Monica Sarbu, CEO Xata: Building a Postgres Platform, an All-Female Board, and ~50% Gender Diversity

Links - Codecrafters (sponsor): https://tej.as/codecrafters - Xata: https://xata.io - Tupu: https://tupu.io - Monica on X: https://x.com/monicasarbu - Tejas on X: https://x.com/tejaskumar_ Summary Monica Sarbu, the founder and CEO of Xata, shares the story of founding Xata. She discusses the challenges of being a woman founder in a male-dominated industry and the importance of open source in her career. Monica also talks about the transition from being a founder to a director at Elastic and the role of titles and hierarchy in organizations. She highlights the significance of happiness and motivation in building successful teams. Monica talks about the journey of building Xata, a Postgres data platform, and how it was inspired by the need she discovered while building Tupu. Xata aims to provide the usability of Airtable on top of a traditional database, with the goal of empowering companies to build products with fewer resources. The platform offers features like full-text search, schema migrations with zero downtime, and a spreadsheet-like UI. Monica also discusses the challenges of running a company and the importance of diversity and culture. Takeaways 1. Monica Sarbu shares her journey from building Packetbeat to founding Xata. 2. She discusses the challenges of being a woman founder in a male-dominated industry. 3. Monica highlights the importance of open source in her career. 4. She talks about the transition from being a founder to a director at Elastic and the role of titles and hierarchy in organizations. 5. Monica emphasizes the significance of happiness and motivation in building successful teams. 6. Xata was built to address the need Monica discovered while building Tupu, and aims to provide the usability of Airtable on top of a traditional database. 7. The platform offers features like full-text search, schema migrations with zero downtime, and a spreadsheet-like UI. 8. Monica emphasizes the importance of diversity and culture in the company, and the need to support and empower female engineers. 9. She believes that every company's journey is different, and it's important for founders to have a plan and prioritize what is important to them. Chapters 05:08 Introduction and Background 07:14 Building Packetbeat and the Power of Open Source 13:46 Differentiating Packetbeat from Other Monitoring Tools 19:25 Challenges and Benefits of Building in a Crowded Market 34:51 The Importance of Happiness and Motivation in Building Teams 48:27 The Relationship Between Tupu and Zeta 50:15 The State of Tupu and the Challenges of Non-Profit Organizations 56:04 The Journey of Zeta's Development 58:26 Zeta's Full-Text Search and Postgres Compatibility 01:01:23 Zero Downtime Migrations and Direct Postgres Interfacing 01:04:33 Zeta's Roadmap and Self-Hosting Capabilities 01:10:35 The Importance of Diversity and Culture at Zeta 01:18:26 Zeta's Chat GPT Feature and Future Plans 01:21:04 The Challenges and Priorities of Running a Company 01:31:29 The Importance of Diversity and Empowering Women Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.