Building platforms, ecosystems & open-source communities: Lessons from Viam & MongoDB w/ Eliot Horowitz @ Viam #213
Mar 25, 2025
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Eliot Horowitz, Founder and CEO of Viam and co-founder of MongoDB, shares his insights on building robust platforms for AI and robotics. He discusses the challenges of merging hardware and software, emphasizing a user-centric approach that enhances developer experience. Eliot highlights Viam's potential to accelerate innovation in various industries and the importance of seamless APIs and modular systems. He also reflects on meaningful tech applications and the societal impact of engineering, blending personal philosophy with industry trends.
Investing in engineering effectiveness by understanding developer sentiment and reducing friction in development is crucial for business growth.
Identifying appropriate abstraction layers for software and hardware integration enables seamless collaboration, enhancing engineering capabilities and speeding up development cycles.
A user-centric approach to platform development, enriched by direct engagement and feedback, ensures that engineering tools effectively address real-world challenges and drive innovation.
Deep dives
Investment in Engineering Effectiveness
Investing in engineering effectiveness is a critical aspect for organizations to ensure that their engineering teams are contributing to business growth. Key factors include understanding developer sentiment, reducing friction in development processes, and making informed investment decisions that improve the overall developer experience. For example, utilizing surveys to gauge developer sentiment and sentiment allows companies to identify specific areas of improvement while also establishing concrete metrics for progress. Furthermore, engaging directly with engineers about their experiences fosters a culture of continuous improvement and innovation in engineering practices.
The Importance of Abstraction Layers
Identifying the right abstraction layers for software and hardware integration is essential for enhancing engineering capabilities. A well-designed platform enables seamless communication between software and hardware engineers, allowing them to collaborate effectively and build practical solutions. Using real-world examples like autonomous boats and robotics, the podcast emphasizes the value of spending time with customers to understand their needs and the challenges they face. By mapping out these abstraction layers, organizations can simplify complex processes, enabling faster development and implementation cycles.
User-Centric Innovation in Platform Development
A user-centric approach to platform development is vital for addressing the practical needs of engineers and customers alike. The discussion highlights the significance of gathering user feedback through direct engagement to uncover underlying pain points and aspirations. This approach was crucial in shaping the development of effective tools that meet the expectations of hardware and software engineers, thereby driving innovation. By involving users throughout the development cycle, teams can better align their offerings with market demands and avoid the pitfalls of misguided assumptions in feature development.
Fostering Developer Communities
Creating a thriving developer community is essential for nurturing innovation and collaboration within the tech ecosystem. The podcast emphasizes that an engaged community provides valuable feedback, fosters knowledge sharing, and supports developers in learning from one another’s experiences. By facilitating interactions among developers, organizations can cultivate an environment conducive to sharing code, ideas, and standards. A healthy community not only enhances the product but also strengthens the bonds among users and encourages a culture of support and mentorship.
Building for a Better Future
The podcast outlines an ambitious vision for a future where engineering teams can collaborate effectively to create meaningful real-world solutions. Successful integration of hardware and software can lead to improved automation across various domains, such as cooking, environmental sustainability, and public safety. The potential applications range from enhancing user experiences at sports venues to developing AI-driven cooking assistants that simplify culinary processes. By empowering engineers with the right tools and a strong support network, the podcast envisions a world filled with innovative solutions that address pressing global challenges.
Eliot Horowitz is the Founder and CEO of Viam, an engineering platform unlocking AI, automation, and data for devices in the physical world. With a deep commitment to advancing technology, Eliot leads Viam in helping companies build solutions across robotics, food and beverage, climate, marine, industrial manufacturing, and more.
A career software developer and technology leader, Eliot co-founded MongoDB in 2007, writing the core code base for the pioneering database and leading the engineering and product teams for 13 years as CTO. MongoDB, which went public in 2017, has since reached a market cap of over $20 billion. Before MongoDB, he co-founded the ecommerce company ShopWiki and served as CTO, and he began his career in software development in the R&D group of adtech firm DoubleClick.
Eliot is passionate about using technology to address pressing societal issues, including working with WAVS to protect marine life in the North Atlantic and supporting Billion Oyster Project’s work to help restore New York Harbor’s ecosystem.
SHOW NOTES:
The origin story of founding Viam (2:56)
How Viam can be a game-changing platform, accelerating robotics software & hardware 10x to 100x (4:33)
The ideation journey behind Viam: Building a platform that simplifies the integration of hardware and software development (6:11)
Solving challenges with seamless APIs, a modular system, the right abstraction layers, and a comprehensive platform (9:54)
Key questions for identifying the right abstraction layers at Viam (11:32)
Optimizing your platform for flexibility and ease of use (13:32)
The evolution of product building, from first-hand experience to customer-driven (16:33)
How Eliot’s MongoDB Experience shaped Viam’s user-centric approach, open-source strategy, business model & ecosystem approach (18:48)
Cultivating developer communities & leveraging community insights at MongoDB & Viam (23:01)
Frameworks for deciding on your business model & pricing (24:52)
Eliot’s approach to building developer tools & products used by engineers (26:23)
Aligning your eng team & stakeholders on the product vision (29:51)
What it means to deeply understand engineers and how they interact with your product (31:10)
Strategies for eng leaders to better connect with customers (34:38)
Viam’s real-world applications & what’s next (36:31)
Rapid fire questions (39:31)
LINKS AND RESOURCES
Viam - At Viam, we believe in the power of technology to make our world smarter, happier, and more sustainable. We're building a revolutionary engineering platform for problem-solving in the physical world, so that innovators from all disciplines can address humanity's most complex challenges with practical solutions. Together with our partners, we're committed to making a lasting positive impact on industries, communities, and the planet.
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