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Depot – 10x faster builds? Yes please. Build faster. Waste less time. Accelerate Docker image builds, and GitHub Actions workflows. Easily integrate with your existing CI provider and dev workflows to save hours of build time.

Augment Code – Adam loves “Auggie” – Augment Code’s CLI that brings Augment’s context engine and powerful AI reasoning anywhere your code goes. From building alongside you in the terminal to any part of your development workflow.

Framer – Design and publish in one place. Get started free at framer.com/design, code CHANGELOG for a free month of Pro. Rules and restrictions may apply.

Notes & Links

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Chapters

1 00:00 This week on The Changelog 01:11
2 01:11 Sponsor: Depot 02:50
3 04:01 Welcome Ajay Kulkarni 00:33
4 04:34 Let's get vurnerable 01:39
5 06:13 Getting to CEO 01:29
6 07:43 This was 2004 (for Adam) 03:11
7 10:54 Themes in Ajay's career 05:28
8 16:21 How did you get here? 01:45
9 18:06 Conversational overlapping 01:37
10 19:43 Founder values form company culture 03:47
11 23:30 From enterprise to here 02:10
12 25:40 Postgres-native AND open source 05:17
13 30:57 Sponsor: Augment Code 02:59
14 33:57 From Timescale to Tiger Data 04:36
15 38:33 Haters hate 04:00
16 42:33 Agents in the database 06:17
17 48:49 It's the REAL THING baby 04:44
18 53:33 Speed of idea to shipped?! 06:31
19 1:00:04 Sponsor: Framer 01:39
20 1:01:43 Agent Tools 04:23
21 1:06:06 Now I can talk to the database 03:09
22 1:09:15 API/CLI/MCP/Skills 03:44
23 1:12:59 Build Skills not Agents 01:44
24 1:14:44 How will the terminal evolve? 03:09
25 1:17:53 What's on the horizon? 02:19
26 1:20:11 Thanks Ajay! 00:11
27 1:20:22 Closing thoughts and stuff 02:05

Transcript

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So friends, we’re here with Ajay Kulkarni, a new friend of mine from Tiger Data, previously Timescale. We’ve had this relationship, we work with you as a sponsor, and I’ve been a fan, obviously, of time-series data, and I had ideas for you all, I’ve been working with Isabel behind the scenes… And then it finally came back to this moment here, where you have agentic Postgres, which is just super-interesting to me… So I thought we would dive deep into who you are, Ajay, what your journey might be, and how you’ve come to love building databases. So let’s start there.

Yeah, yeah. I’ll try and give you the short version –

I assume you love building databases.

You know, I love building.

I love building, and I love solving problems. Now, databases are interesting, but it would not be the only thing I’ve done in my career. I’ve been in love with technology since I was a kid, and I remember using the internet for the first time in high school, in 1995, 1996, and thinking “I don’t know what this is, but this is fun.”

And I was a pre-med at that point, applying to colleges, and I switched to computer science, went to MIT… And I guess the rest, yeah, is history. MIT is where I met my co-founder, by the way… So that’s how we know each other for 28 years.

That’s wild, to know a co-founder of 28 years. I mean, the history, and the level of trust and maybe somewhat antitrust… I don’t know if that’s the case, but –

It’s not antitrust, but you know what it is? It’s –

Vulnerability is what I mean by that.

When he and I started working together at this point, probably 10 years ago, I remember thinking “I know what I like about Mike, and I know what I don’t like about him. And so I want to work with this guy”, you know?

And I’m sure he felt similarly. I think it’s a little bit of like a – I’m not sure I want to call it a spousal relationship, but almost, you know? You’re like “Hey, I like you for who you are, the whole package, even though sometimes that package annoys me… And I’m sure you’d say the same thing about me.”

Well, Mike is not here, so we can’t speak for him, but I’m assuming he might say something like that…

So CEO of Tiger Data… You were under a different name, a different moniker before… I do want to go there, but I kind of want to zoom back out a second, just to kind of identify who you are, but more so how you got here. You mentioned MIT, a long road, 28 years, knowing Mike, met him at college, university… What was the journey from there to go into, I suppose, your career, and what are some of the things you’ve done that you really feel have defined or identified who you are today?

Yeah, I think I’ve tried to always follow the thing that kind of tugs my heartstrings… To be like “Hey, I don’t know why, but this is interesting”, and really to listen to that. That’s why I ended up at MIT… My high school guidance counselor tried to dissuade me from going, and I was like “Nah, I wanna go. I’m gonna go, you know?”

