Software Snack Bites

One of the most exciting private companies today is Databricks, growing over 50% at $1.5B ARR with a recent valuation of $43B announced in September 2023. This is the deep dive you’ve been waiting for to understand the product, growth, and competitive landscape.Chris Huskey is a Partner at Octahedron Capital, a hedge fund that invests in public and private markets. Databricks is a large position in Octahedron’s portfolio. In this episode, we cover every aspect of Databricks. The origin story, culture & ethos of the company, TAM expansion, platform components, competitive dynamics, financial metrics, and the future ahead for the company. Where to Find Chris:* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuskey/* Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrishuskeyWhere to Find Shomik:* Twitter: https://twitter.com/shomikghosh21* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shomik-ghosh-a5a71319/* Newsletter: https://www.shomik.substack.com* Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTubeIn this episode, we cover:(00:36) - Databricks Founding Story(03:47) - What is Databricks Product(07:13) - Financial Metrics(08:33) - What is Apache Spark(11:38) - Who are the Personas & Users of the Product(14:11) - Enterprise Use Cases(15:48) - The Rise of the Lakehouse Architecture(17:27) - Breaking Down the Platform’s Components(20:23) - Phase Shifts in Market Demand for Databricks Products(22:15) - TAM Analysis(26:04) - Competitive Landscape(38:32) - GTM & Pricing Model(41:48) - LLMs as a Tailwind(48:49) - Cash Flow Dynamics(52:20) - Risks & Software Velocity as the Mitigator(57:24) - LLM Infrastructure Show Notes:Databricks Series A Pitch Deck: https://bestpitchdeck.com/databricks-series-aDatabricks Series D Pitch Deck: https://bestpitchdeck.com/databricks-series-dOctahedron Capital’s: A Few Things We Learned This Quarter (highly recommend subscribing!)How to Subscribe:Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shomik.substack.com

Marten Mickos, the CEO of HackerOne & prev CEO of MySQL & Eucalyptus Software, discusses scaling Open Source companies, creating bug bounties as a service at HackerOne, and provides startup advice on leadership, culture, and decentralized decision making. He shares anecdotes on handling lawsuits, turning panic into strength, and the potential impact of AI on security. The episode also explores the challenges faced by CSOs and the value of Hacker One's data source. Marten emphasizes the importance of maintaining a positive mindset and understanding the values set by the founders when joining a company as CEO.

Kunal Agarwal, CEO of Dope Security, and Emilio Escobar, CISO at Datadog, discuss SSE & SASE Security, convergence of networking & security, personal hacking experiences, Dope Security's product focusing on user experience, CASB evolution, remote browser isolation technology, and the importance of self-unboarding and single sign-on in product adoption.

Glen Kacher, Chief Investment Officer at Light Street Capital, discusses AI's impact on software industry and long-term investing. Topics include Julian Robertson's influence, initial investments, lessons from the dot com bubble, cloud computing's impact, and the potential of LLMs in investing. Balancing business & macro perspectives is also emphasized.

Ethan Schechter, VP Sales & 1st Sales Leader, Snyk, shares tactical advice on sales and go-to-market strategies. Topics include selling to developers, effective champion enablement, hiring an early sales leader, balancing inbound and outbound sales, developing an inbound lead funnel, transitioning to selling a platform, and maintaining culture and hiring strategy.

Kevin Wang, Chief Product Officer at Braze, discusses his journey from employee #5 to a public company executive. He shares anecdotes and advice for early-stage startups, including insights on building products for enterprises, acquiring customers, and hiring. Wang also talks about Braze's end-to-end platform for enterprise customers and the importance of customer input in product development. He highlights the value of removing features, building customer relationships, and the unique features of Braze's product.

David Dorman, VP, Self Serve at Grafana and formerly Director of Product Marketing at DigitalOcean, discusses learnings from DigitalOcean's content strategy, the role of product marketing, the differences between self serve workflows, advice for improving strategies, and structuring self serve teams.

Alex Mackenzie (Tapestry VC) and Ian Livingstone (Snyk) join in a fascinating round table discussion covering JavaScript runtimes, edge compute, observability, encryption, LLMs, and AI. They explore the benefits of adhering to web standards, machine learning in Python, secure enclaves, and the features of agents using LLMs. They also touch on determining the source of answers generated by models, indie gaming, open-source engines, and the future of browser gaming.

Muji, Founder of Hhhypergrowth, discusses trends in cloud data infrastructure, security, and edge networking. They explore the differences between Snowflake, Redshift, and BigQuery, the benefits of leveraging a highly distributed network, and the value of research in predicting the direction of tech companies. They also discuss the dominance of NVIDIA in the chip market, innovation in infrastructure, and potential threats with advancing technologies.

Jake Saper, General Partner at Emergence Capital, discusses SaaS business models. Topics include single-player vs. multiplayer product modes, various moats in SaaS, evolving SaaS pricing & business models, scaling anecdotes from Zoom, Guru, Textio, and more. They also explore how AI and LLMs will impact SaaS and how founders should use LLMs in their products.