In this episode of The Sunny Ray Show, host Sunny Ray talks with Pedro, founder of Wallabi, about his path from a childhood in Mexicali, Mexico, to leading an AI transformation consultancy. Pedro traces his fascination with technology back to the film WarGames and a Commodore 64 his parents bought him, which led him to study computer systems engineering in Monterrey. He recounts nearly two decades inside major companies including MicroStrategy, Google, Salesforce, and Looker, and how those experiences shaped his views on leadership and data culture. Pedro explains how the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 convinced him a major shift was underway, prompting him to leave the corporate ladder and start Wallabi with former colleagues. He describes Wallabi's mission to move beyond dashboard-driven analytics toward AI powered workflows that help businesses make faster, more contextual decisions, and predicts that easier, cheaper app building will eventually challenge traditional SaaS platforms. The conversation closes with Pedro's vision for Wallabi's growth and what personal success looks like for him five years from now.
MicroStrategy and Google alum Pedro explains why he left the corporate ladder to build Wallabi and rethink AI driven business insight.
What was life like growing up in Monterrey and what first sparked your curiosity about technology?
I was actually born and raised in Mexicali, a hot desert city on the US-Mexico border known for surprisingly great Chinese food. I got into technology because of the movie WarGames with Matthew Broderick. My parents got me a Commodore 64, I taught myself to code, and later studied computer systems engineering in Monterrey, where I discovered I had a real aptitude for data.
What was it about WarGames and the Commodore 64 that captivated young Pedro?
I grew up loving Star Wars and Star Trek, so technology already felt exciting. Building my own games on the Commodore 64 felt empowering, like telling stories while playing. I thought I'd become a video game designer, but in school I realized I wasn't a huge fan of coding. Instead I discovered data, and organizing information to find truth in chaos really appealed to me.
How did those early experiences shape your thinking about what data would become?
Working on business intelligence tools at MicroStrategy and later companies, I kept noticing that analytics remained an exclusive club requiring specific skills. That bothered me. Clients told me they were drowning in dashboards but still lacked real insight, like one leader who said he had 8,000 dashboards and didn't need another one. That gap between data and decisions stuck with me for years.
What did nearly two decades as an executive at large companies teach you about yourself?
I worked at Google, Salesforce, and earlier MicroStrategy and Looker, and it was a great education in different leadership styles. I saw fantastic cultures where people felt valued and supported, and I also saw places where managing up mattered more than building your team up. Those contrasts gave me real clarity about the type of leader I wanted to be at Wallabi.
At what moment did you decide to leave the corporate ladder and build something of your own?
I was running the Tableau team at Salesforce when ChatGPT launched in November 2022. I worked with brilliant AI researchers who weren't easily impressed, and one of them called it a miracle. That told me something real was happening, potentially another internet-level moment, and that's when I started seriously thinking about building something new.
What did you see that the big players were missing that inspired you to become an entrepreneur?
I'd seen an industry shift before, from IT-driven platforms like MicroStrategy to end-user tools like Tableau and Looker, and this felt similar but bigger. Working with my future co-founders, I realized SaaS relevancy will come into question as building custom tools gets faster and cheaper. Companies won't want to pay for CRM or HR platforms when they can build exactly what they need.
How does Wallabi close the gap between insight and business outcome that traditional dashboards don't?
Dashboards aren't always the right answer. Sometimes leaders just need a direct answer, not a screen of heat maps to decipher. Dashboards are mainly monitoring tools, they show what's happening but not what to do next, and they only pull from structured systems while ignoring conversations, documents, and tribal knowledge. Wallabi helps surface that broader context to actually support decisions.
Five years from now, what does success look like for Wallabi and for you personally?
For Wallabi, success means clients using our technology to completely transform how they operate, finding new revenue streams and new ways to serve customers, and hearing them say they'd never looked at their business that way before. Personally, I'm just grateful to work alongside an incredibly talented team, and my job is mostly to support them and stay out of their way.
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