Hardware Podcasts

Innovation Tokens with Charity Majors

Oxide and Friends · 11 Jul 2024 · 1h 26m · Episode 17

What this episode covers

Charity Majors, founder of Honeycomb, explains why her company built a custom storage engine called Retriever instead of using existing databases like Druid, arguing that the specific need for fast, ad-hoc observability required a solution that off-the-shelf tools could not provide. She and Bryan Cantrill of Oxide Computer Company discuss the concept of "innovation tokens," arguing that building custom infrastructure is justified when it serves as a core differentiator and aligns with shared values, whereas using "boring" technology is better for non-differentiating components. The conversation highlights the importance of values matching between a company and its technology partners, using examples like the decision to build Oxide's own power shelf controller and Honeycomb's refactoring of Retriever to reduce costs by leveraging S3 and Lambda.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies and companies scaling up

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Honeycomb, Oxide Computer Company, Murata
Products
Retriever, Druid, Skuba, Dropshot, Progenitor, Helios, Kron

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