And it was hard, but it was great. I graduated during the dotcom collapse. So at that point tech was not hiring, which just sounds crazy at this point, you know… And I ended up on Wall Street as a bond analyst. But very quickly, after a couple of years, I ended up back in Palo Alto, working for a startup, and I’ve been working at startups since.

What year was that, roughly? That back to Palo Alto.

Oh, back to Palo Alto? 2004.

Okay. I know exactly what I was doing that year. I was so wayward then… That was the beginning of my developer career, I would say. Not that this is my story, but just so you kind of understand the cloth there, the timing… That was the same year my daughter was born. She is now 21, so that’s 21 years ago for you, almost 22 as of this January, if that was the case for you too…

[00:08:05.28] Congrats, that’s incredible.

Thank you. I was in Canada at the time. Oddly enough, I’m an American, I’m United States… Served our military… I don’t say that as like a nationalist necessarily [unintelligible 00:08:17.14]

In the Army. But just to say that I’m not Canadian. Not that I’m against Canadians… I’m just not Canadian, so I want to be clear about that. Some people think because I lived in Canada for a bit, they’re like “Are you Canadian?” I’m like “No, no. I don’t say aboot.”

Probably because you’re so friendly. People are like “Oh, you must be Canadian…”

Well, yeah, maybe that’s it. But I was fresh… So I didn’t go to college, or to MIT, or to a computer science school, or get a degree in that… I learned by messing with GeoCities that same year. And that’s so funny to even think about… I started playing with WordPress, got a job, and almost got fired from a company called IT Weapons. Still around, in Canada, itweapons.com. One of the most formative moments in my career - I got hired into a sales role I could not do well, because their sales style was so different from what I was used to. And I was terrible at that job. And I knew I was so close to getting fired… And I took it upon myself to be like “Nah, man… You’re not getting rid of me.” Almost like you were with your guidance counselor, “I’m gonna do this.” And so I defined the business development role for the company, and started to add value beyond what they thought that I could add… And they never really told me directly that I was minutes away from getting fired, but I knew it, I knew it in my soul… But I also saw the turnaround, and the benefit there, and it was pretty awesome. So anyways…

I know – I like that story, because I feel like that is something you don’t know you have until it’s tested.

I didn’t even know I had it, Ajay. I had a wife and a brand new daughter coming in those moments, so that timeframe for me… I could not not survive. I had to find a way.

I think it’s some combination of grit, but also just like an FU mentality… [laughs] It’s like “Oh, no, no, no –”

Yeah, I was like “Listen, I belong here. I love this company… I’m gonna do something about it, I’m gonna figure it out.” So I’ve always been good at connecting the value dots, I would say. You can call it sales if you want to, and I think that’s the easy, in quotes, word you can use… But I really think I have this uncanny ability to – and I’ve just grown into it in my career, and I’ve leaned into it… Where I’ve been able to connect the dots between things that just aren’t normally connected, and express and redefine and help shape that value in those connected dots.

That’s great. I like that story.

Let’s go back to you, though… This is not about me, but I thought we’d at least encapsulate what was happening in 2004 between our lives… So - much different perspectives. But similar, I would say we’re – I’m not a co-founder or a CEO of a tech startup, but certainly a tech brand… Changelog.com has been around, we’re an institution at this point; 18 years, Ajay. We started in 2009.

I mean, in the tech industry, that’s like a hundred years or so.

That is. We’re a Wikipedia basically, but not really. I’m just kidding. Wikipedia is the eighth, ninth, tenth [unintelligible 00:11:29.20] one of those two things, or three things…

Something like that, yeah.

I’ll tell you what’s been the theme in my career, is that - when I was on Wall Street, it was a really interesting, an eye-opening experience… Because I was around some really smart people. I was a quant, around people who all had PhDs, some had multiple PhDs, really hardworking… It was a meritocracy. It wasn’t like a lot of, you know, FaceTime. I mean, you would work, but it was… And I was paid really well, but I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it. And I was like “You know what? I feel like this is not who I am.” And I felt like I was someone who needed to build, and needed to create. And I actually – I remember going soul-searching, like “Hey, should I go into consumer packaged goods? Should I go into–”

[00:12:16.06] At one point I thought about starting a record label, because I’m like “I like music, and I like business, so maybe I’ll start a record label.” I remember buying a book about it, and doing research… And at some point I started a chocolate company… And I kind of realized - and it’s kind of obvious in hindsight, that “Dude, if you want to build something to make an impact, tech is the best way.”

I mean, even more so now, but even back then… And so I think that’s what kind of brought me to tech, and I think that’s what keeps fueling me, is like… Yeah, just the ability to have a positive impact in the world, and on other people. And it’s not always fun, it’s not always easy, but I think that’s probably the main thing that’s been driving me, at least since that insight.

