Episode description

Spencer Kimball is the founder and CEO of Cockroach Labs, a $5 billion company that makes the CockroachDB database used by Netflix, Nubank, Shipt, and many other leading tech companies. Spencer was building and contributing to major open source projects before he graduated from college. 

In this episode of World of DaaS, Spencer and Auren do a deep dive on open source companies: How they make money, what the ecosystem looks like in 2023, and competing with the giants like AWS and Oracle. 

Auren and Spencer open with an in-depth history lesson on the software industry and open source’s role in it. Spencer explains how open source and open core companies evolved and how the rise of cloud giants like AWS has changed the industry. They also discuss how belief and optimism affects founders, Spencer’s “hierarchy of success,” and essential advice for first time founders.  

World of DaaS is brought to you by SafeGraph & Flex Capital. For more episodes, visit safegraph.com/podcasts.

You can find Auren Hoffman on Twitter at @auren and Spencer on LinkedIn.