Clément Salaün is Founder of Formance , the open source ledger for money-moving platforms. Their ledger is highly programmable and has over 600 stars on GitHub. Formance is a YC company and has raised over $3M from investors including Hoxton Ventures and Frst. In this episode, we discuss using open source to build user trust, creating a new category of open source software, the importance of building in a modular way, Clément's framework for monetization & much more!...
Jun 05, 2023•41 min
Dan Jeffries is the previous Chief Intelligence Officer at open source foundation model company Stability AI and Managing Director at the AI Infrastructure Alliance . Stability AI has raised almost $100M from investors including Lightspeed and Coatue. In this episode, we dig into the role of open source in generative AI, the benefits and drawbacks to open source foundation models, copyright issues that can come up when training data is visible, the capital it takes to start a foundation model, a...
May 30, 2023•49 min
Ry Walker is Founder of open source data companies Astronomer and CoreDB . Astronomer is the commercial company tied to the popular open source data workflow management system Apache Airflow , and CoreDB is a database company based on the popular open source database Postgres . CoreDB has raised $7M from investors including Venrock and CincyTech, and Astronomer has raised $283M from investors including Venrock, Insight, and Sierra Ventures. In this episode, we dig into the Astronomer journey and...
May 22, 2023•39 min
Kyle Quest is Founder & CTO of Slim AI , the platform to help application developers build secure containers faster. The company's open source project, Slim (previously known as Docker Slim), shrinks container images by up to 30x and makes them secure. It currently has 17K stars on GitHub. Slim AI has raised almost $60M from investors including Insight & Boldstart. In this episode, we dig into where the idea for Slim came from (Kyle was trying to solve his own pain), building for multipl...
May 15, 2023•37 min
Harjot Gill is Co-founder & CEO of FluxNinja , the intelligent load management platform for reliability engineers. The company's open source project, Aperture , provides capabilities such as concurrency limiting, rate limiting, and auto-scaling. This episode also features Matt Ranney , a principal engineer from Doordash, who is an early adopter of Aperture. In this episode, we discuss the importance of having strong evangelists of new technology (in this case, Matt at Doordash), the right no...
May 08, 2023•44 min
Amjad Masad is Founder & CEO of Replit , the browser-based development environment giving developers the power to build collaboratively with the power of AI on any device. Replit has raised over $200M from investors including a16z, Coatue, and YC. In this episode, we dig into Replit's evolution from an education-focused company to a broadly used coding platform, the role of AI in coding (and Replit's AI engine Ghostwriter), why it's much harder to build a horizontal platform & much more!...
May 01, 2023•37 min
Guy Podjarny is the Founder of Snyk , the developer-first security platform that helps companies find and fix vulnerabilities in their code, open source dependencies, containers, and infrastructure as code. Snyk has raised $1.2B from investors including Boldstart, Accel, Tiger Global, and Addition. In this episode, we dig into selling security products to developers, the pros and cons of being open source (Snyk is not!), Snyk's fundraising journey and challenges early on, how Snyk has evolved ov...
Apr 24, 2023•46 min
Ryan Blue is Co-Founder of data automation platform Tabular and Co-Creator of Apache Iceberg , the open source high-performance format for huge analytic tables. Tabular most recently raised a Series A from a16z. In this episode, we discuss the concept of a "headless data warehouse", being a problem-centric rather than solution-centric founder & more!...
Apr 17, 2023•38 min
Douwe Maan is Founder & CEO of DataOps platform Meltano , the extract and load company behind the open source CLI & version control project meltano . Meltano has raised $12M from investors including Venrock & Google Ventures. In this episode, we dig into spinning a company out of GitLab, Meltano's cloud launch, making technical data engineers first-class citizens & more!...
Apr 10, 2023•48 min
Shauli Rozen is Founder & CEO of ARMO , the company behind Kubernetes open source security platform kubescape . The project has over 8K stars on GitHub and includes tools for risk analysis, security, compliance, and misconfiguration scanning. ARMO has raised $35M from investors including Tiger Global and Pitango VC. In this episode, we dig into the differences in building product for DevOps vs. security teams, how to use signals from discord / slack channels to drive product roadmap, bringin...
Apr 03, 2023•38 min
Ramiro Berrelleza is Founder & CEO of Okteto , the Kubernetes development platform that allows developers to spin up production-like dev environments in the cloud. Okteto's open source project, also called Okteto , allows users to spin up a development container, which is configured like the user's production Kubernetes deployment. Today, it has 2.8K start on GitHub. Okteto has raised $18M from investors including Root VC and Two Sigma. In this episode, we discuss the challenges of building ...
Mar 27, 2023•40 min
Justin Borgman is CEO of Starburst , the “Analytics Everywhere” company based on the sequel query engine Trino (previously called Presto). Trino is a distributed SQL query engine for big data and is used by companies such as Salesforce, Robinhood, Lyft, LinkedIn, Goldman Sachs, and Netflix. Trino currently has 7.5K GitHub Stars . Starburst has raised over $400M from investors including Index, Coatue, A16z, and Alkeon. In this episode, we dig into the Presto to Trino transition, recruiting the Tr...
Mar 20, 2023•42 min
Vikram Sreekanti & Joey Gonzalez are Co-Founders of Aqueduct , the open-source orchestration layer for machine learning infrastructure. Aqueduct's open source project, also called aqueduct , has over 400 stars on GitHub. In this episode, we discuss what Vikram & Joey learned from interviewing 100s of data teams, building in the competitive MLOps space, how and why they invest in content & much more!...
Mar 15, 2023•41 min
Curtis Northcutt is Co-Founder & CEO of Cleanlab , the company that helps AI & ML teams automatically find and fix errors in their datasets. They have over 5K stars on GitHub and are already working with companies such as Wells Fargo and Google on ML data quality. In this episode, we discuss the difference between data noise and model noise, the growing importance of ML data quality with the momentum around generative AI models and applications, how Curtis' focus as CEO has shifted over ...
Mar 07, 2023•38 min
James Mikrut is Founder of Payload CMS, the React & TypeScript headless CMS. Their open source project, payload , has over 9K stars on Github and provides a Headless CMS and Application Framework built with TypeScript, Node.js, React, and MongoDB. Payload has raised over $5M from investors including Gradient Ventures and YC. In this episode, we discuss Payload's early guerilla marketing tactics, listening to your community to inform your monetization model, what developer-first really means ...
Feb 23, 2023•35 min
Sergei Egorov is Co-Founder & CEO of AtomicJar , the developer-first testing platform built on top of open source testing framework Testcontainers . AtomicJar provides Testcontainers Cloud which allows users to run tests in the cloud with anything that can be containerized. AtomicJar has raised almost $30M from investors including Insight Partners and Boldstart. In this episode, we discuss user demand driving the creation of a company alongside an open source project, using a different name ...
Feb 21, 2023•41 min
Nikita Shamgunov is Co-Founder & CEO of Neon , the open-source serverless postgres database platform. Neon separates storage and compute to offer autoscaling, branching, and bottomless storage. Their open source project, also called Neon , has 6.5K stars on Github. Neon has raised $30M from investors including GGV and Khosla. In this episode, we dig into the Neon founding story of starting a scalable alternative to AWS Aurora, why it's important to separate storage and compute, Neon's partne...
Feb 16, 2023•38 min
Anh-Tho Chuong is Co-Founder & CEO of Lago , the open source metering and usage-based billing platform. Lago's underlying project, also called Lago , has 2K stars on GitHub and a Slack community with hundreds of members. Lago is a YC company from the S21 batch. In this episode, we discuss the state of billing today and why a hybrid and open approach makes sense for many companies, positioning as an "open source alternative to...", deciding what content is worth creating (ie. if your users as...
Jan 30, 2023•36 min
Tommy Dang is Co-founder & CEO of Mage , the data plumbing platform that's the modern replacement for Airflow. Mage's open source project, mage-ai , has over 3K stars and lets companies run, monitor, and orchestrate thousands of data pipelines. Mage has raised over $6M from investors including Gradient Ventures. In this episode, we discuss pivots, testing product ideas with hundreds of potential users (and asking questions like, "what is the most boring part of your data work?"), why company...
Jan 25, 2023•38 min
Mark Fussell & Yaron Schneider are Co-founders of Diagrid , the platform that simplifies and provides access to the power of distributed systems. Diagrid's founders co-created open source Dapr which Diagrid provides a fully managed service on top of. Dapr has over 20K stars and works on any language or framework. Diagrid has raised over $24M from investors including Norwest Venture Partners and Amplify. In this episode, we discuss contributors rather than stars as a strong engagement metric,...