Hmm. Can you expose some scars, some hard years, some bad choices that you can not reflect on, that are formative to who you are today? Kind of like what I did with you a little bit.

Yeah… So you mean like life choices?

Yeah, where are the forks in the road that you’re like “Man, that’s the moment where I learned this hard lesson”, or that’s the moment – I know you mentioned Mike, and 28 years, so maybe that’s one of those forks, but… Just those moments where you look back now – and it’s kind of funny, because in the moment sometimes we can’t see the forest for the trees, right? And we think like this choice or this thing happening is the end of the world, or is the biggest choice ever. And it may be in that moment, but when you get past it, you sort of get past it with hindsight… And that’s why it is truly 20/20, because you look back with so much clarity. What were some of those moments for you when it was unclear, a choice you had to make, but now it’s like, it’s clearly defined who you are today.

As a mistake or a good choice?

You pick. Whichever direction you wanna go.

I feel like mistakes are more interesting.

Scars, bloody knuckles… You know, sometimes mistakes can be either/or, sometimes the positive choice we make can be either/or, a scar or a bloody knuckle.

I mean, look, I think you probably know this - entrepreneurship is a series of mistakes. And the key is just like not letting the company die, despite your mistakes. There’s many I’ve made over the years: bad hires, bad strategic decisions… I’ll tell you one actually that started even before then… I used to work at this company - and I won’t mention [unintelligible 00:14:42.17] because I’m not trying to throw anyone under the bus… But I used to work at this company where I was in charge of an engineering team, and somehow I thought I was on track to get more responsibility, and somehow there was this internal uproar, and I realized people didn’t like me. And it was an uproar, and I ended up getting sidelined. And that hurt for a couple of reasons. Number one, I’m kind of a sensitive guy… Yeah, I’m an entrepreneur, but I’m like “Look, dude, if you genuinely don’t like me”, I’d be like “Why?” I’m curious, because I’m like “Did I do anything to offend you?” But also, I was just caught off guard. And what I realized is that part of that was my fault. Part of that was I think I came across more dictator-like than I intended, but part was, I would say, maybe indirectly my fault, where there were some decisions that were made where I took the heat for it, where it wasn’t actually a decision that I made.

[00:15:58.24] I guess, I don’t know, maybe – I guess, long story, I think I changed my style, but I also realized that you have to look out for yourself, and your manager, whoever, that they will not necessarily look out for you. But also, conversely, I’ve tried to be the type of manager who looks out for people. I don’t know if that’s an interesting story, Adam, but like… [laughs]

Well, so let’s zoom into maybe how are you changed as a result? What did you do to – where I’m trying to go to is how did you get here? …in terms of not just where you’re at in this moment, but like the person you are leading the company you are. What are some of the things that were in your past, or in your choice line, that has now helped Ajay today be Ajay to lead?

Yeah, I would say that I’ve made – I’m not sure you want to call them mistakes, or just, I’ve had learning experiences over the years… And I think that I’ve formed who I am today. I think the key theme - and this is not all of them, but I think one key theme is I have learned how to trust myself. I remember early on I would make some hires, for example, in sales, that didn’t gut feel right to me… But I was new to enterprise sales, I was new to the database business. And in hindsight, my gut was right. My gut was right that “Hey, the general –” I like to say “In a fast-moving industry, expertise is a liability.” So in the database world, as the databases were moving from enterprise sales and on-prem to like cloud and PLG, the people who could sell this would be totally the wrong people for this. And I kind of felt that, but I couldn’t articulate it… And I made a few hires that I had to let go, and that’s my fault. That’s on me. But I think that’s one thing that taught me that “Hey, you got this far for a reason. Listen to your gut. And if you can’t articulate it, then try to take the time to articulate it.”

I think more recently… Look, I have a conversational style that myself – both Mike and I, we talk about this… It’s called cooperative overlapping. It essentially means that we interrupt a lot. But we interrupt because that’s how we talk. Like, if you interrupt me, I feed on that. And one thing we realize is that – well, at one point there was some people on my executive team who were like “We need to interrupt less.” And I remember thinking – my first thought was “You’re right, we should interrupt less.” And my second thought was “No, this is who we are…” [laughs] Like, we got this far for who we are, you know? And at a company either you ask the founders to change, or you ask the whole company to change, you know?

