In this episode of RRE POV, Raju and Will sit down with Nick Leonard, co-founder and CEO of VoiceRun — the world’s fastest, most extensible voice agent platform. The guys unpack Nick’s career pivots and hard-earned startup lessons, and go deep on the business behind the technology. They discuss why voice AI has historically fallen short, why enterprises, not startups, are driving real adoption, and how a code-first, serverless, LLM-native architecture enables speed, extensibility, observability, and trust. Nick shares what it truly takes to deploy production-grade voice agents across banks, insurers, and restaurant platforms, and why owning the code has never mattered more.
Shownotes: (
00:00) The Big Decision: College or Career?
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00:47) Introducing the Guest: Nick Leonard
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03:17) Nick's Journey from Muncie to MIT
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14:44) Early Career and Entrepreneurial Lessons
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28:56) The Evolution of People Leadership
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31:02) The Rise of Voice AI
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32:58) Building Voice Run: Challenges and Insights
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36:17) Future of Voice AI and Final Thoughts