The Biotech Startups Podcast 🧬 Stavros Papadopoulos: Scaling TileDB & Revolutionizing Data Infrastructure (Part 3/4)
Mar 10, 2025
35:18
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"We're wasting money. You're wasting money as an organization, like, hundreds of millions of dollars that can save you that money easily. But you have to start reasoning a little bit differently."
In this third part of our conversation with Stavros Papadopoulos, founder and CEO of TileDB, we delve into the company's ambitious vision to revolutionize data management in the life sciences sector. Stavros shares the journey of TileDB from its inception as a highly technical solution to its current position as a potential game-changer in how organizations handle diverse data types. He discusses the challenges of selling innovative solutions to large pharmaceutical companies and the stark contrast in adoption between big pharma and smaller organizations.
Stavros, with his background as a technologist from MIT, details the early days of TileDB, emphasizing the intense focus on technological innovation and performance optimization. He describes the company's evolution from a small team of highly skilled engineers to securing significant funding and attracting major customers in the life sciences sector. Throughout the conversation, Stavros highlights the philosophical aspect of TileDB's mission, stressing its potential impact on accelerating scientific discovery and ultimately saving lives.
Key topics covered:
- TileDB's Vision for a Multimodal Database: Replacing fragmented data management systems
- Challenges in Selling Innovative Solutions: Large pharmaceutical companies as a target market
- The Contrast Between Big Pharma & Smaller Organizations: Adopting new technologies
- The Philosophical Drive Behind TileDB's Mission: Accelerating scientific discovery
- Organizational Inertia & Decision-Making Complexities: Enterprise software adoption
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Subscribe to the podcast:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@excedr
Find our guest, Stavros Papadopoulos, at these links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stavrospap/
Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee
Learn more about Excedr
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/
Website: https://www.excedr.com
Resources & Mentions:
Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore: http://soloway.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/46715502/Crossing-The-Chasm.pdf
Intel's Parallel Computing Lab: https://faculty.cc.gatech.edu/~echow/ipcc/
Intel Science and Technology Center for Big Data at MIT CSAIL: http://hammer.csail.mit.edu/
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology: https://hkust.edu.hk/
AWS (Amazon Web Services): https://aws.amazon.com/
Azure (Microsoft's cloud computing service): https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/
Companies & people mentioned:
Intel: https://www.intel.com/
MIT: https://www.mit.edu/
TileDB: https://tiledb.com/
Broad Institute: https://www.broadinstitute.org/
Silicon Valley Bank: https://www.svb.com/
Browne Consulting: https://browneconsulting.com/
Snowflake: https://www.snowflake.com/
Databricks: https://www.databricks.com/
Seth Shelnutt: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-shelnutt/
Dimitris Papadias: https://cse.hkust.edu.hk/admin/people/faculty/profile/dimitris
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:18 Early days of TileDB and its mission
06:36 Building a high-performance team and securing early customers
09:22 Discussing the vision behind TileDB
12:11 The problem of data infrastructure complexity
16:26 TileDB as a multimodal database for discovery
19:27 The inefficiency of in-house database solutions in pharmaceuticals
23:09 Overcoming organizational inertia in adopting new technologies
28:20 The necessity of TileDB for drug discovery
29:48 Differences in working with smaller vs. larger organizations
33:21 Outro
The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.