And what I realized is that there are people in the company who liked who we are. They liked that we interrupted, you know? And so I got to the point, I was like “Yeah, you know what–” You know, we talk about California mentality versus New York mentality… New York mentality is “Hey, I’ll be kind to you, but I may not be nice. I’ll be gruff on the street, but I’ll help you.” And that’s just the New York way. And if you’re in New York, you have to realize that, that when people are too busy to talk to you, they’re not being rude; they’re actually trying to be respectful of your time. So yeah, I think – I don’t know, I feel like over the years not trusting my own instinct has… I mean, you live with the consequences. And so I think I’ve learned that “Hey, just trust your instinct, because whether you win or lose, it’s on you.”

[00:19:42.18] Yeah. One thing I wrote down a while back… This is actually 2012. September, 2012. And it was the question of “Where does a company’s culture come from?” And essentially, it’s boiled down to what you just said there, which is a founder’s values and principles define the company’s culture. And so these things, they kind of – they’re top down in a way, but if you don’t have, I guess, fortitude in who you are and why you are the way you are to push back when somebody says “Hey, maybe that’s not cool”, and you’re like “I can kind of see that, but at the same time, it’s kind of who I am. And here’s why I’m delivering my message this way, or why the way I speak this way.” And it’s less about interrupting, but more about that cooperative – what did you call it, cooperative overlap? Is that right?

Cooperative overlapping. I think that’s the technical term.

Yeah. And so it does put a name to it to tame it. So it’s not interruption, it’s meant to be a courteous interrupt to probably provoke deeper conversation, or to provoke more collaboration and involvement, right? Isn’t that probably the reason for –

No, totally, but I think it’s also a function of like “Don’t try to shore up your weaknesses, try to lean on your strengths.” So I am an intense person. When I was younger, I would feel bad about it, because some people were like “Oh… Well, you’re intense.” But now I’m like “No, it’s just who I am.” And some people love that about me. And there’s some things I can do really well because I am intense, you know? It’s who I am. If you don’t like that, cool. We don’t have to work together.

Similarly, I talk a little fast. I remember at one point I was giving a presentation, and some of my peers were like “Oh, why don’t you slow down? You’re talking really fast.” And I slowed down, and they were like “No, this is worse. It was better when you talked fast, because your energy was there”, you know? And I was like “You know what? Yeah, I talk fast, and maybe I might muddle some words sometimes, but that is who I am. That’s how my energy comes through.” And just lean on that. I often talk – I talked about it with Mike, it’s like, we both have weaknesses, we both have flaws… And in the past, I would have been like “Oh, we have to work on these.” And now I’ve said, “You know what? Don’t try to teach a fish to climb a tree, you know?” If you’re a fish, swim better, you know? Don’t be like “Oh, I can climb a tree.”

Just keep swimming, right?

Just keep swimming, yeah. And so, it’s –

Dory’s got the best advice.

Dory… Yeah, that’s right. Keep swimming. But it’s just like, figure out who you are… Yeah, and lean into it. I mean, people talk about this in athletics, how once upon a time, maybe 50-60 years ago, the idea of the ideal athlete was someone who was just balanced in every possible way. Not too tall, not too short, not too strong, not too weak… And now they realize that - no, you actually want the genetic freaks, you know? That’s where you get the alpha, you know? You’re someone who’s like – if your wingspan is like…

The Michael Phelps with like massive wingspan. Gosh…

Yeah, dude. Totally. Michael Phelps is like - what, 6’4”, 6’5”, I think?

And there’s this marathon runner who I think is like 5’7”. And I remember reading an article that talked about how they wear the same pants. Because the marathon runner is all legs. And Michael Phelps is all torso.

And you’re like “Yeah–”, you know? You don’t get good at a sport by being balanced in everything. You find the thing where you have the edge, and you lean into that, you know?

Yeah. One thing you mentioned was this – it seems like you’ve got some history in enterprise sales, enterprise database, you mentioned PLG, product-led growth… Help me understand some of your backstory when it comes to I guess just databases in general. How did you get into that world? What was that world for you, and how has it changed to now?

[00:23:52.18] Yeah, I mean, I’ve been using databases since the late ‘90s, I guess, ever since I started getting into computer science. I started using probably MySQL in 2004, Postgres in 2011, I think, thanks to Heroku… So I’ve always been involved in databases.

I think what’s interesting to me is when we started this company, which was then Timescale, we entered a world where the success stories were companies like Hortonworks and Cloudera. Really big on-prem. And that was not my background at all. I’d never been a salesperson, never worked with enterprise salespeople… Now I know what these terms mean, but back then capacity planning, quota coverage, territories - they meant nothing to me. And we slowly had to learn it. But I also had this inkling that “Hey, you know what? I feel like the database industry is changing. It’s changing from that old model to something that looks more like SaaS.” And SaaS is less about enterprise sales, more about building a great product. And I knew how to do that. And so I think that was part of the journey, it was starting off as a user, getting into an industry not really realizing how the business worked… But then, again, I think following my instinct to be like “Hey, I think this industry is shifting.”

