Zero Prime Podcast

In this enlightening episode, I have the privilege of hosting Craig McLuckie, a tech industry veteran who has made significant contributions to the cloud computing industry and is currently the Co-founder & CEO of stacklok. We begin by exploring his journey from Microsoft to Google, where he co-authored Kubernetes, a pivotal project that has shaped the industry. We also delve into his post-Google venture, Heptio, and the strategic planning that led to its success. Craig offers valuable advice on building and commercializing open source projects, highlighting the importance of understanding the trade-off between reduced activation energy and value extraction. Finally, we discuss stacklok, Craig's latest company focused on enhancing the security and sustainability of open source projects. This episode is chock full of insights for anyone in the tech industry, especially those interested in cloud computing, open source or GTM strategy.
Highlights:
[1:10] - Understanding the origins of Kubernetes
[2:38] - Exploring distribution and GTM challenges, insights and concerns
[5:49] - How the competition evolved in the Infrastructure-as-a-Service landscape
[7:08] - Diving deeper into startups and GTM strategies based on Craig’s experience at Heptio
[10:47] - Advice to founders building OSS projects who are looking to commercialize
[13:11] - Thoughts on optimal sales/engineering/product teams in seed stage companies
[16:16] - Digging into stacklok, what Craig and his team are building and why
[23:00] - Craig elaborates on his quote “Let’s make infrastructure really boring”

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👉 Don't forget to join us at Data Council 2025 in Oakland, CA - where 1000+ data & AI geeks, founders & investors join each other in building the future of data. This year, we're featuring top speakers from companies like DataDog, Meta, OpenAI, DuckDB, Notion and more!

Purchase tickets here for the biggest data & AI event of the year!

In this episode, Pete speaks with Alvaro Morales, the co-founder and CEO of Orb, who shares his journey from being an engineer to becoming the founder of a flexible billing engine for modern software pricing.

Alvaro traces his path from Lima, Peru to San Francisco, discussing the rise of startups in his home city as well as his early engineering experiences at Yahoo, Palantir and Asana. His early days founding Orb were not without challenges, especially when it came to signing up customers and building trust. However, Orb’s customer-centric and collaborative approach helped them build strong relationships and turn early customers into champions.

Pete and Alvaro also discuss the shift to usage-based pricing in the AI world and how Orb supports customers in implementing these pricing schemes. Listen in for a fantastic conversation!

Highlights:
[00:45] - Alvaro discussed his origins in Lima and what the tech world is like in Peru.
[3:36] - We dig into what Alvaro learned from early engineering internships at Yahoo, Palantir and Asana.
[6:55] - Alvaro shares the key insight that led him to start Orb.
[10:16] - We discuss encouraging flexibility and experimentation of pricing and any downsides it can create.
[12:27] - I ask Alvaro how he worked with design partners and started signing early customers.
[17:42] - We talk about who was involved in their customer-acquisition and relationship building conversations.
[18:20] - Alvaro shares insights into usage-based pricing and how it applies to the AI world.
[22:35] - We discuss the biggest challenges in transitioning from engineer-founder to CEO.

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👉 Don't forget to join us at Data Council 2025 in Oakland, CA - where 1000+ data & AI geeks, founders & investors join each other in building the future of data. This year, we're featuring top speakers from companies like DataDog, Meta, OpenAI, DuckDB, Notion and more!

Purchase tickets here for the biggest data & AI event of the year!

In this episode, I sit down with Alex Mashrabov, the visionary CEO of Higgsfield AI. We journey through Alex's impressive career, beginning with his time at Yandex where he witnessed the early implementations of neural networks. We explore what ignited his entrepreneurial spirit and delve into the stark contrasts between the Russian and American educational landscapes.

Our discussion then moves to Alex's experiences in building generative AI products, starting with AI Factory, which focused on innovative face animation technology and strategic planning for mobile devices. We also examine his time at Snap, where he addressed the challenges of balancing scale and cost. Finally, Alex highlights Higgsfield AI's groundbreaking approach to efficiently training text-to-video models. He discusses the common challenges organizations face when scaling models and allocating resources and emphasizes the importance of rapid experimentation in AI development.

Highlights:
[01:07] - Alex discusses his time at Yandex and what gave him the confidence to leave and become a founder
[03:29] - Differences between American and Russian educational systems and how Yandex leveraged these differences for recruitment
[06:57] - Alex describes what he built at AI Factory and his experiences on the Snap team
[10:10] - Alex shares the engineering efficiencies he introduced at Higgsfield AI
[14:03] - Exploring how experimentation influences the AI stack
[15:52] - Alex talks about Higgsfield’s architecture and world models
[21:32] - We delve into Alex's views on copyrighted material, deep fakes, and other ethical challenges of generated video
[26:20] - Alex outlines the long-term vision for Higgsfield AI

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👉 Don't forget to join us at Data Council 2025 in Oakland, CA - where 1000+ data & AI geeks, founders & investors join each other in building the future of data. This year, we're featuring top speakers from companies like DataDog, Meta, OpenAI, DuckDB, Notion and more!

Purchase tickets here for the biggest data & AI event of the year!

Pete interviews Lindsay Pettingill, CEO & Founder of Iggy. Iggy allows users to quickly understand physical locations to make better investment and management decisions. Lindsay gives us an overview of Iggy, how working at Airbnb informed founding Iggy, what neighborhood data is, and what the long term vision for Iggy is. Check it out!
Highlights:
[1:20] What does Iggy do?
[5:20] How did your experience working at Airbnb inform founding Iggy?
[10:06] Neighborhood data
[13:22] Iggy’s long term vision (Wikipedia for places)
[14:50] Insights for founders from a founder

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👉 Don't forget to join us at Data Council 2025 in Oakland, CA - where 1000+ data & AI geeks, founders & investors join each other in building the future of data. This year, we're featuring top speakers from companies like DataDog, Meta, OpenAI, DuckDB, Notion and more!

Purchase tickets here for the biggest data & AI event of the year!

Join us for an interview with Shinji Kim, the CEO and founder of Select Star. She walks us through the data catalog landscape, where Select Star sits within that, how the startup thinks about data integration, and lastly she outlines how the data governance ecosystem is changing. Check it out!
Highlights:
[0:45]: Starting a company as an engineer (Concord Systems)
[6:15]: The connection between Select Star and Concord Systems
[10:57]: Controlling the inception of data so we know what ends up in the data lake
[14:05]: Data catalog market landscape
[17:55]: What Select Star does
[20:03]: Select Star’s approach to data integration
[21:55]: How the data governance ecosystem is changing

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👉 Don't forget to join us at Data Council 2025 in Oakland, CA - where 1000+ data & AI geeks, founders & investors join each other in building the future of data. This year, we're featuring top speakers from companies like DataDog, Meta, OpenAI, DuckDB, Notion and more!

Purchase tickets here for the biggest data & AI event of the year!