In this episode, we sat down with Renen Hallak, founder and CEO of VAST Data, a $9 billion company that's shaking the foundations of data storage, databases and compute functionality. Through the conversation, we explore VAST's perspective on AI infrastructure, the process of selling over a billion dollars worth of software, and the technical innovations behind disaggregated, shared-everything architecture. VAST Data Website - https://www.vastdata.com/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/VAST_Data Renen Hallak LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/renenh/ FIRSTMARK Website - https://firstmark.com Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap Matt Turck (Managing Director) LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck (00:00) Intro(01:40) What is VAST Data?(02:56) The company was started in stealth mode. Why?(03:42) Did VAST get lucky with the gen AI explosion?(04:27) VAST Data founding story(05:57) How does the company work across 2 continents?(06:48) What made you think that you can disrupt the market?(09:23) VAST architecture explained(23:08) Moving from data storage to databases(25:01) What was the hardest thing to build?(26:32) How does VAST work with open source(26:54) A glimpse into the future products(28:22) The world without VAST: how it would've looked like(29:45) Who were VAST's first customers?(30:56) How do hedge funds use VAST?(32:08) VAST's sales strategy(34:04) Renen's transition from technical founder to CEO(36:01) How do you hire great people?(37:07) What was the hardest thing on your journey as a CEO?(38:43) $9B CEO daily routine(40:17) Difference between offices in NY and Israel(42:07) Renen's learnings from sales