The Business of Open Source

Some short thoughts on marketing in the open source ecosystem, drawn from my conversation with Eric on Wednesday. 

Today I sit down with Eric Hendricks, the technical marketing director at Red Hat. Red Hat delivers open source solutions that make it easier for enterprises to work across platforms and environments. Eric begins the conversation by discussing his start as a technologist and how he decided to make the move to marketing. Eric then discusses the challenges of bringing marketing savvy into the devops space, including the unintended consequences of marketing buzzwords. I ask Eric about the relationship between marketing and open source, and Eric talks about how many of Red Hat’s community marketing efforts are driven through upstream communities. We then discuss the concept of the buyer in open source versus start ups, and how the difference is that the “big ask” in open source projects is emotional investment. Eric concludes the conversation by talking about the impact of his current role as a technical marketer as compared to the impact of a founder or IC. Highlights:Eric answers the question “At what point did you start to see yourself and did other people see you as a marketer?” (5:53)The stigma around marketing and the problem with marketing buzzwords in devops (10:22)Emily and Eric discuss the shared vocabulary problem that can arise with newer concepts in tech (14:35)Eric talks about equipping his product’s “champions” with all the resources they need to communicate need and efficacy to potential buyers (15:39)Emily asks Eric about the relationship between marketing and open source (19:50)Emily and Eric discuss the concept of “the buyer” with open source (25:14)Eric answers the question: “how are you able to have more of an impact in your current role than you would as an IC?” (29:30)Links:Personal website: www.itguyeric.comCompany website: www.redhat.comTwitter: @itguyericCompany: @rhelPodcasts: RHEL Presents, Into the Terminal

I'm trying something new this week — adding an extra episode with some key takeaways from the interview earlier in the week. In this one, I talked about the education battle many cloud native companies face, the problem of open source projects that are too good and understanding pain points for different personas. 

Today I’m joined by Omri Gazitt, founder of Aserto, an authorization company that offers cloud native authorization as a service. We discuss the differences between ID authorization and authentication and the problems associated with educating developers on the distinctions. Omri also talks about the evolution of authorization from server software all the way to cloud native authorization. He then expounds on the strategic nature of the decision to open source or not, and offers advice to developers based on his experience as both an engineer and an executive. Highlights:The beginnings of Aserto (7:50)Omri talks about what it was like to be part of a startup, Neon, in the 90s (10:49)Emily and Omri discuss what authorization was like pre-cloud native (13:32)How integration became the strategy used by Aserto to begin to solve authorization problems (17:10)The decision to open source and how organizations should be strategic when considering open source  (18:55)Omri discusses his unique perspective as both a former tech engineer and executive in forming his start-up (25:08)Omri talks about a missed opportunity in the early stages of Aserto (28:56)Links:OmriLinkedIn:TwitterCompany

I’m joined by Mark Grover, one of the founders of Stemma, a data catalogue for building decentralized data informed cultures. In essence it is a “Google Search” built for data scientists, data analyst, business leaders, and more. Stemma is striving to solve data documentation and relevance issues by keeping data cataloguing up to date and current.In this episode Mark covers his transition from the data team at Lyft to establishing Stemma. He discusses how he identified the need for a source of truth for ETA data, and how the data scientist in these teams should be the end all for this knowledge. Starting with building Amundsen, Stemma expands on the groundwork laid there to bring data to the user and open-source community’s needs.Highlights:An introduction to Mark and Stemma (00:00)The history of Stemma (00:45)How open source helped solved data cataloguing problems (4:40)The decision to found Stemma (07:40)How Stemma’s relationship with Amundsen has evolved (13:20)The unexpected challenges and unexpected eases (18:35)Navigating the co-founding experience (23:35)Mark’s vision for Stemma’s future (28:54)Mark’s tips for aspiring founders (32:54)Links:MarkLinkedInTwitterCompany

I’m joined by Matt Leray, co-founder and CTO Speedscale, an API testing product that applies “real world” stresses to “collect and replay traffic without scripting, simulate load and chaos, and measure performance.” With a history steeped in various aspects of tech, and with time spent in the startup space and cloud native space, Matt brings to the table some encompassing perspectives.Matt’s career has carried him from monitoring satallite earth stations, to fiber optics, and more recently into cloud native. Matt began in startups, then went to larger companies, then back to startups, which he offers some insight on. Matt has a lot of wisdom to share on entrepreneurship, how the startup space has changed, and how to best navigate that. Matt discusses how Speedscale works as an “traffic replay” platform for APIs and his role there both technically and as a co-founder. Check out the conversation for a list of startup how-tos!Highlights:Introduction to Matt and Speedscale (00:00)When Matt decided to become an entrepreneur (02:10)Deciding to jump into startups (06:00)What has stayed the same, and what has changed for Matt’s entrepreneurship (10:00)Being selective (14:00)Nailing down the timing and finding the right moment for Speedscale (20:26)Matt’s most controversial view about the cloud native startup space (26:25)Matt’s final thoughts (30:18)Links:MattLinkedInTwitterCompany

