Code Story episode
S11 E22: The Support Capacity Paradox: Managing the Tri-Border Workforce of Humans, BPOs, and AI Agents Without Metric Depravation with Ryan Wang, Co-Founder & CEO of Assembled
Oct 21, 2025 · Season 11 · Episode 22 · 32 min
Customer service optimization and workforce mgmt.
Ryan Wang has had a winding set of paths to get to where he is today. He studied economics and statistics, with the intent of going to grad school and becoming a professor. After talking with his boss at the time, Steven Levitt (also one of the authors of Freakonomics), he was convinced that was not the best path. Eventually, he joined stripe via nepotism, and became a software developer via data science. Outside of tech, he loves to read about different topics. Right now, he is reading about owls, and also loves to read fiction and poetry. In fact, he drops poetry occasionally at his current venture.
While at Stripe, back when it was an 80 person company, Ryan noticed people doing support tickets on their own. After he spent some time there, he and his now co-founder started to tinker in machine learning for support. As he made progress, a leader pointed out that the real problem was around workforce management.
This is the creation story of Assembled.
Sponsors
VentionCodeCrafters helps you become a better engineer by building real-world, production-grade projects. Learn hands-on by creating your own Git, Redis, HTTP server, SQLite, or DNS server from scratch. Sign up for free today using this link and enjoy 40% off.Full ScalePaddle.comSema SoftwarePropelAuthPostmanMeilisearchLinks
https://www.assembled.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanywang/
Checkout our episode stacks on Stacklist! https://stacks.codestory.co/
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
More episodes
Keep listening
S11 Bonus: Moving Past Semantic Layers to Eliminate Hallucinations and Build Dependable Enterprise Data Agents with Tanmai Gopal, Co-Founder & CEO of PromptQL
Oct 23, 2025
S11 Bonus: The Agent Authentication Crisis: Moving Past Prompt Engineering to Build Zero-Trust Tool Execution and Secure zkTLS/MCP Actions Planes with Sam Partee, Co-Founder & CTO of Arcade.dev
Oct 16, 2025
Topics
Explore related conversations
How to choose a tech stack for a startup
A decision framework for choosing a startup tech stack: what actually matters, which choices are reversible, and how to avoid the rewrite that eats your Series A.
Technical due diligence checklist for startups
A technical due diligence checklist for founders and investors: what reviewers examine across architecture, security, team and process, and how to prepare before a raise.
CTO vs VP of Engineering: how the two roles actually differ
CTO vs VP of Engineering explained: who owns architecture, who owns delivery, when to split the roles, and how to avoid the overlap that breaks engineering teams.