One thing I like to say about myself and my co-founders is that we’re very good students of the game. And so we were new to open source licensing, and then quickly became open source licensing experts. I would say we were new to PLG and sales, but I think now we’re – I’m not sure if we’re experts, but I think we’re probably top quartile or whatever for that.

You know, I think about the way databases have changed, and the way the sales of them have changed. Largely, it’s as if – if you’re not an open-source database, you’re not worth your weight in gold, because it’s a black box; things can change. Even the term - and this may cut deep to you, potentially - is Postgres-compatible. I think Timescale has never been Postgres-compatible. It’s always been Postgres-native…

…but some out there choose that Postgres-compatible, and that’s because they wanna do business differently, they wanna license differently… And I think the PLG model has obviously – one, I feel as a developer if I can’t go and play with your tool, even not so much in a free capacity, but the ability to explore it and learn it, and then trust it… That’s the way. That’s the way of the developer. You’ve got a side project, you’ve got an itch you wanna scratch, you wanna try this different thing… And if you’re not going that route, it’s kinda hard to really instantiate change in your organization. You may go from one database to another, or you have an idea, and if you can’t go and explore it and carve it out for yourself and present it to your team, that’s the way of PLG; that’s the way of open source.

Yeah, no, it’s fascinating, because I think databases, like software, used to be something where the key decision-maker was the CIO or CTO, and that deal was done in a steakhouse or on a golf course. That’s how it used to be. And with the shift to SaaS, and then to shift to cloud for databases, that decision moved to “No, it’s a developer sitting at their computer, just making the choice based on some combination of what they read, what their peers told them, and what their own visceral experience was.” And I think that’s been fascinating for me, because - I mean, I think it’s totally changed. I mean, the core job that a database does has not changed, but I think the way you build the business has totally changed from being more sales-led to being more product-led. I think that’s been interesting.

Yeah. What was the original challenge you faced to even consider creating Timescale? What was that moment, and when was that moment?

[00:28:06.29] We started off as a company building an IoT platform, internet of things. And it’s like 2015. Yeah, I mean, back then I’d just spent 10 years in mobile, and I remember thinking “Wow–” Mobile was really exciting, but around 2014 it started to get a little bit boring. Pre and post iPhone it was exciting, but then in 2014 you’re like “Okay, I have enough apps.” I’m like “What’s the next thing?”, and IoT felt like the next wave of computing. And so we started off building what we thought the market needed, which was a data platform for IoT devices. And that idea was moderately successful. We tracked over 100,000 devices, we raised the seed round, built a small team… But we needed a database to store all this data. And we were using a time-series database, we were using a relational database… And I remember at one point we wanted to sort the console by like uptime, but then show all the device metadata… And what should have been a simple SQL join ended up being like a two-week engineering sprint, because you had to connect these two siloed systems. And I remember thinking “Oh, this is awful. This sucks.” And one of our engineers said “Hey, I could build this on Postgres, but it’ll take me a month.” And I was like “Okay, cool. You’re an optimistic engineer, so it’ll probably take you three months.” And 12 months later… [laughs]

…we had this database. And I’m trying to sell this IoT platform… And look, as an entrepreneur you learn to listen to signals of when someone is really engaged. And when someone’s like “Oh yeah, that’s cool”, that’s not cool. But when someone’s like “Wait, wait, wait, hold on… Can you tell me that again?”, you’re like “Okay, there’s something that’s interesting to you.”

So here I am, trying to sell this IoT platform, and I’m meeting with the German head architect of this large shipping logistics company… I’m meeting them in Mountain View, and I’m telling him about this IoT platform. And he’s like “Look, there’s so many IoT platforms out there. What makes yours different?” And I was like “Oh, we built our own database, it does SQL, it scales for time-series…” And then he was like “Wait, wait, hold on… Wait, can you tell me more about that database?” And I think that’s when I realized “Wait, this is solving a – this is actually solving the right problem.” And that’s how it became a database company.

So yeah, long story short, we kind of scratched our own itch and realized other people have the same itch… But again, we are students, we listen really well to the market, we try not to be dogmatic…. And when someone says “That thing’s not interesting, but this thing is”, we’re like “Hey, we’re not here just to build that thing. We’re here to solve a problem. This solves a bigger problem. Let’s explore that.”

Break: [00:30:50.16]

Today you’re not called Timescale, though.

