False Promises of Modern Data Observability Stacks – Rohit Choudhary, Acceldata

This is texturing TV. Hey everyone. Welcome back your detect strong TV.

Our next guest today is Rohit Choudhary. And I had it and I lost it Rohit. I apologize.

Can you pronounce it correctly for us John 3? Audrey Rohit Audrey. Yes.

Thank you. Rohit Rohit is the CEO and co-founder of Excel data. And he's going to share some news with us in just a moment.

But first, well, he let's hear a little bit about your about your journey. Yeah, thanks Allen. Thanks for having me today.

My journey is you know, this is my third startup and you know, I've been in startups since 2008 have been working in the data space for about you know, 10 to 15 years. And you know, I've always been an engineer before I became the CEO at Excel data. It's been a very exciting Journey.

I've always worked on distributed systems, you know complex web scale Technologies internet platforms. And so very very interesting Journey that you know, I've had through my career and very happy to be here today. absolutely, and then why don't you Give data history and story if you don't mind Rohit.

Yeah, and absolutely, you know, so my most recent job before, you know, I started Excel data was at this company called hortonworks. Hortonworks was an amazing company with lineage in you know companies like Yahoo! And many other large internet's web-scale companies, you know, there was a bunch of Open Source platform or open source Technologies getting developed at Yahoo, which some of the founders are taught nox decided to you know, build a company around and I I was very fortunate to be, you know, one of the engineering leaders over there, you know, I used to run open source close source and you know some commercial projects at hortonworks and what we found out was that, you know, the world of data was completely changing.

So if you look at you know, what are three big trends, you know, the two exponential trends of our times number one data volume is increasing, you know, and people needed different kinds of Technologies to sort of collect the amount of data that was getting generated in the world. The second thing was that, you know technical complexity was increasing and increasing very exponentially, which is that, you know, you needed purpose built databases for storing the amount of insights and you know data that was getting generated around the business and the third thing that continues to be true is that you know, it's very hard to find talent that can manage this exponential growth of data volume and you know system complexity. So we saw you know Southeast Trends earlier at hortonworks and I felt that you know, there was an opportunity to build it for the future probably the next generation of what would be the manifestation of let's say A datadog, you know companies like their dog and app Dynamics which is you know, predominantly in the application monitoring space.

We were built on the back of you know, very strong it application deployment for the previous 15 years and I felt that you know, the time was about right to build something very similar for you know, the data intensive applications or data products. And I think that is the story that we are sort of, you know, leading into the market with and the idea occurred to me in 2017 2018 time frame. We started the company in 2018.

We figured that you know, it is going to be a multi technology and a multi-cloud work and we're just building for it. We are assisting data engineering teams to build and operate better data products. excellent, excellent, so it's been seven years a lot of progress, right and you guys recently announced some new funding news and we might as well.

Hit that, right? Yeah, it's actually a very exciting time. You know, you just a small correction.

So, you know, we're about four and a half years old, right? I'm sorry. Yeah, 2050 was you that I got you.

Yeah. So 2018 or so something like that? Yeah, we started 2018 like I mentioned and you know, this is our fifth year in operation and we're like sort of progressing really rapidly.

I think you know, it goes and speaks to sort of, you know the way in which we have executed in the last four and a half years making sure that we've not missed a beat in both in terms of you know, where our Revenue guidance has been to both internally and and you know to the board and in addition to that, you know building some amazing products, you know, I think you know when you're building an IP Centric company, I think it always is important that you are also finding Commercial Success. So we've actually been very very focused on both sides of the story, but I think at the core of all of this is that, you know, do our customers want what we build and if you just look at the complexity that you know exists in the Enterprise environment. I think it goes to say that you know, this product is a requirement and I'm sure that you know our investors, you know, the most recent round that we did which was a 50 million dollar around for our CDC.

I think it goes to just show how strong the execution Signals are which you know when there is not a nickel in the street, especially given the events of last week. You can clearly see that you know, when there's not even a nickel in the street. We actually raised 50 million dollars.

So we are going to use all of this, you know funding to continue to accelerate again more momentum and serve the Enterprise in a much much better way than than we've done in the past and we continue to be very happy Centric be like more layers to the technology and we'll talk about that more today. Absolutely. So look first of all, congratulations, right because you're right.

