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True, but think of it this way: If 1 of these 7 Berkeley CS Ph.D.'s decides to leave to found his own company, now that they all have exec experience - what VC

True, but think of it this way: If 1 of these 7 Berkeley CS Ph.D.'s decides to leave to found his own company, now that they all have exec experience - what VC would turn them down? Every single one of them will have top tier startup experience, having been part of the founding team of a huge success story, AND the most technical of their first 10 hires at the same time.

eddsh1994 4y ago
But will it be successful? The PayPal Mafia were successful in their other pursuits. And not just successful, but all founded their own companies valued > than databricks (I think, based on rough memory of their valuations).
- adventured 4y ago
  It's a mixture, most have not been anywhere near as highly valued as Databricks. Databricks $28 billion SpaceX & Tesla (~$120 billion & $421 billion) LinkedIn sold for $26.5 billion Yelp $2 billion YouTube sold for $1.65 billion Those are the major companies. Most of the PayPal mafia went on to do angel investing or work for VC firms.
  - eddsh1994 4y ago
    Fair point, and I would love databricks guys to do similar because rising tides etc Still amazing a group all went on to so many things - maybe like the guys at PARC
lazyasciiart 4y ago
At least two of them already had that background, though. They weren’t blank slates: “billionaire startup alumni founds second billionaire startup with new colleagues” would be a perfectly accurate title. > Stoica was an exec at $300 million video streaming startup Conviva, while Shenker had been the first CEO at Nicira, a networking firm sold in 2012 to VMware for about $1.3 billion
- jefftk 4y ago
  > billionaire startup alumni Only Stoica, Ghodsi, and Zaharia are listed on https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires and I don't think any of them were billionaires before Databricks? Exec at a $300M company or CEO overseeing a $1.3B exit means rich, yes, but not billionaire rich.
  - lazyasciiart 4y ago
    I meant person from a startup worth $1 billion, not person worth a billion.

eddsh1994 4y ago

But will it be successful? The PayPal Mafia were successful in their other pursuits. And not just successful, but all founded their own companies valued > than databricks (I think, based on rough memory of their valuations).

adventured 4y ago
It's a mixture, most have not been anywhere near as highly valued as Databricks. Databricks $28 billion SpaceX & Tesla (~$120 billion & $421 billion) LinkedIn sold for $26.5 billion Yelp $2 billion YouTube sold for $1.65 billion Those are the major companies. Most of the PayPal mafia went on to do angel investing or work for VC firms.
- eddsh1994 4y ago
  Fair point, and I would love databricks guys to do similar because rising tides etc Still amazing a group all went on to so many things - maybe like the guys at PARC

lazyasciiart 4y ago

At least two of them already had that background, though. They weren’t blank slates: “billionaire startup alumni founds second billionaire startup with new colleagues” would be a perfectly accurate title. > Stoica was an exec at $300 million video streaming startup Conviva, while Shenker had been the first CEO at Nicira, a networking firm sold in 2012 to VMware for about $1.3 billion

jefftk 4y ago
> billionaire startup alumni Only Stoica, Ghodsi, and Zaharia are listed on https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires and I don't think any of them were billionaires before Databricks? Exec at a $300M company or CEO overseeing a $1.3B exit means rich, yes, but not billionaire rich.
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  I meant person from a startup worth $1 billion, not person worth a billion.