So there’s a name change of recent, which I think is challenging, but it kind of maybe shows the evolution… What’s the evolution of that discovery, that 12-month discovery, scratch your own itch, IoT company, to Timescale to now be Tiger Data?

We started off thinking we were building a time series database for IoT. That’s where we started. And so when we kind of pivoted to become a database company early 2017, we called ourselves Timescale. That seemed like a good name for a time-series database.

It’s cool, it’s pretty self-explanatory. And we actually saw there was a big demand in time-series that was more than IoT; some in finance, and events, and then soon crypto, and some other areas… But over time – again, we were going with this journey with the industry. We started off as an enterprise sales motion… At the beginning of the pandemic we went all-in on cloud, stopped selling on-prem, and said “Hey, we’re gonna be a cloud company.” And yeah, at that point we were running databases for customers, and we got to see a lot of data. And I saw “Wow, there are a lot of companies who are like 20 people spending 50k, 100k, 150K with us.” And I remember asking “Hey, what are you doing? What do you use this for?” And I remember one of them was like “Hey, I think of you as a better Postgres. I don’t think of you as just a time-series database. I think of you as my main – you are our main database. You are 50% of our cloud spend. You are our main database, because you are a better Postgres.”

And then we realized what we had built was not just a better time-series database, but a better Postgres. And we kind of expanded that better Postgres theme by adding vector support, and better native AI support… And we got to the point where this year we realized “Hey, we keep calling ourselves Timescale, and people view us as a time-series database”, but we had already become something more than that. It’s as if like amazon.com has started off as books.com. And you’re like “Hey, at books.com we also sell CDs.” People would be like “Yeah, but you’re books.com.” “No, hey, we also sell like socks.” “Yeah, but you’re books.com.” And that’s what Timescale was. Timescale was like “Yeah, you do AI, but AI with time-series, right?” And we’re like “Well, no. AI. You know?”

And I think our first attempt was trying to make Timescale mean more than time-series. Like, you know, when it’s time to scale, I don’t know… [laughs] And I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen the movie Mean Girls, but there’s a line in there that Mike has quoted, where he goes “It’s like trying to make fetch happen. Like, it’s not gonna happen.” Like, we’re trying to make this term stick which wasn’t sticking. And so we’re like “Hey, you know what? We need a new name, because we are Amazon. We’re not books.com.” But we’re not pivoting, we’re actually changing the name to properly reflect who we’d already become.

And Tiger Data was like the perfect name for us, because our mascot’s always been the tiger… Internally, we talk about Tiger time, that’s our all hands. We talk about state of the Tiger; it’s my monthly presentation to the company. New people who joined the company are Tiger cubs… And – yeah, we’ve an internal tiger mascot… And so the name Tiger just worked because it was who we already identified with, and to our existing customers it looked like “Yeah, it’s your same logo. Cool, I get it.” And some new people were a little confused, but we were like “You know what? In 12 months you will not be confused. And this is the right thing to do.” So that’s why we made that change.

Was it scary to get to the point where you’re like “You know what? The only way forward is a name change. Nothing else, just the name.”

You know, it got to the point – which probably means we’d waited too long… It got to the point where it was painfully obvious to us.

And I remember – and I told the team “Look, this is not going to solve any problems, but it is going to remove an anchor that is holding us back.” Like, it’s still on us to kind of move the ship, you know… But it removes an anchor. I think the key thing is you just have to stick to the decision and be like “Yeah, it’s going to be messy. It’s going to be maybe a year of people being like “Who are you again?” And we being like “Yeah, we’re Tiger Data”, you know?

I actually think the name is catching on faster than I expected. I think the name change went as smooth as we could have hoped, and I think people – TimescaleDB I think still has more brand awareness, but I think Tiger Data is catching up.

Yeah… Some people made fun of us, but whatever… [laughs]

Well, haters hate. That’s how it works.

Haters do hate. So our audience knows this, you’ve been a sponsor for a bit, too… And I mentioned maybe in the pre-call, maybe in the early part of it, Isabelle is someone who works for you, and we’ve known each other for years, since the MongoDB days… And we would have conversations – and this is when you were Timescale. And this is what I do whenever I sit down with a brand and I think about how can we help them reach our audience in a way that is informative, educational, and just something that helps them be curious and try it, if it’s something that fits in their world, essentially. And I always do this version of an investigation, to some degree. I look at your homepage, I look at your products, what are you doing… And things just didn’t pair up, especially when you mentioned with AI, “Yeah, it’s time-series, but it’s also just Postgres.” And it was hard for me, because I would tell Isabelle, “Hey–” I would write her, “You’ve gotta change that headline on your homepage. It just doesn’t work. Something’s not fitting here.”

