Open Source Startup Podcast

Robert Brennan, Co-founder and CEO of OpenHands, discusses the journey of creating an open-source alternative to traditional AI coding agents. His platform quickly attracted 67K stars on GitHub by prioritizing developer empowerment over replacement. Brennan emphasizes the importance of community, flexible tooling, and transparency in AI development. He also contrasts the inner and outer loops of coding, advocating for collaboration and accountability while sharing insights on OpenHands' organic growth and adoption among technical and enterprise users.

Julien Mangeard, Co-founder of Plakar, an innovative open source backup platform, shares insights on modern data backup challenges. He discusses how legacy systems are failing to cope with the explosion of data and the threats of ransomware. Julien emphasizes the importance of independent backups, resilient design, and end-to-end encryption. He also compares Plakar's community-driven approach to hype-driven cloud solutions and shares his personal motivations stemming from past data loss, advocating for transparency and trust in the open source landscape.

In our latest episode, co-hosts Robby and Tim talk with Zarko Milosevic (CTO) & Arianne Flemming (COO) of Informal Systems. They've built a protocol design & cross-chain infrastructure platform to foster trust in software and money. This episode explores how open source infrastructure and security drive company-building in high-stakes financial software. Using Malachite - a consensus engine built for a customer and later acquired by Circle - as an example, the conversation highlights how verifiability and reliability are core to the team’s approach.Informal operates in a unique way. They have core products and ones that are spun out. Projects emerge organically from real user needs and are either kept in the core or spun out as independent companies, often as open source software with services. With a worker-owned structure and roots in crypto, the organization focuses on building trustworthy financial and software infrastructure while staying flexible through spin-outs and acquisitions.

Jon Morehouse, Founder and CEO of Nuon, dives into the transformative world of Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC), a concept driven by customer demand. He explains why Nuon is going open source to build trust and collaboration, essential for enterprise adoption. The discussion highlights the advantages of BYOC for data sovereignty and security while linking it to AI trends. Morehouse also shares insights on community engagement, the vision for shared standards, and the importance of dogfooding their own product. Tune in for a fresh perspective on the future of software distribution!

Kostas Pardalis and Yoni Michael, co-founders of Typedef, discuss their journey from major data infrastructure firms to creating solutions for unstructured data. They reveal how traditional systems like Spark fail under current AI demands and introduce Fennec, a tailored DataFrame library for LLMs. Insights on optimizing agentic systems and early go-to-market strategies add depth to their conversation. They also ponder the future of AI in data workflows and critique the explosion of benchmarks in the industry.

In this enlightening discussion, Will McGugan, creator of Rich and Textual, shares his journey in open source and building developer tools. He reveals the challenges of monetizing open-source projects, emphasizing the need to prioritize killer products over technical perfection. Will discusses the importance of the terminal as a fast interface and introduces Toad, a promising AI front end aimed at enhancing terminal workflows. With key lessons on hiring, simplifying operations, and early monetization, he offers invaluable insights for aspiring tech entrepreneurs.

In a fascinating discussion, Paul Klein IV, Founder & CEO of Browserbase, dives into the future of AI-driven browser automation. He reveals how Browserbase transforms traditional web browsers with its open-source Stagehand SDK, allowing developers to create automations using natural language. Paul emphasizes the importance of minimal feature bloat and community-driven design. He also introduces 'Director,' a low-code tool for non-developers, and discusses the ethical implications of automation, AI's relationship with the web, and the potential for innovative breakthroughs.

Vaibhav Gupta, Co-founder and CEO of Boundary, shares insights on creating BAML, a programming language designed for AI agents. He discusses the challenges of messy AI-generated code and how BAML offers a cleaner, more elegant alternative. Vaibhav highlights the importance of code quality and observability, emphasizing that beautiful code leads to fewer bugs and better functionality. The conversation touches on the limitations of using English for programming and why a dedicated language is essential for performance and debugging.

Yury Izrailevsky, co-founder of ClickHouse and former engineering leader at Google and Netflix, discusses the rapid rise of ClickHouse, an open-source OLAP database. He shares its origins at Yandex and highlights its unique columnar storage that optimizes performance and cost. Yury explains the shift to a managed cloud product and ClickHouse’s appeal in handling AI workloads. He also touches on building a remote-first culture and the company's successful integration strategy, making ClickHouse a favorite for companies like Tesla and Canva.

Chang She, Co-Founder and CEO of LanceDB, dives into the transformative power of multimodal AI, highlighting its applications in autonomous vehicles. He shares insights about the revolutionary Lance format that achieved a staggering 9,000% performance gain in real-time analysis. The conversation also covers the trust-building process in open source and the importance of integrated workflows beyond traditional vector databases. Looking ahead, he discusses emerging trends in AI, like audio infrastructure and the challenge for vector databases to evolve or face irrelevance.