The $9B Startup Going After Snowflake and Databricks | Renen Hallak from VAST Data

In this episode, we sat down with Renen Hallak, founder and CEO of VAST Data, a $9 billion company that's shaking the foundations of data storage, databases and compute functionality.

Through the conversation, we explore VAST's perspective on AI infrastructure, the process of selling over a billion dollars worth of software, and the technical innovations behind disaggregated, shared-everything architecture.

VAST Data

Website - https://www.vastdata.com/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/VAST_Data

Renen Hallak

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/renenh/

FIRSTMARK

Website - https://firstmark.com

Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap

Matt Turck (Managing Director)

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck

(00:00) Intro
(01:40) What is VAST Data?
(02:56) The company was started in stealth mode. Why?
(03:42) Did VAST get lucky with the gen AI explosion?
(04:27) VAST Data founding story
(05:57) How does the company work across 2 continents?
(06:48) What made you think that you can disrupt the market?
(09:23) VAST architecture explained
(23:08) Moving from data storage to databases
(25:01) What was the hardest thing to build?
(26:32) How does VAST work with open source
(26:54) A glimpse into the future products
(28:22) The world without VAST: how it would've looked like
(29:45) Who were VAST's first customers?
(30:56) How do hedge funds use VAST?
(32:08) VAST's sales strategy
(34:04) Renen's transition from technical founder to CEO
(36:01) How do you hire great people?
(37:07) What was the hardest thing on your journey as a CEO?
(38:43) $9B CEO daily routine
(40:17) Difference between offices in NY and Israel
(42:07) Renen's learnings from sales