Feeling fairly good about your contributions to huge knowledge? Then you must most likely get to know Andy Konwinski, whose resume within the house is unparalleled and who’s certainly one of BigDATAwire’s Folks to Look ahead to 2025.
We not too long ago had the pleasure of catching up with Konwinski. Right here’s what he needed to say:
BigDATAwire: You’ve had an enchanting profession with so many accomplishments: Compsci PhD from UC Berkeley, contributor to Hadoop, serving to to create Apache Spark at AMPLab, co-creator and committer of Apache Mesos mission, co-founder and VP of AI/ML at Databricks, creator of the Information + AI Summit, and co-founder and president of Perplexity. What motivates you to maintain creating new issues?
Andy Konwinski: Impression motivates me. Since changing into a father or mother, that drive has sharpened into one thing extra pressing. I wish to use no matter time, abilities, and leverage I’ve to assist transfer all of humanity ahead, sooner. For me, that begins with bringing individuals collectively. I’ve realized that all the pieces I’ve executed nicely in my profession traces again to getting good, pushed individuals in the identical room for one thing new and massive to occur. I name this “huge group vitality” and it’s the movement I’m constructed for.
BDW: You train a seminar at Berkeley known as Analysis to Startups, together with Ali Ghodsi and Ion Stoica, amongst different Berkeley legends. Why do you suppose the variety of startups has slowed in recent times? Has technological innovation slowed or is there one thing else at play?
AK: Imagine it or not, entrepreneurship nonetheless isn’t an easy path for prime researchers. I believe it ought to be. We began Analysis to Startup to assist change that. The purpose of the seminar is easy: Give tutorial researchers the instruments, examples, confidence, and connections to show their work into corporations. We’ve had a rotating lineup of instructors and a few fairly unimaginable visitor audio system. This concept – that researchers ought to ship issues – has been a throughline in my profession. Discovery is essential, however deployment is the place the actual impression occurs. I’ve additionally labored on this with labs throughout prime colleges, and I’m satisfied: the individuals who perceive the know-how most deeply can obtain the most important outcomes.
BDW: You’re scheduled to talk on the UC Berkeley Faculty of Computing, Information Science, and Society undergraduate graduation ceremonies on Could 22. Would you care to offer us a preview?
AK: I’m actually wanting ahead to it. I walked the Greek Theatre myself after I completed my PhD at Berkeley, so this feels private. Getting ready my speech has made me mirror – on constructing corporations, on changing into a father or mother, and on what actually drives me. On the core, I’m a scientist. And I imagine scientists, maybe particularly pc scientists, have a particular function to play in what comes subsequent. My purpose is to share a little bit of my very own path and, extra importantly, invite these new graduates (and the households cheering them on) to see themselves as a part of one thing larger. Our discipline has the potential to maneuver all of humanity ahead sooner, and I need them to really feel the load and the joy of that.
BDW: You co-founded Laude Ventures in 2024. Are you able to inform us concerning the agency? What kind of corporations are you seeking to put money into?
AK: We go in early through the discovery/inception section, on breakthroughs we imagine can change into billion greenback corporations. We solely work with deeply technical founders, principally research-based. That’s my very own background and my co-founders share that DNA. Laude is exclusive in that we actually are technologists investing in technologists. We’re deeply networked into academia, with a number of the finest pc scientists on the planet as our LPs – 1 out of three have already based a $B+ firm. We introduced our debut fund, which was $150M, in December, and have been having a number of enjoyable since then. Our investments principally span deeply technical infrastructure and functions, however we’ll check out something that’s rooted in analysis or constructed by a stellar technical staff.
BDW: What are you able to inform us about your self exterior of the skilled sphere – distinctive hobbies, favourite locations, and so forth.? Is there something about you that your colleagues is likely to be stunned to study?
I like being outside, even when I’m a little bit off form. I not too long ago backpacked a 28-mile stretch of the Pacific Crest Path with some buddies, rolled my ankle midway via, and needed to limp the final 5 miles out. Fortunately certainly one of them had higher first-aid abilities than I did. It wasn’t precisely snug – however truthfully, I nonetheless beloved each minute of being on the market. As profound because the AI breakthroughs of the previous few years have been, nothing compares to the way in which climbing across the mountains makes me really feel.
You may learn the entire 2025 Folks to Watch interviews right here.