Not just last week, but it's been a tough. climate to raise funding certainly for the last like last summer. We we saw this really really starting to kick in so probably now going on eight nine months, right?

So you're raising this round right in the kind of teeth. of a really tough Market And and the other thing you know with with this tough Market is we've seen. You know, we don't see people announcing 50 and 75 and 100 million dollar rounds.

People are announcing 10 and 12 million dollar rounds right and oftentimes they're downrounds. Or you know that I had a CEO on earlier who you know took great pride in the fact that they were able to raise money at the same valuation. They raised money at before.

so at least they didn't go down they didn't go up but they didn't go down and and he took that as a win and and for good reason right and certainly last week kind of the the top came off the lid came off the bottle and and we're seeing now, you know the repercussions of the interest rates and Everything else taking its toll on the tech space and this is why we're seeing the layoffs. You know the and I've been in Tech longer than yeah. I've been in Tech almost 30 years.

com Bubble Burst not 2008 2008 was in his bed is I think what we're seeing now in some ways, but in any event the fact that you were able to raise money congratulations to you with that and I think you're right. It does speak to number one. You do what you say.

Say what you mean, right? And do and do do it and perform and execute number two. It's also I think about the space you're in.

Right. This is a space that's very very Dynamic and and and ripe ripe for new ideas right for Innovation. Let's talk about that a little bit Yeah, I think you know just reflecting on your comments from you know, just a moment ago, you know, what's happening in the funding Market, you know, I just want to leave, you know, we are just one comment, you know, the harder you party the longer hangover is going to be I think you know startups did raise it, you know insane valuations, you know multiples that became unsustainable very very quickly and I think you know, they still have like a lot of growing up to and I think you know, there is basically the intense competition that happened post covid for, you know good deals.

I think there was like a lot of you know, good money chasing some good companies and some average companies and I think you know, a lot of that will continue to show in the next couple of years, you know, as far as the space itself is concerned. I'm so super excited about the space, you know, I've never seen so many customers. You know come to us and ask for identical Solutions in the longest of time.

And I think what customers have come to realize especially large Enterprises that you know, their complexity level of managing data is not going to go down anytime soon. They are not going to be collecting less data. They're going to be collecting more data.

They're going to be introducing more Technologies. They're going to be embracing more clouds and they're going to spend more on the cloud. They're gonna spend more on data and analytics and machine learning.

And yeah, and I think you know, this is a lot of Enterprises now, we'll try to be an AI first Enterprise and what feeds you know, AI good data, you know Chad GP is great. But you know your domain Centric context sensitive data, which actually will eventually drive you to being an AI first company is really important. But what what is the raw material the raw material and therefore, you know high quality data high quality of You know data sets should be made available to those training algorithms and to that whole AI ecosystem and I think therefore the the value of both the data grid and the data that that particular data grid produces along with, you know, some reasonable level of efficiency and cost in this current environment will be a winning combination, you know, the space is also exciting because it hasn't seen any typical compression that we've seen in so many other you know spaces because I think everybody agrees that data is the strategy going forward and if it is strategic then you know long term secular investments will continue.

So I think I'm super excited about the space right now. Absolutely. Rohit if you wouldn't mind let's dive down into some really Excel data specific Know-how Insight what do you you know got this money don't have to worry about that.

for however long what what do you guys doing? To to adjust the need in the market. Yeah, so let me just you know, take a step back and tell you what's going on.

So data engineering teams there under a lot of stress. So who is demanding data right now operational teams are demanding more data to make their operations more efficient Finance teams are asking for their entire, you know company to be more efficient and therefore they're collating all the data coming from Erp systems third party data vendors procurement systems, and they're harmonizing all of these signals putting it together. Mixing it with customers and user signals and then saying that look these are the objectives that we had as an as a as an Enterprise and this is what we're doing.

So the way that we sort of, you know, visualize this whole scenario is that there is a supply chain of data which basically draws data from the point of origin all the way to the point of consumption. And data pipelines essentially move all of this data transform it harmonize it and then make it, you know, you're ready for consumption. And in that process what you find is that you need a pipelines then becomes a lifeblood of the data-driven Enterprise.

Now, these pipelines are nothing but abstractions of the business process and therefore over a period of time what you will see is that inefficiency start crawling in now that could be processing in efficiency. It could be data volumes expanding. It could be new processes being on boarded.

