E141: Building Companies on Open Source Standards - from Hortonworks to Mydecisive.ai
Jul 10, 2024
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Ari Zilka, former CTO of Hortonworks and current CEO of mydecisive.ai, discusses the shift towards OpenTelemetry in large enterprises, the cost benefits of open source, and the importance of building a community before monetizing. He emphasizes the value of 'ops' in 'devops' for revenue and shares insights on strategy merging, hypothesis testing, and ecosystem building in company growth.
Large enterprises are shifting towards OpenTelemetry to prevent data hostage situations.
Open source models transfer costs from vendors to engineering teams.
Focusing on building community over monetization is crucial for startup success.
In open source entrepreneurship, customer feedback and ecosystem collaborations are key to sustainability.
Deep dives
Ari's Background and Career Trajectory in Open Source
Ari outlines his career trajectory from Hortonworks to Terracotta, EH Cash, and Walmart .com. He emphasizes his role in helping large enterprises consume open source technologies. Ari's approach involves connecting the right individuals and technologies to elevate promising technologies quickly.
Transition to Hortonworks and Involvement in the Hadoop Ecosystem
Ari discusses joining Hortonworks after its inception and being drawn to the Hadoop ecosystem. He highlights the vibrant community and vast potential for open source contributions. Ari's experience with Hortonworks contrasts with proprietary stacks and focuses on enabling data control and innovation.
Introduction of My Decisive AI and Value Proposition
Ari introduces My Decisive AI, focusing on delivering the highest fidelity observability at the lowest cost. He explains the importance of telemetry data and control, aiming to empower customers with AI-driven insights to optimize operations efficiently.
Community Collaboration and Future Goals with OpenTelemetry
Ari emphasizes the importance of collaborating within the OpenTelemetry community and aligning with its goals. He aims to contribute to the ecosystem by enhancing telemetry capabilities. While acknowledging potential overlaps, Ari prioritizes fostering a cohesive and supportive environment for shared advancement.
CEO Approach and Lessons Learned for Startup Success
Ari reflects on his CEO role, emphasizing rapid hypothesis testing and iterative strategies. He prioritizes community-building and balancing small startup agility with corporate structure. Drawing from past experiences, he stresses the significance of ecosystem development and adaptable business models for sustainable growth.
Advice for Open Source Founders
Ari advises founders to engage extensively with customers, prioritize ecosystem partnerships, and focus on creating a viable product for market readiness. He encourages founders to nurture alliances and contribute to building a strong ecosystem while maintaining customer-centric development.
Insights on Building an Open Source Company
Ari shares insights on navigating open source entrepreneurship, highlighting the importance of customer feedback and ecosystem collaborations. He emphasizes the value of strategic partnerships and iterative product development to establish a sustainable and impactful open source venture.
Ari Zilka is CEO of mydecisive.ai, the general-purpose observability engine built on OpenTelemetry. Ari was previously the CTO of Hortonworks which built products on top of open source Apache Hadoop and merged with Cloudera in 2019.
In this episode, we dig into the similar patterns Ari sees between Hortonworks / Hadoop and mydecisive.ai / OpenTelemetry, why large enterprises don't want their data to be held hostage and are shifting towards OpenTelemetry, how open source switches costs from vendors to engineering, why he's focused on building the community before monetizing, his view on monetization ("the developer bakes you in, the operator pays for it"), why the "ops" side of "devops" carries the money, and the learnings from building Hortonworks that he's bringing into mydecisive.ai.
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