SOTI founder Carl Rodrigues on his software that keeps the world running

Every time you give blood, file your taxes, or fly on a plane, a Mississauga-based software company you’ve never heard of is likely making it all possible.

Businesses use SOTI to manage the hundreds, or even thousands, of devices their workforces use.

Trek, the bicycle company, uses SOTI to secure all of their devices. So does Delivery Hero, one of the largest food delivery companies in the world.

Whenever these companies have bugs, outdated apps, or security issues, SOTI’s software helps roll out fixes.

“It’s used in pretty much every business,” says Carl Rodrigues, the founder and CEO of the company.

Some 25 years ago, Rodrigues started SOTI in the basement of his Mississauga home. Today, it’s a company worth over a billion dollars employing more than 1,700 workers worldwide, and remains 100 per cent owned by Rodrigues.

Despite tech headwinds rattling markets around the world — from the Crypto Winter to the stinginess of VCs — Rodrigues sees nothing but calm seas. He spoke to the Star from his Mississauga home:

Every complex system in the world uses the type of technology SOTI develops. What was it like trying to sell it to customers 25 years ago?

When I started, you know, this technology didn’t exist. People wanted to build apps — were trying to use them for business, but they forgot that when you do it en masse, how do you support it? In the old days, every computer was in your office. You had to have an IT guy who could walk over and help them. Now, businesses are on the road. They’re in different cities, different countries — but the IT guy can’t go there.

I don’t want to mention the name of this company, but there’s a very large restaurant chain that has their headquarters in Chicago, and they would have problems at the stores here in Canada. They were using mobile devices in their restaurants, and if there was a problem, they’d fly a repair guy from Chicago to Toronto. That process probably cost them $5,000. That’s the way it was. If you can’t support your IT efficiently, the business value is just completely lost. Without this kind of technology, you really can’t use mobile devices en masse.

You started SOTI in your basement in Mississauga. What goes through your mind when you go down to the basement now?

I lived in a different house — a smaller house. I’m not working in the basement anymore. I sit at the back, in the solarium. I’m looking into my backyard. And we go to the office two days a week. So, three days a week, I’m sitting and working out here. But I’m a workaholic, so I’m usually working seven days a week.

A lot of people scale back their involvement once their company gets big enough. What keeps you working seven days a week?

Some people, they work because they’re trying to make a buck. I think if you just work like that, you don’t really enjoy it. If you really enjoy what you’re doing, then it’s not working. There’s always grunt work, right? That’s kind of boring.

But I get to do a lot of stuff that I really enjoy. I get to be creative. I get to really think about new products. I get to think about innovation. We have lots of research going on in the company. And these guys are coming up with cool ideas and I get to see what they’re doing and really figure out how to use it in an interesting way — to do something really cool.

That’s fun. That’s, I guess, what keeps me going and keeps me motivated. Some people want to sit on the beach and I really wouldn’t know what the heck to do with myself.

I read that you still code. Are you still involved in that aspect of SOTI?

I don’t code very much. I will occasionally look at the code when I want to understand how someone is doing something, or I’m a little suspicious that how something works is wrong. But during the pandemic, I went back into development. So I actually do a lot of design and architecture.

I think there’s a lot to be said about real experience. When kids come out of school, they have this textbook knowledge. My experience can convert textbook knowledge into something that’s practical — that considers all of the things you need to consider to create software that works in the real world.

Last year was not good for tech. A lot of valuations have dropped, a lot of venture capital has dried up, and stocks have fallen. SOTI seems to be doing just fine. How did you survive?

I would say our approach to business is completely different. If you think about all these startups and VCs and all that — in my way of thinking, they’re just wired all wrong. Everything is about making money. Everything’s about doing a startup, getting a bunch of VCs to give a bunch of money, and then cashing out and driving Lamborghinis. But does a VC really give a crap about creating a good product? A VC just cares about making money.

So if a company says they need to take seven or eight years to do a bunch of research, the VC’s going to say no. It stops good things from happening. We’ve never taken a loan. That’s been the case from the very beginning. We have never taken a penny of money from anybody. We have zero loans on the books. We spend within our means. And we sometimes take very long-term approaches to building good tech. But that means we’re pretty solid. That means we’re always innovative. That means when there’s a downturn in the economy — quite often, we don’t even see it.

How healthy do you think the tech sector is right now?

If I look outside of us, I can see a lot of layoffs happening. A lot of cutbacks are happening. A lot of wastage. The tech sector had lots of money, so they were just hiring and driving up salaries. And there was a massive global shortage of tech staff, but now things have changed. There’s less money around. The guys who weren’t smart had to cut back. I don’t have to tell you the names of those companies — you can just Google them.

I’m personally not worried. During COVID, I changed what I was doing. I was more focused on sales and marketing as the company grew, but my DNA is software development and product development and product innovation. So I came back during COVID because I didn’t have to travel as much. I’ve been sitting in development for the last three years, and it was good because I kind of saw that I could do more innovation and have good people running the other side of the business.

Your technology is under the radar to most of its users. What can the average worker expect to see from the tech you develop over the next few years?

Let’s say you’ve decided to go skiing. You might go and rent your equipment, but you might go through a bunch of kiosks and touchscreen devices to pick your size. We facilitate all that. We allow the company to reimburse them remotely and troubleshoot the whole thing. We allow them to deploy that stuff.

Someone asked me this question recently — what would happen if SOTI software just stopped working at the same time around the world? I told them the world would stop. That sounds like a pretty bold statement, but it’s true. Police forces use our stuff. Military uses our stuff. Trains, planes, trucks, ships — any sort of transportation of anything around the world. Taxation services. They all use mobile devices. Mobility is all around us.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Brennan Doherty is a former staff reporter for Star Calgary and the Star’s 24-hour radio room in Toronto. He is now a freelance contributor.

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