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Starting later than Snowflake and Databricks was VAST Data's biggest advantage

Renen Hallak · The $9B Startup Going After Snowflake and Databricks | Renen Hallak, CEO of VAST Data · May 3, 2024 · at 8:08

Renen Hallak, founder and CEO of VAST Data, explains why founding the company in 2016 provided a strategic advantage over legacy data platforms like Snowflake and Databricks.

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“And so I think our The biggest advantage versus those other companies that you mentioned is that we started late, and that allowed us to see this deep learning problem in front of our eyes versus machine learning, again, a lot smaller, a lot slower, and it also allowed us to leverage underlying parts that didn't exist before we started, and so starting late is our biggest advantage.”

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More from Renen Hallak

Assertion Not checkable as stated
VAST Data employs only two product managers for 750 employees
“You'll find we're 750 people. We have two product managers in the company.”
Renen Hallak May 3, 2024 ▶ 23:59 The $9B Startup Going After Snowflake and Databricks | Renen Hallak, CEO of VAST Data
Assertion Not checkable as stated
VAST Data has been cash-flow positive for nearly five years
“Efficiency, we've been cashflow positive on average for four and a half, five years now.”
Renen Hallak May 3, 2024 ▶ 2:39 The $9B Startup Going After Snowflake and Databricks | Renen Hallak, CEO of VAST Data
Disclosure
VAST Data achieves stateless compute by exposing data across the network
“Every node can now see the entirety of the data set. Data on low cost flash, metadata on storage class memory, all on the other side of the network, such that they become stateless, And they don't need to talk to each other anymore, and so now you have the mos…”
Renen Hallak May 3, 2024 ▶ 13:25 The $9B Startup Going After Snowflake and Databricks | Renen Hallak, CEO of VAST Data
Insight
Row and column database complexity stems from legacy hard drive limitations
“Row-based databases and column-based databases. That all stems from storage. It stems from hard drives needing to be sequential. If we can give different views into the same information, then you don't need that complexity.”
Renen Hallak May 3, 2024 ▶ 16:31 The $9B Startup Going After Snowflake and Databricks | Renen Hallak, CEO of VAST Data
Disclosure
VAST Data builds its software stack internally instead of using open-source
“Everything is our own or almost everything is our own. We don't use open source nearly as much as other companies do.”
Renen Hallak May 3, 2024 ▶ 22:46 The $9B Startup Going After Snowflake and Databricks | Renen Hallak, CEO of VAST Data
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Operating large AI clusters currently requires PhD-level computer science expertise
“Today, in many cases, you still need a PhD in computer science to operate a large AI cluster.”
Renen Hallak May 3, 2024 ▶ 27:57 The $9B Startup Going After Snowflake and Databricks | Renen Hallak, CEO of VAST Data
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