Monica Sarbu, CEO Xata: Building a Postgres Platform, an All-Female Board, and ~50% Gender Diversity

Links

- Codecrafters (sponsor): https://tej.as/codecrafters

- Xata: https://xata.io

- Tupu: https://tupu.io

- Monica on X: https://x.com/monicasarbu

- Tejas on X: https://x.com/tejaskumar_

Summary

Monica Sarbu, the founder and CEO of Xata, shares the story of founding Xata. She discusses the challenges of being a woman founder in a male-dominated industry and the importance of open source in her career. Monica also talks about the transition from being a founder to a director at Elastic and the role of titles and hierarchy in organizations. She highlights the significance of happiness and motivation in building successful teams.

Monica talks about the journey of building Xata, a Postgres data platform, and how it was inspired by the need she discovered while building Tupu. Xata aims to provide the usability of Airtable on top of a traditional database, with the goal of empowering companies to build products with fewer resources. The platform offers features like full-text search, schema migrations with zero downtime, and a spreadsheet-like UI. Monica also discusses the challenges of running a company and the importance of diversity and culture.

Takeaways

1. Monica Sarbu shares her journey from building Packetbeat to founding Xata.

2. She discusses the challenges of being a woman founder in a male-dominated industry.

3. Monica highlights the importance of open source in her career.

4. She talks about the transition from being a founder to a director at Elastic and the role of titles and hierarchy in organizations.

5. Monica emphasizes the significance of happiness and motivation in building successful teams.

6. Xata was built to address the need Monica discovered while building Tupu, and aims to provide the usability of Airtable on top of a traditional database.

7. The platform offers features like full-text search, schema migrations with zero downtime, and a spreadsheet-like UI.

8. Monica emphasizes the importance of diversity and culture in the company, and the need to support and empower female engineers.

9. She believes that every company's journey is different, and it's important for founders to have a plan and prioritize what is important to them.

Chapters

00:00 Monica Sarbu

05:08 Introduction and Background

07:14 Building Packetbeat and the Power of Open Source

13:46 Differentiating Packetbeat from Other Monitoring Tools

19:25 Challenges and Benefits of Building in a Crowded Market

34:51 The Importance of Happiness and Motivation in Building Teams

48:27 The Relationship Between Tupu and Zeta

50:15 The State of Tupu and the Challenges of Non-Profit Organizations

56:04 The Journey of Zeta's Development

58:26 Zeta's Full-Text Search and Postgres Compatibility

01:01:23 Zero Downtime Migrations and Direct Postgres Interfacing

01:04:33 Zeta's Roadmap and Self-Hosting Capabilities

01:10:35 The Importance of Diversity and Culture at Zeta

01:18:26 Zeta's Chat GPT Feature and Future Plans

01:21:04 The Challenges and Priorities of Running a Company

01:31:29 The Importance of Diversity and Empowering Women

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