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@inproceedings{DBLP:conf/vldb/Orenstein98,
author = {Jack A. Orenstein},
editor = {Ashish Gupta and
Oded Shmueli and
Jennifer Widom},
title = {Starting (and Sometimes Ending) a Database Company},
booktitle = {VLDB'98, Proceedings of 24rd International Conference on Very
Large Data Bases, August 24-27, 1998, New York City, New York,
USA},
publisher = {Morgan Kaufmann},
year = {1998},
isbn = {1-55860-566-5},
pages = {698},
ee = {db/conf/vldb/Orenstein98.html},
crossref = {DBLP:conf/vldb/98},
bibsource = {DBLP, http://dblp.uni-trier.de}
}
Why does someone start a database company? Some become aware of being in the right place at the right time; they have the right technical insights and enough business sense to realize that they possess the right solution to a real problem. Some are on a religious mission; they are visionaries who see a better wayand want to lead others to enlightenment. Some do it for the money. Sometimes, a database researcher gets tired of solving esoteric theoretical problems understood by maybe 1000 people in the world, and whose solution is comprehensible to perhaps 10. Do this long enough, and it's easy to understand the appeal of building something that will be used by millions.
What's it like to start a database company? Is it easier to get money from DARPA or from venture capitalists? When do you start to wonder, "why did I ever think this was a good idea?" or "why didn't I do this years ago?" How does the company change over the years? What's it like when you have real customers who depend on you and you haveto support them instead of building a four-phase, six-color locking scheme, or rewriting the query optimizer? At each stage of the company, what was the bane of your existence? Are you ever comfortable with the promises being made by your sales and marketing guys? How do you evolve your role within the company as it goes through infancy,childhood, adolescence, middle age, and possibly even senscence?
What's life like when it's over? What do you do when you get tired of it and leave, the company goes public, it gets sold, or goes down the tubes? Can you go back to research? If you do, when do you start to wonder, "why did I ever think this was a good idea?" or "why didn't I do this years ago?"
Copyright © 1998 by the VLDB Endowment. Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the VLDB copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by the permission of the Very Large Data Base Endowment. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or special permission from the Endowment.