Kit Merker, co-founder and COO at Nobl9, a software reliability platform. Through software-defined SLO’s Nobl9 helps developers, DevOps and reliability engineers deliver more reliable features faster. Kit has had a storied career in tech, and as a result is a great source of wisdom and know how. Especially in regard to navigating the various sides of any given business. In this episode, Kit offers up some anecdotes from his long history in the software space, and how he transitioned from engieenering to the “business side” of things. He tears down some stereotypical misrepresentations of both sides, and expands on how empathy helps alleviate many of these issues. Kit discusses his partnership experiences, work in M&A, building a “coalition” in open space, and more! Tune in for our conversation for Kit’s emphatic and valuable insight.Highlights:Introduction to Kit and Nobl9 (00:00)Why Kit decided to transition to the “business side” (03:55)Kit’s reflections on partnerships (06:30)The importance of building a coalition around Kubernetes (10:00)Alleviating developer burnout (18:15)Nobl9 and how it came to be and how they work (20:15)The challenges of being a consultant first (27:00)Recognizing the margins (33:30)Links:KitLinkedInTwitterNobl9

Michael Guarino, founder of Plural, a unified platform for open-source management platform entirely hosted on Kubernetes which creates a fully functional ecosystem around deploying Airflow. Though working in Kubernetes and more, Plural can be used across a wide spectrum of open source projects. Many of which Plural is specifically targeting to make their product appealing to users.In this episode, Michael talks about how Plural works within the open-source space, and how in using it with Airflow they’ve helped to elminate much of the work needed there. Michael lays out how using Plural makes using Airflow easier on the user, versus taking a DYI approach. Michael discusses avoiding lock-in, the various open source tools they use, working through the early days in COVID,  the history of building Plural, and more!Highlights:Introduction to Michael and Plural (00:00)The open source projects that work with Plural and its advantages (01:30)How using Plural is easier than DYI and avoiding lock-in (04:06)How Plural came to be (08:26)The unexpected difficulties, and the unexpected ease (15:06)Plural and open-source (18:40)Navigating potential roadblocks to community building (23:09)Monetization (26:20)Michael’s thoughts on the future of open-source (28:11)Links:MichaelLinkedInPlural

Today’s guest is Michael Tanenbaum, CEO and co-founder of Mycelial, an edge data platform for distributed local first applications that is built with developers in mind. Myceclial takes the accomplishments of the cloud native movement to bring data that exists outside the data center into the hands of the developers themselves. With a focus on data from the “edge”, which Michael defines as anything from a smart thermostat, to a 5g tower, applications, and more.In this episode Michael lays out how he and his partners captilized on the oppurtunity of recent innovations in cloud native, and in turn commercialize the need to “get applications out of the data center to work harmoniously with applications in the data center.” He and his co-founders are striving to build complex edge native applications and local native data. Michael breaks down the “three pillars” of edge native to provide some crucial definitions, how he identified the needs Mycelial addresses, the diverse range of obstacles they’ve already surmounted, and more! Highlights:An introduction to Michael and Mycelial (00:00)When Michael recognized the need for a product like Mycelial (02:32)The “Three Pillars” of edge native (05:11)Disovering an “unsexy” problem and deciding to solve it (09:00)The unforseen difficulties of Mycelial (15:15)The unforseen easy parts of Mycelial (20:32)Some important takaways from the founding experience (26:45)Links:MichaelTwitterMycelial

Lyon Wong, CEO and co-founder of Blameless, a complete reliability engineering platform that brings together AI-driven incident resolution, blameless retrospectives, SLOs/Error Budgets, and reliability insights reports and dashboards that enable businesses to optimize reliability and innovation. Lyon has a history steeped in founding and investing in start ups and company building, which has lead a heavy involvement in Blameless where he can apply the many lessons learned.In this episode, Lyon breaks down his background and how it influenced his decision to become a founder at Blameless. Over the course of his career he noticed trends in other companies where teams were prevented from learning opportunities because they were worried about catching the blame. As a result Lyon identified the need in the market for a way to synthesize the cultural tensions around blame. Lyon’s insight on building trust, partnership, and communications on learning are deep and worthwhile. Check out the full conversation!Highlights:An introduction to Lyon and Blameless (00:00)Jumping back into being a founder after time as a VC (2:28)Creating a blameless culture (05:50)What Lyon does different as a founder and investor and his early experiences (09:50)The importance of credibility (16:10)The “core skillsets” needed in start ups and some crucial beliefs (18:55)The larger and smaller pictures, and balancing short and long term (25:34)Lyon’s parting words and wisdom for founders (32:51)