Kong
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the a16z Podcast 10
2025 10 mentions in 1 episode
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14 statements about Kong, every show
Augusto Marietti never considered quitting Kong because returning to Italy meant failure
“Never. The reason is, I could Never visualize myself going back to the airport in Italy and my dad picking him up and say, how's it going? And it's just like would fail with my tails and my legs. Like I could never, I would have died here without food. Like I …”
Kong invented control and data plane separation in API management
“We kind of invented the control plane, data plane separation at the API management, API control plane level. Nobody was doing it before.”
Kong grew ARR from $2 million to $10 million post-Series B
“So that year we went from two million of ARR. To 10. That was right. And the plan I think was six or seven.”
Kong had under $1M ARR when a16z invested in its Series B
“When you invested, we were ARR less than a million. Less than a million of Yardar.”
Kong took a $2 million insider bridge loan during its 2015 pivot
“We open sourced in April 15. We had to take a bridge of two million to go another year because... We had to take an extension because we were out of gas”
Marketplaces require a long tail of low-power suppliers to succeed
“To a marketplace to work, you need to have a long tail of low power people. If you have concentrated in a few high power, marketplace doesn't work.”
Kong's three co-founders survived in San Francisco on $1,000 a month combined
“We did a thousand and, about a thousand and a hundred monthly promissory note that the company would give us, and we would have to live in three with a thousand dollars a month.”
Kong raised its initial $51,000 from YouTube founding team members
“So we rounded up 17, 1717, and we got 51,000 check.”
Augusto Marietti raised Kong's angel round two weeks before his visa expired
“Yeah, we raised two weeks before departure.”
Kong grants 2,555 shares to top employee to mark early struggles
“Every year we do the Founders Award. The Founders Award is 2555 stock to the best employee of the company. Why that? It's 255 days of struggle. It's just symbolic. But to remember seven years of struggle every year is a retro.”
Kong co-founders arrived in the US with $600 and 90-day visas
“We had no money. We just take 600 bucks last left to go to a United flight and we had 90 days to just make it or break it.”
Mariotti: Open-source software marketing gains are offset by enterprise sales friction
“So 50% of our competition is ourself. So in open source, what you gain in marketing, you lose it in sales.”
Mariotti: Kong locks its GUI and management dashboard behind enterprise subscriptions
“For us, the GUI is more an enterprise feature. DevOps download it and use it, engineers use it. Then when you go in an enterprise relationship, usually you have higher stakeholder than ones, obviously, a management console or dashboard, and that one is part of…”