Feeling fairly good about your contributions to massive information? Then it is best to in all probability get to know Andy Konwinski, whose resume within the area is unparalleled and who’s one in all BigDATAwire’s Individuals to Look ahead to 2025.
We just lately 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 venture, 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: Influence motivates me. Since changing into a guardian, that drive has sharpened into one thing extra pressing. I need 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 every thing I’ve accomplished properly in my profession traces again to getting sensible, pushed individuals in the identical room for one thing new and large to occur. I name this “massive group power” and it’s the movement I’m constructed for.
BDW: You educate a seminar at Berkeley known as Analysis to Startups, together with Ali Ghodsi and Ion Stoica, amongst different Berkeley legends. Why do you assume the variety of startups has slowed in recent times? Has technological innovation slowed or is there one thing else at play?
AK: Consider it or not, entrepreneurship nonetheless isn’t a simple path for high researchers. I feel it ought to be. We began Analysis to Startup to assist change that. The aim of the seminar is straightforward: 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 unbelievable 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 high faculties, 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 trying ahead to it. I walked the Greek Theatre myself after I completed my PhD at Berkeley, so this feels private. Making ready my speech has made me replicate – on constructing corporations, on changing into a guardian, and on what actually drives me. On the core, I’m a scientist. And I imagine scientists, maybe particularly laptop scientists, have a particular position to play in what comes subsequent. My aim 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 greater. Our discipline has the potential to maneuver all of humanity ahead sooner, and I need them to really feel the burden 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 part, 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 among the finest laptop 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 plenty of enjoyable since then. Our investments principally span deeply technical infrastructure and purposes, however we’ll check out something that’s rooted in analysis or constructed by a stellar technical crew.
BDW: What are you able to inform us about your self outdoors of the skilled sphere – distinctive hobbies, favourite locations, and so on.? Is there something about you that your colleagues is perhaps stunned to be taught?
I like being open air, even when I’m just a little out of form. I just lately backpacked a 28-mile stretch of the Pacific Crest Path with some mates, rolled my ankle midway by means of, and needed to limp the final 5 miles out. Fortunately one in all them had higher first-aid abilities than I did. It wasn’t precisely snug – however actually, I nonetheless liked each minute of being on the market. As profound because the AI breakthroughs of the previous couple of years have been, nothing compares to the way in which mountaineering across the mountains makes me really feel.
You possibly can learn the entire 2025 Individuals to Watch interviews right here.