[00:40:00.10] And so when I saw the name change reflecting on your mention of “It seemed natural”, essentially… When I saw the new name, the first thing I did was email Isabelle and I was like “Listen, that’s an awesome name. We’ve gotta talk. When can you make time?” kind of thing. Because it had been a few months since I’d talked to her, and that’s what happens when you do a rebrand and change your name; you rethink your model, you rethink your brand, and you come back out with a new plan. And that’s what I saw. And so the moment - just to kind of reiterate, the moment I saw this new brand, Tiger Data, I was like “Mm-hm, that makes total sense. The Tiger’s there, the logo’s awesome… It makes sense.”

I’m glad you felt that way, because I feel like people who knew the company mostly felt that way, which was like – like, we didn’t even change our logo. Our logo stayed the same. We just changed the name. And people were like “Yeah, no, they get it. And by the way, tigers are cool!”

They’re cool, they’re fun…

What I liked too, when you did this, was the logo animated from Timescale to Tiger Data. Logo stayed the same, the mark that you have… I thought that was a nice little subtle touch.

That was our marketing team, yeah.

I also – I’m not a… I think a lot of people like dark mode, and I think your previous site was all dark mode… And you may even offer a dark mode version of your site… I don’t know, because I see the stark white version of it… It doesn’t bother me. Like, the yellow and the white and the black… Whoever was in charge of that process did a great job… Thinking through the core of who you are, and how do you come back [unintelligible 00:41:44.11] not being completely different, but being different at the same time.

Yeah. I mean, it was a team effort, but the marketing team drove that. Kudos to them… But I think it definitely gives you some thought on “Hey, does the name really matter?” And I think where I’m landing right now is that the name may not help you, but it can hurt you. I mean, there are two schools of thought. One school of thought is you name yourself books.com, the other school of thought is you name yourself Amazon, which could sell books. And I liked the clarity of Timescale, because it was like, “Hey, time-series.” But in hindsight, it was limiting. While Tiger - dude, Tiger could be anything.

So one of the things that you have now, I think, is this burgeoning idea of agents in our databases, right?

And I’m at this point where – there was this arc of acceptance, I would describe it, of “Hey, come on now… AI hype, I’m over it. Too much”, this and that. And I think the game changed when Claude Code changed the game. That’s where I really think it happened. I had been a user of ChatGPT, like many people… [unintelligible 00:43:07.17] the API to do something in ChatGPT and copy it out somewhere else, whether it was written material, whether it was an idea, whether it was a framework in terms of a thought framework… Or maybe even a Bash script, because AI is pretty good at Bash scripting. And then you kind of get to this other side where you’re like “You know what? Wow, agentic is really revolutionary.” And I think Claude Code really changed that game from the new browser or the new destination point for developers… It is still in the IDE, and that’s still taking place today. But I think you’re seeing this shift to the CLI that is just truly revolutionary, that now the terminal - it was never not cool, but it’s cool again. A lot of folks are hanging out there, Claude Code kind of put that on the map in a way… And then a lot of folks decided to follow that direction. And I imagine that’s kind of what you thought too, is like - you’re probably doing a lot of agentic coding, you’re probably playing with side projects, you’re getting curious again… And you’re like “Well, the next best thing is to – how can I just talk to my database? How can I just put an agent in my Postgres?” Talk about that.

[00:44:24.12] Yeah. I think – yes, I had a very similar experience with Claude Code. I remember one of my friends talking about agentic workloads in 2023, and I remember thinking “What are you talking about? Agentic? What does that mean?” And now I use the word “agentic” at least five times a day. And Claude Code was that moment. Claude Code – I mean, ChatGPT was cool, but it was like a party trick. It was kind of cool, it could edit for me…

For developers it was a party trick. I mean, for everyone else it’s pretty dang powerful. But as a developer – and ChatGPT is not the right interface. Chat yes, but not [unintelligible 00:44:59.24]

I remember building – because I was trying to talk to a friend. I was showing it to a friend, and he was like “Oh, can we build an app that tracks pushups?” And I’m like “I don’t know. Let’s try it.” And I think 45 minutes later – Claude had gone out and found the right computer vision library, and other stuff… And I had like a mobile web app that would use computer vision to detect if you’re doing a pushup or not, and it didn’t get it always right, but it got it right maybe 80% of the time… Which was pretty good for 45 minutes of work. And I remember thinking “Dude, I can build anything. Like, I can build anything now.” And I’m with you, I think Claude Code felt like “Wow, this is actually an agent doing work for me, writing code, making decisions… I can steer it, making me more productive…”

I remember going to a social event that night and I couldn’t even talk to people, because I was so excited. Like, I went home early. I was like “I need to go back to Claude Code.”

