Spencer Kimball
Co-Founder & CEO, Cockroach Labs. On 3 shows, 4 appearances, plus 1 compilation re-air not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveengineer@spencer08433091 ↗LinkedIn ↗cockroachlabs.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
He is the co-founder and CEO of Cockroach Labs, which develops the distributed SQL database CockroachDB. Before Cockroach Labs, he spent a decade as an engineer at Google, co-founded Viewfinder, and co-created the GNU Image Manipulation Program.
3shows
4appearances
75statements
10resolved
7supported
1contradicted
70%fully supported
11said about them ↓ Everything Spencer Kimball said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Kimball: Customers with zero software issues are actually more likely to churn
“You're actually more likely to churn a customer if they never have a problem with your software. Because they look at it and like, why aren't we just using the open source version of this? There's nothing that's wrong with this. We don't need support. What are…”
Apache-licensed open-source cores are hard to defend against AWS exploitation
“I mentioned before there's some exploitive behavior from the cloud service providers, in particular AWS, and so you have to be very careful about your license if you're doing open source. I would not just have a very powerful core that, for example, is with th…”
Pursuing open source and cloud SaaS simultaneously creates two distinct companies
“But the really worst thing about trying to do open source and also, of course, trying to build a cloud service, which you fundamentally need to do, we're at the SAS conference here in 2023, is that you're actually going to build two different companies, much l…”
Startups should avoid open-source unless target customers reject managed cloud services
“So I'd say that if you're starting from scratch in 2023, you should only ever consider doing both of these things at the same time. If your ICP that you just believe is really the sort of narrow set of potential customers out there that really need and want yo…”
Kimball: Cloud services are cannibalizing the open-source business model
“Open source ate the software world, and now I think cloud services are very much cannibalizing the open source business model.”
Kimball: Mandate to open source is weaker than when Cockroach started
“The mandate to open source is not nearly as strong as it was when we started Cockroach.”
Kimball: Early exploratory sales hires usually must be replaced to scale
“As soon as that person starts to figure out what that motion looks like, you're probably going to need to replace them, because the person that can figure that out is not usually the person that can Mentor other salespeople and start to scale an organization a…”
Kimball: Buyers fear cloud vendor lock-in more than database vendor lock-in
“What they're worried about is the vendor lock-in from the hyperscale cloud vendors. They're very worried about that. So the right way to assuage their concerns isn't so much to convince them that they're not going to be locked into your system. It's to convinc…”
Kimball: GP advocacy is more valuable than VC platform support teams
“No matter how good the associate or the BV person or the BV team even, you know, in a much bigger VC, those guys are good, and they can do great work, and they can actually probably do more work in terms of volume, but I'd rather have Peter Fenton on the phone…”
Kimball: Building a closed-source general OLTP database is a mistake
“I think that it would be a mistake for us or for anyone like us to build something that's closed source in terms of a general OLTP database system.”
Founders should optimize for reaching product-market fit rather than minimizing dilution
“Which I don't think that it makes a lot of sense to optimize for dilution early on.
Instead, what I think people should be looking at is just how much money do you really need in order to get to that stage where you get product market fit.”
Cockroach Labs allocated 10% equity across its first 20 startup employees
“What we are trying to do, this is sort of empirically determined, is say that the first 20 employees of the company would have 10% of the equity. And the next 20 employees would have an additional five percent of the equity. And then the next 40 employees woul…”
Early-stage startups should hire a hands-on Head of Sales, not a VP
“You should probably call this a head of sales. Don't hire a VP of sales. You want to find somebody that actually has done something quite a bit like this stage recently and was successful. This is exploratory motion, and you want someone that's going to roll u…”
VCs lack operational experience, making independent startup board directors absolutely essential
“So they also typically don't have operational experience, or they don't have much of it, or it's been a long time. So as your board meetings happen quarter in, quarter out, you need to think about when the right time is to add an independent that's gonna start…”
Early hands-on go-to-market leaders typically only scale with startups for one year
“So that early go-to-market leader that rolls up their sleeves, they probably won't scale very far with you. Maybe a year, and that's actually pretty good.”
Promoting top-performing account executives into sales management is a common startup mistake
“And it's actually a really common mistake to believe that a really successful account executive is gonna make a good VP of sales, ah, or a sales manager. Ah, these are two extremely different things. Ah, one is coaching, and one is, ah, being an independent co…”
Major software product failures can be leveraged to build stronger customer trust
“And even when you have egregious product failures, and believe me, when you're building a relational operational database, they can be pretty egregious. Every one of those has the seed of a stronger, more trusting relationship with that customer.”
Kimball: Data infrastructure leaders will keep a narrow product focus
“In general, the industry leaders in each product category will continue to have a more narrow focus.”
Relying on asynchronous database replication for performance is outdated thinking
“This idea that asynchronous replication is the correct way, maybe the only way to get performant database operation it should be sort of thinking from the past.”
Kimball: Lowball VC negotiation tactics damage founder trust and board relationships
“So, you know, like you establish that trust early and I'm sorry, but like the, a very chaotic and unpleasant negotiation phase is not a good way to, you know, have then, you know, have that person transition onto your board. I know I think that there's a much …”
Kimball: VCs win competitive deals when decision-makers lead founder outreach
“For the initial deal, the best way to get in is to have the true decision maker be the main point of contact for the company.”
Spencer Kimball: Google's 20% time was a failed policy
“What happened at Google was that nobody really took the 20% time. It was a little bit of a failed policy.”
Kimball: Ben Bernanke and Paul Krugman's macroeconomic forecasts blow everyone else away
“I'd say that their track record in terms of, you know, prognostications is incredibly good. I mean, it just blows everyone else out of the water.”
The other half of the tape: Spencer Kimball's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 11 times in 4 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Matt Turck 6Nate Stewart 2Peter Fenton 1Jack Berkowitz 1Harry Stebbings 1
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
the MAD Podcast 10
20VC 1
2022 1 mention in 1 episode
2020 2 mentions in 1 episode
2017 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Spencer's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MADLEDGER | Co-Founder & CEO, Cockroach Labs | 3 | 38 | 75% 6/8 | full record on the MAD Podcast → |
| 20VCLEDGER | Co-Founder & CEO, Cockroach Labs | 1 | 16 | 50% 1/2 | full record on 20VC → |
 SAASTRLEDGER | Co-Founder & CEO, Cockroach Labs | 0 +1 | 21 | — | full record on the Official SaaStr Podcast → |