Open Source Startup Podcast E169: Building New Standards for Observability - Lightstep & OpenTelemetry
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Mar 19, 2025 Ben Sigelman, Co-Founder & CEO of Lightstep and a pioneer behind OpenTracing and OpenTelemetry, shares insights on the journey of creating a groundbreaking observability platform. He discusses the strategic pivot that led to Lightstep's success and the benefits of open-sourcing technologies. Ben delves into the merger of OpenTracing and OpenCensus into OpenTelemetry, exploring its widespread adoption among tech companies. Additionally, he reflects on team dynamics during the ServiceNow acquisition and the importance of cultural alignment in startups.
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Lightstep's Origin
- Ben Sigelman's initial startup, a social media platform for introverts, failed due to poor virality.
- This led him to co-found Lightstep, focusing on his expertise in observability and tracing.
Selling Tracing
- Focus on the customer's problem, not the technical solution (tracing).
- Ask about their microservices and pain points, then demonstrate how tracing can solve these.
Tracing Limitations
- Lightstep's initial focus on tracing as a point solution limited its growth compared to platforms like Datadog.
- Customers wanted broader observability solutions, and Lightstep's delayed expansion into metrics cost them market share.