Paying it Forward with Matthew Chan

Matthew Chan is the CTO of BlackCart, a company revolutionizing "try before you buy" software for e-commerce. In this episode, Matthew talks with Mission COO and Co-founder Gabriel Sundaram about the tech education program he started for kids, how his engineering background helps in his current leadership positions, and the many ways he's giving back the kind of mentorship he received on his professional journey.

Key topics:

Advice for anyone transitioning from IC to manager (02:53)

Founding a tech program for kids to give back (03:54)

On dealing with "unknown unknowns" (06:50)

Seed stage CTOs (9:08)

Where's the value - the technical or the team? (10:05)

Your relationship and your role as an executive versus a VPN or an engineering lead (11:20)

Do you think it is that as an IC there's less of this holistic picture or connection to business outcomes? (13:53)

A function of environment and time (14:03)

Building the right environment (18:28)

The project champion (21:55)

Paying it forward through an internship program (23:15)

Product role with engineering knowledge (24:50)

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As promised in the episode, here are a couple ways you can get in touch with Matthew:

Twitter: @mcschan

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcschan/