In this episode, we dive deep into the story of how Datadog evolved from a single product to a multi-billion dollar observability platform with its co-founder, Olivier Pomel. Olivier shares exclusive insights on Datadog's unique approach to product development—why they avoid the "Apple approach" of building in secret and instead work closely with customers from day one.
You’ll hear about the early days when Paul Graham of Y Combinator turned down Datadog, questioning their lack of a first product. Olivier also reveals the strategies behind their iterative product launches and why they insist on charging early to ensure they’re delivering real value.
The second half of the conversation is focused on all things AI and data at Datadog - the company's initial reluctance to use AI in its products, how Generative AI changed everything, and Datadog's current AI efforts including Watchdog, Bits AI and Toto, their new time series foundational model.
We close the episode by asking Olivier about his thoughts on the topic du jour: founder mode!
▶️ Listen to 2020 Data Driven NYC episode with Oliver Pomel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXKEFHeEvMs
DATADOG
Website - https://www.datadoghq.com
Twitter - https://x.com/datadoghq
Olivier Pomel
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivierpomel
Twitter - https://x.com/oliveur
FIRSTMARK
Website - https://firstmark.com
Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap
Matt Turck (Managing Director)
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck
