I have immense respect for and look up to anybody who can do something as complex and low level as DB kernel development (mem management, persistence/file syste

I have immense respect for and look up to anybody who can do something as complex and low level as DB kernel development (mem management, persistence/file system, caching), especially with the long list of features you have to support to make the DB desirable/useful (ACID transactions, connectors). I also hope DB implementers know how to get acquired by big, companies, because I don't see how they can really compete with these big legacy companies that have been developing their core DB's for decades and have an army of support/sales to back it up. Not to mention, where's the safety and accountability with mission critical data with a new product versus say DB2 or oracle? Maybe the new DB is a better implementation/more fault tolerant, but there's no big corporation to blame if something goes wrong, rather a small company you gambled on.