Spencer Kimball

Spencer Kimball, CEO of Cockroach Labs, discusses the future of open source companies, competing with giants like AWS and Oracle, and offers essential advice for first-time founders. They explore the evolution of open source and open core companies, the decline of Oracle's market share, and the advantages of cloud platforms for databases.

Spencer Kimball, CEO and co-founder of Cockroach Labs, shares insights on database resilience as outlined in the State of Resilience 2025 report. He discusses rising operational concerns, costly outages, and the necessity of robust modern strategies like active-active configurations. Spencer emphasizes the growing regulatory pressures, especially from the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act, while advocating for multi-cloud approaches. Despite the complexities, he aims to empower organizations in adapting to dynamic demands without compromising customer trust.

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.