The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source

Massive scale and ultra-resilience (Interview)

Jul 9, 2021

Spencer Kimball, co-founder and CEO of Cockroach Labs, shares insights from his journey in open source and tech startups. He discusses the challenges of building CockroachDB to meet massive scale and resilience needs against established competitors like MySQL. Spencer highlights the significance of networking in tech and the evolution of database technology, emphasizing practical solutions for real-world problems. He also reflects on creating value through community-driven projects and the importance of addressing latency for optimal user satisfaction.

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INSIGHT

Open Source and SaaS

Open-source software's ease of access drove its adoption, not just its free cost.
The shift to software-as-a-service presents both opportunities and challenges.

ANECDOTE

GIMP Creation

Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis co-created the GIMP in 1993.
It was born out of a desire for better photo editing tools in the Unix environment.

ADVICE

Choosing Co-founders

Start companies with co-founders who have shared challenging experiences.
Choose people you deeply respect and understand after facing adversity together.

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This week we’re sharing a recent episode from Founders Talk that we continuously hear about from listeners. Listen and subscribe to Founders Talk at founderstalk.fm and anywhere you listen to podcasts.

On Founders Talk #75 — Adam talks with Spencer Kimball, CEO and Co-founder of Cockroach Labs — makers of CockroachDB an open source cloud-native distributed SQL database. Cockroach Labs recently raised $160 million dollars on a $2 billion dollar valuation. In this episode, Spencer shares his journey in open source, startups and entrepreneurship, and what they’re doing to build CockroachCloud to meet the needs of applications that require massive scale and ultra-resilience.

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Featuring:

Spencer Kimball – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn
Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

Show Notes:

Spencer is a co-founder of GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) (but is no longer involved with the project)
Cockroach Labs
CockroachCloud - Build and scale fast with CockroachDB-as-a-service on AWS and Google Cloud.
How We’re Building a Business to Last
Cockroach Labs scores $160M Series E on $2B valuation

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!