Product and Cake

Minerva Tantoco on AI, New York City, and Leading Into the Unknown

Product and Cake

Show Notes

How do you make a role reliable in an uncertain world?

Minerva Tantoco has been answering that question her entire career — starting with her first AI startup in 1985, through a dozen years in financial services, running Asia Pacific as a regional CTO, and finally landing the call she almost dismissed as a prank: becoming the first-ever Chief Technology Officer of the City of New York in 2014.

In this episode, Paul and Minerva explore what it actually takes to step into roles that have never existed before, build the blueprint when there's no template, and lead teams through genuine uncertainty — at startup scale and at the scale of 325,000 employees.

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