MotherDuck's Jordan Tigani and DuckDB's Hannes Mühleisen on partnerships and commercializing open-source projects

Founded & Funded

This week, Madrona Partner Jon Turow brings us a story about a great partnership forming between two people, who had never even met, when they each find themselves on a mission to focus on what it is they do best. You’ll hear from Hannes Mühleisen, creator of the DuckDB open-source project, and Jordan Tigani, the database leader who saw an opportunity to commercialize it, about the lightning-bolt moment that led to one of them flying halfway around the world to meet — how does this happen and how do they set their partnership up to be the foundation of a really big business while still supporting the open-source community? Jon gets into all of this and so much more. MotherDuck and DuckDB have become integral for students of the modern data stack, but this story of inspiration, partnership, and execution is something that builders everywhere can learn from.

(00:00:00) Introduction

(00:01:27) Jordan's background

(00:01:48) Hannes background, launching DuckDB

(00:04:29) Customer feedback in an academic environment

(00:06:22) Landing on DuckDB Labs

(00:08:13) Should DuckDB launch a commercialized product?

(00:10:10) Jordan's intro to DuckDB

(00:13:57) Deeper dive into Jordan's expertise

(00:16:12) Jordan and Hannes meeting for the first time

(00:18:53) Hannes was approached by others to commercialize DuckDB

(00:21:32) Scale up vs. scale out

(00:24:27) What can MotherDuck do that wasn't possible before

(00:28:01) What Hannes has learned through this journey

(00:28:51) What Jordan has learned through this journey

(00:30:07) Wrap-up