Mike Long

Mike was born in Australia, grew up in Scotland, and now lives in Norway. He is an entrepreneur, people enthusiast, and nemophilist. This whole Kosli thing is his idea.

Who’s the person behind Kosli? First and foremost I’m a technologist. I studied Computer Science and after graduating I got my first job doing some fairly low-level systems programming. As my career progressed I became really interested in how software technology is actually delivered, and I started exploring practices like TDD, continuous integration, hardware in the loop, and test automation.

How did you go from systems programming to founding your own startup? In between I was a CTO and DevOps consultant. I worked in industries where it’s tricky to do DevOps because they have embedded systems or safety-critical applications. I kept seeing this need for a very sharp DevOps tool that could automate change management. I set out to solve for that but we’ve ended up solving for something much bigger. We’ve come to realize Kosli is like a version control system for DevOps changes that’s really useful for all developers.

What’s being a founder really like? It’s the best job in the world. I’ve enjoyed every job I’ve had, but this is great. There’s a brilliant book called The Pragmatic Programmer and it has a great story about stone soup; you start with a big pot, put some water in it, add a big stone, and start boiling it up. Creating a startup is a lot like making stone soup.

What do you do when you’re not busy being a founder? Spending time with my family is where my spare time goes. We’re lucky to have some incredible natural beauty on our doorstep, so most weekends you’ll find us in the forest or up a mountain. I’m sure that sounds lovely, but the reality is I usually injure myself skiing and then complain about it a lot!