Jan 18, 2023•39 min
Will Falcon is CEO of Lightning AI, the platform to build ML models and create Lightning Apps that “glue” together many leading ML lifecycle tools. The company's project, also called lightning , has over 21K stars on GitHub. Lightning AI has raised almost $60M from investors including Index Ventures, Coatue, and Bain. In this episode, we discuss the difference between open source traction and company potential, how to hire - especially early on, the importance of learning speed, Will's personal ...
Jan 03, 2023•36 min
Oskari Saarenmaa is Founder & CEO of Aiven , the fully managed, open source cloud data platform. Their platform combines all the tools needed to connect and manage open source data services such as Apache Kafka, Grafana, MySQL, Redis, InfluxDB along with many others. They have also open sourced a number of projects themselves (see here on GitHub). Aiven has raised $420M from investors including IVP and Atomico. In this episode, we discuss automation as a core value, finding a role in the ope...
Dec 12, 2022•38 min
Mike Malone is Founder of Smallstep , the automated certificate management platform for DevOps teams. Their certificate management project, also called smallstep , has 5K stars on GitHub and provides a private certificate authority and ACME server for secure automated certificate management. Smallstep has raised $26M from investors including Boldstart and StepStone Group. In this episode, we discuss the importance of staying lean before achieving PMF, where to draw the line on free open source v...
Dec 09, 2022•34 min
Graham McNicoll & Jeremy Dorn are Co-founders of GrowthBook, the open source feature flagging and experimentation platform out of YC. Their feature flagging and A/B testing project, also called growthbook , has 4K stars on GitHub. In this episode, we discuss the importance of having an iterative culture, having a dynamic view on positioning, and the importance of content and market education....
Dec 05, 2022•34 min
Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz is Co-Founder & CEO of Penpot , the open-source design and prototyping platform. Their core open source project, also called penpot , has over 19K stars on GitHub. Penpot received a lot of attention from the spike in growth following the Figma / Adobe acquisition announcement. They've since announced an $8M fundraise led by Decibel Partners. In this episode, we discuss the importance of open standards in getting developers excited about design, why Figma users have been ex...
Dec 01, 2022•45 min
Maayan Salom is Co-Founder of Elementary Data , the open source data observability platform which allows users to monitor their data warehouse directly from dbt. Their project, also called Elementary , is built for analytics engineers and today has almost 1K GitHub stars and a rapidly growing community of almost 600 users . The company has raised from leading Israel and US-based venture firms as well as a number of high-profile angel investors. In this episode, we discuss having a culture of exp...
Nov 28, 2022•39 min
Leland Takamine is Co-Founder & CEO of mobile.dev , the team behind open source mobile UI testing framework Maestro . The framework, which is a compelling new alternative to Appium or Espresso, has quickly grown to 2.6K stars and a community of >700 users. The company has raised $3M from investors including Cowboy Ventures, Essence VC, and a number of high-profile angel investors. In this episode, we discuss the importance of ease of use for getting open source adoption, how community fee...
Nov 14, 2022•32 min
Shanea Leven is Founder & CEO of CodeSee , the cloud-based data visualization platform that helps users master the understanding of their code. CodeSee has raised $10M from investors including Uncork, Boldstart, and Wellington. In this episode, we discuss how to test messaging, the importance of having a strong GTM strategy early-on, what a great onboarding experience looks like, and more!...
Nov 07, 2022•34 min
Max Howell is CEO of Tea , the platform that enables developers to get compensated for their work. Max is also the creator of Homebrew , the popular package management system. Tea has raised $8M from investors including Binance Labs. In this episode, we discuss the founding story for Tea, learnings on building extremely large open source projects and communities, Tea's ties to Web3, and helping open source developers get compensated for their work....
Oct 31, 2022•34 min
Sam Lambert is CEO of PlanetScale , the serverless MySQL database platform for developers. PlanetScale is powered by the open source database clustering system Vitess which was originally built at Google to scale YouTube. The company has raised over $100M from investors including KPCB, Insight, SignalFire, and a16z. In this episode, we discuss PlanetScale's positioning as a database platform rather than a database, the importance of authenticity and showing off capabilities with every launch, tr...
Oct 20, 2022•42 min
