Nearshore Talent in Latin America: How to Hire Top Remote Teams Faster & Cheaper | Brian Samson

Matt Hines opens season three of Hines On Air from Atlanta and interviews entrepreneur Brian Samson, now based in Hawaii, about nearshoring and hiring Latin American talent through his company Plugg Technologies. Samson contrasts offshoring (often Asia, time-zone gaps) with nearshoring (Latin America, aligned workdays) and explains how COVID accelerated remote, cross-border teams. He discusses Latin America’s depth of talent—from engineers to managers and leaders—highlighting scrappiness and adaptability, including among Venezuelan professionals. Sampson shares his 11 years in nearshoring, founding Plugg four years ago after running an Argentina-based fintech software development firm, and explains venture fundraising basics (seed through Series rounds, equity dilution, SaaS vs AI investor interest). He closes with how companies can contact Plugg at plugg.tech for guidance and hiring.

00:00 Season Three Kickoff

00:40 Meet Brian Samson

01:45 Failures and Golf Swings

02:53 What Plugg Technologies Does

03:35 Offshore vs Nearshore

07:04 Why Latin America Talent

09:15 Remote Work and Venezuela

11:43 Scrappy Talent Mindset

15:22 How Plugg Was Built

17:32 Argentina FinTech Software

18:12 Buy vs Build Software

19:49 Brian’s Recruiting Roots

20:52 VC Funding Stages

24:36 Equity Deals and Valuations

26:01 SaaS Versus AI Hype

29:50 AI Arms Race and GEO

32:17 Trusting AI Search

34:08 Hallucinations and Prompts

36:32 Hiring Nearshore Talent

38:41 Wrap Up and Contact

Sponsor By Hines Law https://hineslaw.org/

Sponsor By Bravos Leadership https://bravosleadership.com/#