E22 Engineering the atomic cockroach of databases with Cockroach Labs co-founder Spencer Kimball

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Spencer Kimball, co-founder and CEO of Cockroach Labs about building a database unicorn backed by some of Silicon Valley's top venture firms, incl. Benchmark, Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures. After recording the episode, Cockroach Labs raised $160m on a $2bn valuation in January 2021, reflecting the explosive growth and product innovation of 2020.  

00:00​ Intro 

00:56 Cockroach Labs elevator pitch 

04:29 Getting the band together 

09:24​ Exit to Square and paddling back into the startup surf 

11:44​ First version of CockroachDB 

14:17​ Open core model 

20:43​ Relicensing Cockroach DB 

25:39​ Open source as top of the funnel tool  

30:25 Series A from Benchmark and Sequoia Capital 

35:15 Series A extension from Index 

37:01 Late state startup life at Series D  

39:44 CockroachDB technology 

48:11 Synchronous replication and CockroachDB 

53:50 CAP Theorem and CockroachDB  

58:10 CockroachDB and Kubernetes  

1:01:10 Spencer's workout regime