Dinner dishes soaking in the sink, kids tucked into their routines — that’s where my conversation with Tamara Laine began. Which felt fitting, because so much of her story is about weaving the everyday chaos of life with the wild, exhilarating act of building something new. Before she was a founder, Tamara spent 15 years digging into other people’s stories as a journalist and documentary filmmaker. What she carried with goes beyond storytelling—it was a relentless curiosity, a refusal to stop until she found the root of a problem.

That instinct served her well when she started MPWR, a company tackling a problem hiding in plain sight: how tens of millions of gig workers are shut out of financial systems designed for W-2 employees. The same investigative drive that once uncovered truths for documentaries now fuels her obsession with solving this inequity.

But what makes Tamara’s journey so Mimir coded isn’t only the problem she’s solving but how she’s had to grow herself along the way. Learning to chase the hardest questions. Learning to build with advisors who won’t flatter her. Learning to lead not just with inspiration, but with empathy.

This is a conversation about what happens when a founder’s eye for truth collides with the reality of building. About the grit to keep asking, to keep digging, even when the easy answer would be to stop.

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