“I’m not feeling well, y’all. I’ve gotta go.”

I swear to God. Well, I’m trying to talk to people about Claude Code, and they’re like “Are you okay?” I’m like “No, this thing is amazing. You have to try it.”

What kind of party was it? Was it nerds, or was it normal people?

It was part nerds, part normal people.

But even the nerds were like – I mean, Claude Code had just come out. There was still “Yeah, I use Claude…” I’m like “No, not Claude. Claude Code.” You know when I told you about that experience in 1996, using the internet for the first time? That’s what this felt like. Number one, it felt like “I don’t know what this is, but I want to be a part of this. This is fun.” But also it brought me – and I know a lot of my peers feel this way… It kind of brought out this childish sense of wonder, that I think years of being of an entrepreneur had kind of beaten down… And it kind of brought it back to the surface, to be like “This is fun.” This is fun the way technology should be fun, where you’re just like “I just want to tinker with this. I don’t know what I can build, I just want to build things, explore this new world together.”

[00:47:28.11] And yeah, so I’m really excited… I mean, I think as a company we’re excited, because we see this trend, that like 80% of Claude Code is written by Claude… The majority of new software over the next 12 months will be written by AI… We already have customers who tell us that 70% of their code is written by agents. And you just look at this and you say, “Okay, if that’s happening, then what else is happening?” Well, that means the surface area of software development needs to evolve for agents. And the surface area of databases. So now databases are serving a new user. They’re not serving a human, they’re serving a human using an agent. So then you ask yourself, “Okay, then how does a database need to evolve for that?” Well, number one, it’s less of a GUI… So you remember databases went from on-prem to SaaS, like cloud… But now you’re going from SaaS to, I don’t know, MCP, CLI… It’s like, the interface is totally different. It’s no longer clicking. It’s more like commands… And there’s some other things, too. Like, you want databases to boot instantly, you want to be able to fork, and create sandboxes quickly, in a safe way, in a cost-effective way… You probably want native search, native memory… Yeah, so I don’t know, I’m just excited as like the little kid in me who just loves building things, excited…

…but also as a company, it’s like “Yeah, this feels like a problem someone should solve”, and the answer is probably Postgres, and we might as well solve it.

This lyric lands for me in this moment… It’s from – I had to look it up. I don’t know this by memory, but it’s from Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell. “Ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby.” So when you’re in ChatGPT and you’re just ideating the future of what your software thing could be, if that’s where you’re kind of hanging out at, versus that experience of in Claude Code doing the same thing, but it’s making the thing. It’s making the real thing, and you’re seeing the real thing change. And maybe you’re doing Git commits, maybe you’re doing spec-driven or document-driven development and you’re thinking a ton, and you’re writing it down, or it’s writing it for you, or it’s writing the markdown… But the ideas and the vision and the direction is coming from your lived experience, and your wisdom, and places you’ve been, and valleys and cul-de-sacs you’ve been down, and you’re like “Not going there…” And it may try to take you there, but you’re like “No, no, no, hang on. Let’s curve that back. Let’s go here.” But you’re seeing the real thing be made. That to me was, I think, the moment where I was like “That’s pretty wild. The real thing.”

And it can be like “Okay, cool, commit those changes and push them upstream.” And so you’re like “Oh, it’s actually fitting –” Because when I use Replit or Loveable - they’re fine, but I was like “Okay, cool, but I don’t build this way. Maybe other people do, I don’t.” But now I’m like “Yeah, I’d build this way. Yeah, commit the changes, push it upstream. Yeah, cool. Great. Show me the diff. Alright.”

The speed you can move at, I think, is kind of wild. I laugh about this, and I don’t know how often you laugh about this, but I love when it makes a plan and it’s like “Well, this is week one, this is week two, and this is week three.” Meanwhile, four hours later, the thing’s done. Or an hour later, whatever the number is.

That is always funny, yeah.

And I like how it manifests its time ranges, but I’m like, “It’s kind of funny.” It’s still making a plan, or it’s making a plan with you, and the range of its timeframe is – maybe it’s actually accurate to how it should be if it was done with a team of humans, versus a team of one, with an agent and an idea. And I think that’s kind of wild, it’s just the –

Or maybe it’s just under-promising and over-delivering, because that’s what humans like… [laughs]

Yeah, maybe that’s it; maybe it’s psychology. Something’s going on there… Even your mention of – you know, we had a conversation, you and I, a few weeks back, and you mentioned the same thing,