Internet History Podcast 213. Datadog Founder Olivier Pomel
7 snips
Dec 15, 2025 
Olivier Pomel, co-founder and CEO of Datadog, shares his journey from a French open-source enthusiast to a leading tech executive in New York. He dives into the friction between development and operations that sparked Datadog's creation. Olivier discusses fundraising hurdles, achieving product-market fit, and his decision to go public rather than sell the company. He also explores how observability will adapt in the AI era and offers advice for European founders eyeing the U.S. market.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Name Born From A Painful Database
- Olivier and Alexei named problematic production databases “Datadogs,” with Datadog17 being a feared Oracle instance.
- The painful nickname became the company name and a cute puppy logo that stuck with customers.
Single Platform Solves Dev‑Ops Rift
- Datadog started to bridge the literal data gap between developers and operations to stop finger-pointing.
- Bringing both teams to a single platform proved critical to cloud adoption and collaboration.
Weekend Co‑Working Sparked The Startup
- Olivier and Alexei rented weekend coworking desks at The Hive to brainstorm before quitting their jobs.
- They later moved into Green Desk in DUMBO as their first real office and officially launched the company.