Dedy Kredo

Dedy Kredo is co-founder and chief product officer of Qodo, formerly CodiumAI, which builds AI tools for code review, testing and code quality. He founded it with chief executive Itamar Friedman, whom he has known since childhood.

Growing Up Between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem

"We grew up in the same small town halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem," Kredo said on Madrona's Founded & Funded podcast. "Itamar and I have known each other for many, many years." He started programming in QBasic in eighth grade, he told the Product Builder podcast, and his first job was at a web startup Friedman founded while still in high school.

Moving Into Product at VMware

He joined VMware through its acquisition of Digital Fuel, where he moved into product management, and later worked at the data science company Explorium before leaving in 2021 to start Qodo. "I have a lot of experience working with US companies, with large enterprises. I spent a lot of time working with financial institutions, for example," he said. Friedman, who had been a CTO several times, took the chief executive role.

Betting on Code Integrity

In 2021 Kredo and Friedman settled on what they call code integrity: as AI generates more code, the challenge shifts to making sure it is well tested, reviewed, secure and aligned with company practices, especially at very large enterprises.

The company started as CodiumAI and later renamed itself Qodo because another company called Codium started at about the same time. "Qodo is Quality of Development," Kredo said.

Personal Life

Kredo advises founders to remember that "this is a marathon, not a sprint." "I used to be very big into rock climbing, and for the first two years of the company, I basically gave up on that," he said. Realizing the company could be a 10 to 20 year journey, he went back to climbing and says it makes him feel more productive at work.