Highlights: * (2:21) Impact of SVB on startup ecosystem * (7:59) Is now the perfect time to invest in an early stage startup? * (13:02) Metrics to pay attention to * (19:33) Uber's lack of innovation * (24:44) Dogfooding culture * (27:30) What's happening in self-driving? * (30:23) Leading engineering teams at Kyte * (41:09) Postmortem culture ###### **Want to cut code-review time by up to 40%? Add estimated review time to pull requests automatically!** gitStream is the free dev tool from LinearB that eliminates the No. 1 bottleneck in your team’s workflow: pull requests and code reviews. After reviewing the work of 2,000 dev teams, LinearB’s engineers and data scientists found that pickup times and code review were lasting 4 to 5 days longer than they should be. The good news is that they found these delays could be eliminated largely by adding estimated review time to pull requests! Learn more about how gitStream is making coding better [HERE](https://linearb.io/dev/gitstream/?utm%5Fsource=Dev%20Interrupted&utm%5Fmedium=referral[…]gitStream%20-%20Referral%20-%20Dev%20Interrupted%20Show%20Notes). [![Setup gitStream on your GitHub repo today](https://assets.linearb.io/uploads/gitstream-beta-cta-centered-2-1024x538.png)](https://linearb.io/dev/gitstream/?utm%5Fsource=Dev%20Interrupted&utm%5Fmedium=referral[…]gitStream%20-%20Referral%20-%20Dev%20Interrupted%20Show%20Notes) ## Real conversations with top engineering leaders Find us on [](https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/dev-interrupted/) [](https://devinterrupted.substack.com/) ## Your next listen [![Cover image for Why AI gains are unevenly distributed in your engineering team | Asana’s Arnab Bose](https://assets.linearb.io/image/upload/c_limit,w_2560/f_auto/q_auto/v1/Blog_Comprehensive_DORA_Guide_2400x1256_72_a71bae404c?_a=BAVMn6ID0)](https://linearb.io/dev-interrupted/podcast/asana-arnab-bose-ai-productivity-agentic-work-management) Dev Interrupted [Why AI gains are unevenly distributed in your engineering team | Asana’s Arnab Bose](https://linearb.io/dev-interrupted/podcast/asana-arnab-bose-ai-productivity-agentic-work-management) Asana Chief Product Officer Arnab Bose explains why enterprise AI gains remain unevenly distributed across engineering teams. 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