Two Tech Weeks, One Human Mission

“We make job loss suck less.”

That was often Keita Wangari's introduction to Exitous during San Francisco and Los Angeles Tech Weeks in October. Behind the plainspoken opening was a serious purpose: helping people navigate the uncertainty, decisions, and personal impact that follow job loss.

Keita attended both weeks, looking for potential investors, partners, customers, and fellow founders. Her schedule included conversations about AI and the future of work, social impact gatherings, and events for women founders and funders. On October 18, she also exhibited Exitous at Innovate & Invest in Venice, an L.A. Tech Week event focused on women tech founders.

For an introverted founder, a full calendar of mixers takes effort. Some of the most useful connections began on session breaks or after events were over when someone approached her to discuss a point she’d raised during a session. Among the memorable exchanges were conversations with Christine Heckart, founder and CEO of Xapa, whose platform helps people develop leadership skills. Their discussion explored a shared interest: building technology that helps workers succeed by giving them easy access to knowledge not typically within their reach and personalized to them.

Investor access proved harder than expected. They were not present (advertised only to lure founders), either hard to identify in the rooms, or already surrounded by crowds of waiting people. The more meaningful result was meeting other founders and finding people with whom she could exchange experiences and ideas.

Across discussions about the future of work, Keita noticed how little attention layoffs received—even in San Francisco, where many tech workers had experienced them. That observation brought her back to Exitous's purpose: making the human consequences of workforce change part of the conversation.