Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders - S11 Bonus: Gajus Kuizinas, Contra

Gajus Kuizinas lives in Mexico City, and travels between there, New York and San Francisco. He had a non-traditional upbringing for an engineer, as all of his family were into the arts - so he had to make his own way. He started in Lithuania, and eventually was recruiting to setup computers and networks for dating platforms. Eventually, he got into freelancing, and started his first startup in the UK. Outside of tech, he has a garden, which doubles as an ecosystem for his free roaming hedgehog and bunny.

Gajus started to think about the arc of becoming a freelancer. He realized that everyone who goes through a journey as a freelancer feels like a cog in the machine, and falls off the marketplaces out there. He realized that there was a massive vacuum and gap in the internet for these folks that needed to be filled.

This is the creation story of Contra.

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Marketplace All-in-One - Have we given up on data privacy?

Every day, consumers are confronted with the fragility of our personal data privacy — another data breach, another government agency accessing databases they didn't previously have access to, another consent form popping up to get permission to gather more data.


It's almost too much for any one person to keep a handle on, according to Rohan Grover, professor of artificial intelligence and media at American University. He recently co-authored a piece for The Conversation about why data privacy seems to have largely fallen out of the public discourse, even though he says the topic is more urgent than ever.

Curious City - How one organization is transforming Englewood’s vacant lots

The city of Chicago owns thousands of vacant lots, and more than 80 percent of those parcels are in communities where the population is at least 80 percent Black. That’s according to a report from the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University. Residents and organizations are investing in these lots to improve the community. Last episode, we learned about how complicated it can be for individual homeowners to buy a vacant lot in their neighborhood. Today, we focus on an organization that is acquiring these types of spaces. Anton Seals, Jr. is the co-founder of Grow Greater Englewood, an organization that is doing innovative work on abandoned areas on the South Side. In the name of land sovereignty and building lasting community, he and his colleagues are transforming vacant lots into urban farms, a farmers market and a nature trail.

Bay Curious - The Historic Mansion Hidden Under the Bay Bridge

Tucked under the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge is a once-grand mansion known as the Nimitz House. Bay Curious listener Ben Kaiser wants to know nearly everything about it from who lived in it, to what it might become in the future. Turns out, this weathered home in the middle of San Francisco Bay used to be the quarters of the top Navy commander on Yerba Buena Island and is named for a five-star admiral who died there.


Additional Resources:

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This story was reported by Gabriela Glueck. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, and Christopher Beale. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on Team KQED.

Headlines From The Times - Republicans Win Tennessee Special Election, Dells Pledge $6 Billion to Children’s Investment Accounts, L.A. Moves to Bar ICE from Wearing Masks, S.F. Sues Food Giants, California Job Market Falters, Major Landlord Settles Over Collusion

Republican Matt Van Epps wins Tennessee’s special election by a narrower margin, signaling potential movement ahead of 2026. Michael and Susan Dell pledge more than $6 billion to expand President Trump’s new children’s investment accounts, drawing praise and criticism. Los Angeles County advances a measure to bar masked immigration and law enforcement agents, prompting federal pushback. San Francisco files a landmark lawsuit accusing major food companies of deceptively marketing ultra-processed products. In business, California’s job market shows sharp layoffs in tech and entertainment even as the aerospace and defense industries expand, and Greystar agrees to halt algorithmic rent pricing and pay $7 million in a multi-state settlement over alleged collusion that inflated housing costs.

The Intelligence from The Economist - Delhi-novela: Putin and Modi rekindle bromance

As Vladimir Putin begins a two-day visit to India, our correspondent explains why Donald Trump’s policies have pushed India and Russia closer together. How AI models could learn to take shortcuts––and accidentally become evil. And the curious case of the newly-Malaysian footballers.


Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—Subscribe to Economist Podcasts+


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The Daily - Trump Rants: ‘Let Them Go Back to Where They Came From’

President Trump on Tuesday delivered blatantly xenophobic public remarks, which included attacking Somali immigrants in Minnesota and calling them “garbage.”

Ernesto Londoño, a reporter based in Minnesota, explains how Somalis became the president’s latest target in his effort to reshape America’s relationship to its immigrant communities.

Guest: Ernesto Londoño, a reporter for The New York Times based in Minnesota.

Background reading: 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

WSJ What’s News - How Green Energy Slashed Emissions But Crippled Europe’s Economy

A.M. Edition for Dec. 4. A controversial U.S. boat strike takes a new turn, as an Admiral plans to tell lawmakers that two survivors were trying to continue their drug-run. WSJ correspondent Shelby Holliday explains why videos of the strike have sparked allegations of war crimes. Plus WSJ’s Tom Fairless and Max Colchester detail how the promise of Europe’s green energy transition has proved costly for consumers and damaging for the economy. And the billionaire class is booming – with a new study showing the world has more mega-rich than ever before. Caitlin McCabe hosts.


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