Sergei Dreizin is co-founder and CEO of software engineering company Akvelon, based in Bellevue, Wash. Born and raised in Moscow, he moved to the U.S. in 1992, after the Soviet Union's collapse, getting his computer science degree from the University of Minnesota before going to work for Microsoft in the Seattle area.

But he maintained personal connections to Russia, and Akvelon established a large engineering operation in the country — numbering about 800 people, or more than half the company's workforce. Akvelon also has 300 people in Ukraine, with a large office in Kharkiv, a city near the Russian border that has come under heavy attack.

On March 11, Akvelon shut down its operations in Russia following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

But that was just the beginning of the story, as Dreizin explains on this special episode of the GeekWire Podcast in conversation with GeekWire co-founder John Cook. See GeekWire.com for written excerpts.