AI Ethics: Can We Build a Better Future with AI?

“AI can change everything about your business!” says Yann Kronberg, Zazmic’s CTO, who built a global tech company from scratch and has been at the forefront of AI for over 10 years.

In the very first episode of AI & Beyond for Business, our host Arham Sarfraz sits down with Yann to talk about Zazmic’s incredible journey from a garage in San Francisco to a leading Google Cloud Premier Partner, their work with Google, their deep dive into the world of AI & GenAI, and how they’re using it to revolutionize businesses.

From Garage to Google

We just wanted to be good at software and help people build companies. That's what our plan was, and it worked.

Arham: Hello everyone, welcome to an episode of the Zazmic podcast.
I have with me the founding member and Chief Technical Officer of Zazmic, Yann Kronberg. Yann, why don’t you tell us a bit about your journey of building Zazmic from a garage in San Francisco in 2013 to a 500-plus employee, multi-million dollar global tech company? And why did you even do this?

Yann: I didn’t really have a plan. When we started with Yuri back in the day, we simply loved building software and businesses. Our rapid growth came from working with Bay Area startups that were successful, and we’ve been lucky enough to be associated with them. Our oldest client and our first startup, Mercury, is now a 35 million euro business. We started with one project and 20 people, then expanded to more projects and 50 people. And we just never stopped. We never looked back. We didn’t have a plan. We just wanted to be good at software and help people build companies. That’s what our plan was, and it worked. Later on, Google came along and that partnership helped us grow even faster.

Arham: The first few years of any business are crucial. There’s something like an 80% failure rate. Yet, you scaled Zazmic from zero to 200 employees in those first years. What were the key reasons for your success, and what challenges did you have to overcome?

Yann: We had a strong technical team that always attracted clients who needed software built. We didn’t even need a sales team—people were recommending us. Of course, cash flow was an issue, especially in the early days, as sometimes clients didn’t pay. But we were very careful with our spending and never spent a dollar we didn’t have. That’s true for any startup: managing your money and making sure that you build something, with the right teams is key. And we always had the right teams, that’s for sure.