# Wassim Salib — CTO & Product Leader

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> I build products that challenge conventional wisdom.

## About

CTO and product leader with a unique cross-cultural journey spanning three countries and multiple industries. Currently leading engineering and product at Trufla, where I built an ecosystem of products that reimagined how insurance is sold and serviced.

## Journey

### The Bet
From Sohag, a small city in Upper Egypt. Selected among 54 nationwide for a full scholarship to the American University in Cairo (AUC), Egypt's top university, and a leadership program with training in leadership, negotiation, and public speaking. Organized and ran conferences attended by ministers and national leaders. Selected again for Portland State University, meeting with U.S. Department of Education officials at the White House.

### The Range
Worked at ABB across three countries: managing enterprise infrastructure in Egypt, training as a manager at Zurich headquarters where systems spanned 150+ countries, then building HMI control screens at Canadian mining sites in Calgary.

### The Build
Discovered insurance by accident — but the moment I stepped onto a brokerage floor, I saw a massive industry running on duct tape and workarounds. Shadowed every role, mapped every bottleneck, and realized each broken step silently compounded into massive leakage. Built Trufla — an ecosystem of products (lead management, quoting automation, client engagement) that reimagined how insurance is sold and serviced. The hardest part was never the code — it was changing decades of muscle memory.

## Mental Models

1. **Scientific Method** — Treat every product as a hypothesis. Observe first, then build, measure, learn.
2. **Work Backward** — Start with the pain. If you can't articulate the problem in one sentence, you're not ready to build.
3. **Inversion** — Ask "what would guarantee failure?" first. Avoiding stupidity is more reliable than seeking brilliance.
4. **Ask Better Questions** — The right question matters more than the right answer.
5. **Stay Curious** — The day I stop asking "why?" is the day I stop being useful.

## Currently Exploring

- AI-first product design and development
- The intersection of technology decisions and human outcomes
- Scaling teams that ship with conviction and learn with humility

## Connect

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wassimsalib/