#254 Ryan Graciano - CTO at Credit Karma

Today we are talking to Ryan, the Co-Founder and CTO at Credit Karma. And we discuss the toughest lessons learned after going through a hyper growth faze, their mission to make financial progress possible for everybody, and what to keep an eye out for as you scale values in your organization.

All of this, right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast!

About Ryan:

I am a co-founder of Credit Karma, a company dedicated to re-engineering one of the largest industries in the world – consumer finance. Credit Karma’s mission is to help consumers have a better future by simplifying decision-making and management of personal credit and finances.

Credit Karma has scaled aggressively to become a major disruptor of the consumer finance industry, today valued in the billions with above 50 million members. As Chief Technology Officer, I designed the engineering framework and organization to support this growth. I manage a team that has grown from just me, to now include hundreds of engineers and counting. 1366 1024

Prior to joining Credit Karma, I worked for a small company that was acquired by IBM, where I subsequently spent a few years on search engines and enterprise software. I have a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology, a background in scalable systems and networks, and a lifelong passion for computer code and security.

About Credit Karma:

Credit Karma is focused on championing financial progress for over 100 million members in the U.S., Canada and U.K. While we're best known for pioneering free credit scores, our members turn to us for resources as they work toward their financial goals. This includes tools for credit and identity monitoring, credit card recommendations, shopping for loans (car, home and personal), growing their savings* and filing their taxes with Credit Karma Tax -- all for free. We’ve grown significantly through the years, adding more than 70 million members in the last five alone. We currently have more than 1,300 employees spread across offices in San Francisco, Charlotte, Los Angeles, Leeds, London and one coming soon to Oakland. Disrupting the financial industry is not an easy task. That’s why we know it’s one worth doing.