Allan Carroll’s journey to becoming a technology leader in AI and crypto is a testament to his passion for coding, innovation, and leadership. His career began at a young age, driven by a fascination with computers and the potential of software to solve real-world problems. This early interest laid the foundation for a career marked by continuous learning, adaptation, and strategic thinking. Allan’s ability to harness the power of technology to drive business growth and create impactful solutions has made him a respected figure in the tech industry.
As a technology advisor and hands-on CTO, Allan collaborates closely with engineering and product teams to build powerful software solutions. His leadership style, characterized by a blend of visionary thinking and practical execution, has enabled him to guide companies through the complexities of the tech landscape. Allan’s commitment to innovation and his ability to inspire and mentor teams have been key factors in his success, making him a driving force in the rapidly evolving fields of AI and crypto.
Early Inspiration and Career Shaping
Allan had the fortune to start playing with computers and writing code when he was very young, at a time when few people had computers at home yet. The incredible complexity of what could be created by typing words on a screen captured his imagination. He still remembers spending hours trying to get the first simple games he built to run and the joy of getting to play something he built himself. That early excitement turned into building products and helping local companies solve real business problems.
“During high school, I developed a system for a local mortgage company that quickly and correctly filled in the loan documents. Seeing how powerful software could be in the world—and realizing that I could use my skills to change it—set me on the path to become a serial entrepreneur, co-found four venture-backed software companies, and actively contribute to many open-source projects.” Allan is still always building, driven by the same passion that ignited his career.
Balancing Responsibilities and Vision
As a technology leader in AI and crypto, Allan’s primary responsibilities involve collaborating closely with engineering and product teams to invent and build powerful software that harnesses the power of AI and crypto. This involves engaging with customers, doing deep technical architecture, mentoring teams, advising on business strategy, and directly prototyping and building software. He engages with both entrepreneurs and teams at Fortune 500 companies to understand emerging needs and translate them into robust, future-ready products.
For instance, in his advisory role with companies like Telgoo, he provides expertise on AI and scaling, hands-on prototyping alongside the team, and business insights that help organizations navigate a rapidly evolving tech landscape. At any stage of the companies he’s started, Allan has found success by first aiming at a huge vision, running as fast as possible together towards it, and lifting their eyes every few strides to make sure they’re still on the right track. This blend of visionary leadership and practical execution drives transformative growth in today’s disruptive sectors.
Cultivating Innovation and Collaboration
Early in his startup experience, Allan learned that there are three important traits that the best co-workers have: they’re incredibly smart, they get the right things done quickly, and they’re willing to help each other out. The highest-performing teams he’s been on hold each other to those standards because innovation and collaboration flow easily when they’re present. Allan has worked with many young engineers that had those characteristics and quickly took on high-impact projects and became leaders on the team with coaching and mentorship.
“As a leader, I work to find and cultivate those skills in teams I works with by recruiting carefully and investing significant time in training, teaching, and building trust between team members.” Once the team is executing and shipping successful products, Allan focuses on consistently pushing their boundaries by sharing a huge vision and challenging them all to work beyond what they think is possible.
Creating Scalable Software Solutions
When building his start-ups, one of Allan’s favorite sayings was, “That’ll be a fantastic problem to have.” It’s tempting early on to pre-solve problems that you don’t have yet. To create scalable systems, you first have to create a product that people want to buy—turns out that’s always the most difficult to get right. For example, at one of his previous companies, they focused on quickly launching a basic version of their product to gather user feedback, even though it wasn’t yet built to handle millions of users. Allan has personally written the first line of code on dozens of projects at companies that served as many as 100 million users and billions of dollars in transactions.
The balance is spending just enough time thinking about the future and laying a foundation while not getting stuck future-proofing the system and never shipping a product. At FamilyLink, when they grew from 0 users to 100 million users in a few years, Allan had to rearchitect the system twice along the way. It was only clear what the right architecture for 100 million users was once they understood their customers and the product at the smaller scale. Learning what’s important to build is 10x more important than making it scalable from the start. If Allan is perfectly happy with the code, then he always finds he waited too long to ship it to customers and gain valuable feedback.