And therefore these data pipelines have to be monitored the compute that these data pipelines trigger that needs to be monitored. But the most important thing the basis of you know, whether you're an AI organization, whether you're creating a report whether you're creating a dashboard, all of that has to also be a high quality, which means that your data has to be reliable. Now in order to satisfy all of these requirements what we've done in the past four years for plus years is that we've come up with a platform that allows you to monitor your data pipelines.

It allows you to monitor your compute and it allows you to monitor the reliability of your data, which is flowing through these complex data Pipelines. Now we will continue to invest in these areas because you know independently these could potentially become extremely large businesses because you know, these are the different concerns of the same buyer today and who is the buyer the the ideal customer profile for us is the chief data officer or you know, the SVP of data platform engineering or you know, some kind of leadership role either, you know reporting into the CEO or reporting into the CTO. So it's a really strategic and important function overall and we're going, you know continuing to make it easy for this role to operate the backdrop of this, you know from a leadership point of view is that if you are a chief data officer today, you're responsible for three things, you're responsible for the selection of Technology irresponsible for the hiring of the team and then you're responsible for the delivery of accurate and high quality data and it's a big Challenge and therefore all the automation that you can apply and the Manpower reduction that you can do is only going to assist and help you in part of you know, accomplishing your goals with data.

generating our way Now the adjacency is don't stop at, you know, just the pipeline or the computer or the reliability. There are several different, you know adjacencies where companies are headed in an Enterprise are headed to and we're looking forward to you know, adding more IP by way of, you know, some inorganic growth, you know both in 23 and and probably the first half of 24 and we'll add more capabilities which actually satisfy our you know, persona I love it. You know, we spoke a lot about raising money and everything, but you an aspect of all this is that you know, macroeconomic conditions are certainly tightening budgets that your customers an Enterprises, right?

But in in sort of a perverse or or counterintuitive way, the tightening of budgets is also kind of forcing it organizations to say, how can we do more with less right which helps to feed the kind of solution that Excel data? Right here. Absolutely.

I think you would see a foes across the world. They are sharpening their pencils and going after all kinds of budgets and that includes, you know, it budgets and data budgets and everybody else's the second Trend that we're seeing is that a lot of you know jobs have been lost. You know, if you just review the last six months what you're finding is that big Tech has already made the first waves of layout of layoff and you know, you're seeing the second way of come in but the same trend is being seen or experienced across the Enterprises with you know, the first wave of contractors going away and I I suspect that you know, this is going to be a trend for the next 18 months that they'll be a lot of emphasis on fiscal prudence.

And you know, what a solution does is that it makes your data systems go from unreliable to Reliable and inefficient to efficient which essentially means that you know, you're actually providing a lot better cost to evaluation. And if you do that then you know, you can continue to sustainably invest in your data initiatives, but if Not then, you know at some point in time you will be hit by a pullback. And so therefore the solution that we bring to the market which is, you know, giving you insights about how efficient are you how reliable are you is going to be insanely valuable in this scenario for the next two years.

So I think we have net beneficiaries of this trend, but even otherwise even if you did not have this macroeconomic condition, I think the scale of the system the propensity of the problem alone calls for like a lot of automation. Oh absolutely, roheat, we're about out of time believe it or not. io.

We've also got a very good, you know YouTube channel, you know, there's a lot of product documentation a lot of product videos. We've got a resource center on the website which has you know, several interviews such as these and you know, we also are on Twitter at Excel data Ohio is our Twitter handle and you know their own LinkedIn as well. We keep posting really interesting stuff.

We have a really good network of you know, High Caliber Enterprise customers who actually come and jointly do a lot of webinars with us. We had them at, you know, our sales kick off internally where we also get them at regular and you know events I'm speaking at Gartner on Monday. You know what?

This is not life. So give if you know that if you know the date for Monday would be I'm terrible at this 20th. I think March 20th.

Okay at the gardener conference that's important and Actually, I don't know this may be coming out after that looking at timeframes. But anyway. You're out there, and that's what's important about it.

So keep up the great work Fred. Thanks for coming on Tech strong TV today continued success with Excel data. Keep us posted.

Yeah. Thanks so much and really pleasure. I'll talk to you again.

Very soon. I hope okay. We're gonna take a break here on Tech strong TV.

We'll be back in a moment with our next guest.