E21: The Power of Pricing with Alvaro Morales of Orb

04/04/24 • 24 min

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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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!

Tickets are selling out fast, buy yours today!

Previous Episode

E20: Building Sustainable Businesses in the Tech Industry with Craig McLuckie

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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Next Episode

E22: From BigQuery to Motherduck: The Journey of Jordan Tigani

In this episode, I chat with Jordan Tigani, the dynamic engineer-founder of MotherDuck who previously led Google's BigQuery team and headed up product at SingleStore. Jordan shares the inspiring origin story of MotherDuck, which emerged from the overlooked analytics' long tail, focusing on serving small users in data analytics. Our conversation delves into thought-provoking topics such as the conundrum of big data, bridging the gap between unstructured AI data and traditional data structures, the impact of scale-up data warehouses on customer decisions and MotherDuck's relationship with the open-source DuckDB. Tune in to uncover more gems from the founding story of one of the hottest data infrastructure startups in the market today.
Highlights:
[00:45] - Jordan shares his “aha” moments working at Google BigQuery that gave him the inspiration to start MotherDuck
[3:14] - Jordan digs into where we’re at in the era of data evolution and whether big data is still an issue
[6:14] - We discuss how data and compute requirements are shifting with the rise of AI & ML
[8:15] - Jordan shares the significance of scale up vs. scale out and how it impacts user experience and the speed of development
[12:52] - We explore MotherDuck’s relationship with the open source project DuckDB and how they work together
[15:45] - Jordan talks about the user progression from DuckDB to MotherDuck
[18:20] - Quantum Round

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