Staying Updated on Industry Trends
Technology evolves rapidly, and at the same time, its evolution tends to follow patterns that you can read and learn. Allan focuses on learning the basic patterns and core techniques to solve problems. That gives him a framework to hang any new products and technologies on. This context means he can quickly understand and apply new advancements to their existing products. When a truly new technology comes around, that’s when Allan spends time studying and getting hands-on prototyping and playing.
For example, in 2006, he built a system to discover hallucinations in the nascent large language models. More recently, he has been building agents with the transformer models that power today’s AI advancements. “It’s hard to really understand disruptive technology without having tried it out and pushed the old boundaries with it.” Allan’s hands-on approach ensures that he stays at the forefront of technological advancements and can effectively integrate new innovations into his work.
Passion for Starting and Scaling Companies
A few months after starting FamilyLink, Allan’s first venture-funded startup, they began receiving messages from users about the joy they felt using FamilyLink to find and reconnect with family members they hadn’t talked to in decades. “Seeing technologies, I built make people happier and more fulfilled is what really drives me day to day.” Allan finds that some of the most talented and passionate engineers also want to create joyful products, and he’s been lucky to work with and learn from so many. There are infinite ideas to explore and incredible possibilities waiting to be realized.
Software really is eating the world. Allan looks for the magic combination in an idea and its technology that captures his imagination—this usually involves a convergence of technological innovation, significant market potential, and a positive societal impact. New things become possible because of changes in technology or the world, and Allan looks for where those changes can allow new products to be built that are good for people. At Hangtime, recent advances in AI and high-speed databases made it possible for them to recommend amazing, real-life experiences that helped their users connect with the world around them. All the companies Allan has started have those ingredients in common, reflecting his passion for creating impactful and innovative solutions.
Maintaining a Healthy Work-Life Balance
Maintaining balance can be hard, especially when work is so exciting that it becomes all-consuming and feels more like play than work. “I intentionally choose to be involved in many roles beyond work because I find the world to be such an exciting place with so many interesting people to learn from. That means I get to balance work, family, advising startups, volunteering in the community, exercise, adventure, and friendships.” For instance, he volunteers with a local youth program and works closely with people experiencing addiction and homelessness in San Francisco, where he enjoys getting to interact with inspiring youth and adults that expand his world.
How he balances time between these activities changes from week to week and year to year as his needs and their needs change. This year, Allan has been able to spend more time paying forward the mentorship he received from seasoned entrepreneurs by advising and consulting with early-stage startups. Every year, spending time with his family and two sons is important to him, and it works best for him to be flexible in what that looks like. In August, they spent a week backpacking in the Rockies and climbing. It can mean using a few minutes at lunch to play cards or spending an afternoon baking something tasty. Allan’s approach to work-life balance is dynamic and adaptable, ensuring that he remains fulfilled and energized in all aspects of his life.
Influence of Advising Companies on Ventures
Allan always feels like he learns more from the sharp, imaginative entrepreneurs he’s been lucky to work with than they learn from him. Seeing the world through their eyes opens him to new ideas and possibilities. For example, building with Amplitude when it was a small startup and witnessing its growth into a strong, publicly traded company has been incredibly rewarding and taught him valuable lessons about scaling and data-driven product development. Working with Angel Studios taught him the power of communities having ownership in choosing and creating media they care about and brings light to the world.
More recently, Allan worked with a company building AI agents to help engineering teams, which allowed him to gain deep expertise on large language models from engineers who had been hands-on with them for years. Now, he’s working with two companies—one building an AI-based English language tutor in Latin America and one streamlining operations for mortgage brokers—with incredibly determined founders whose perseverance has rubbed off on him, making him more determined to overcome any barriers he encounters in his work. Allan has an incredibly high amount of techno-optimism, and seeing the future through the eyes of so many imaginative leaders give him a lot of hope for the world.
