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AWS Acquires DuckLabs

ducklabs.com

101–110 of 305 posts

Re: AWS Acquires DuckLabs

#101
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need a fork, I've already done most of the hard work for all of you. https://query.farm/haybarn/ Or https://github.com/Query-farm-haybarn I've been releasing the versions all the way since 1.5.3 and all community extensions.

> a self-contained, signed extension ecosystem What does this mean? Can I easily sign my own private extensions with my own key? We are currently allowing unsigned extensions, loading them, then locking the duckdb config to prevent loading unsigned/untrusted extensions

In 2.0 you can sign extensions with your own key and have your own extension repo. Thats the plan at least.

In 1.5 - Haybarn has its own signing key, but its much faster to get extensions released and deployed.

Re: AWS Acquires DuckLabs

#102
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely they are better than Google in this regard.

AFAIK Google is much better at not tearing well-working teams apart in reorgs, and letting people go they have acquihired a few quarters earlier. Of the few examples I have I my head, I'd even say that the fate of a product that has been acquired by Google is probably even better than those of Google's internally developed products. e.g. Waze is still alive and kicking 13 years after acquisition under its own brand a…

Google is better but it's an incredibly low bar.

Amazon will drive these people to quit within a couple years over filling out MBRs and threats about how the MBR isn't good enough (MBR = monthly business report, pure bullshit theatre that drives the whole company mad 2/4 weeks every month).

Google would drive them to quit over a longer timeframe, with no threats or harrassment, just because every time they try to ship something cool, someone else has a reason not to do it and that kills you eventually.

Re: AWS Acquires DuckLabs

#103
post #27

Congrats to the DuckDB team. I've been eyeballing DuckDB and LanceDB as part of AI agent memories. This gives me a vibe that AWS will use DuckDB somehow in their ai agents sometime in the near future after seeing the potential.

like vector search ?

Yes. AWS has OpenSearch for cloud-first vector searches (disregarding cloud-hosted postgres with extensions etc). It's ridiculously expensive and not as fast.

DuckDB to the rescue.

Also embed the crap outta DuckDB locally in local agents running on VPS, etc

Re: AWS Acquires DuckLabs

#104
post #88
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The median home price is around $400K. You don't have to live somewhere stupid expensive.

Sure, but that's not generational wealth.

We must be operating on different definitions. Generational wealth means you have enough money to meaningfully improve the lives of your kids and give them a leg-up on life. A million dollars is enough to buy a house for each of your 2.5 kids.

If getting a million dollars wouldn't affect how much money you can leave your kids, you already have generational wealth.

Re: AWS Acquires DuckLabs

#105
post #84
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much doubt it’s generational wealth. I’m not sure how much people think open source companies are worth, but the path to VC-scale profitability is incredibly rare. My guess is that Amazon wants official hosted versions and doesn’t want to go through something like the Redis fiasco with licensing. In that case, they ended up having to support their own development anyway (with Valkey), so they might as well just…

> I’m not sure how much people think open source companies are worth, but the path to VC-scale profitability is incredibly rare. MotherDuck, a semi-competitor of theirs has raised $100mil in funding. DuckLabs has reportedly taken no external funding (so all ownership is with the founders) and was profitable with 30+ employees. On the sidelines, other companies behind beloved open source products, like Astral, Astro,…

DuckLabs is the company that does consulting and DuckDB development, the DuckDB foundation actually owns DuckDB the project.

The DuckDB foundation owns some equity in MotherDuck, which is a data lakehouse platform based on DuckDB, and all three have been moving closely together in making DuckDB better locally as well as in the role of a query engine that really threatens a lot of amazon's role in data lakehouses. DuckDB in the hands of a good team means that you can use AWS almost only for storage, instead of using any of the managed services.

Re: AWS Acquires DuckLabs

#106
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

like vector search ?

Yes. AWS has OpenSearch for cloud-first vector searches (disregarding cloud-hosted postgres with extensions etc). It's ridiculously expensive and not as fast. DuckDB to the rescue. Also embed the crap outta DuckDB locally in local agents running on VPS, etc

May I ask how DuckDB is making vector search better than others ?

Re: AWS Acquires DuckLabs

#107
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much doubt it’s generational wealth. I’m not sure how much people think open source companies are worth, but the path to VC-scale profitability is incredibly rare. My guess is that Amazon wants official hosted versions and doesn’t want to go through something like the Redis fiasco with licensing. In that case, they ended up having to support their own development anyway (with Valkey), so they might as well just…

How much do you really need for generational wealth? In my opinion, if you're more than 10 years away from retirement and received a surprise $1 million, you're setup for the rest of your life and your children as well assuming they don't immediately blow it all when you die (that's what a good trust should be for). Assuming historical returns, your money doubles roughly every 7 years, so within the rest of your life…

I'd agree with that sentiment but that number would be more like $5M (which is nothing in the context of this acquisition). Inflation is not going to relent and having enough to actually enjoy some of that payout to have pseudo FU money and leave enough invested for children and grandchildren (a well-managed trust).

Buying a house in desirable areas is going to be in the ~ $1M range, college is going to be hundreds of thousands, etc.

Re: AWS Acquires DuckLabs

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my extension shows as "build failed" on https://query.farm/haybarn/status/v1.5.5/ how do I go about fixing it? Presumably the issue is Haybarn-specific?

You can get in touch with me, or open an issue or PR as to why. The CI extension build runs are still public on GitHub, but may have expired, if you bump your git sha ref it will rerun.

Took a bit of searching around to find the repo: https://github.com/Query-farm-haybarn/haybarn-community-exte...

Looks like this is the failed build https://github.com/Query-farm-haybarn/haybarn-community-exte... but logs have expired

Re: AWS Acquires DuckLabs

#110
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right. AWS did not acquire the DuckDB technology itself, which is MIT-licensed open source and governed by the DuckDB Foundation which holds most of the related IP [1]. What they did acquire is DuckLabs, the Amsterdam-based services and development company behind the technology which is owned by and employs the creators and major contributors. And MotherDuck is a US-based venture-funded commercial company, wh…

Interesting to see how they will update their About page. Currently it says “Today, DuckLabs remains independent and fully owned by the original creators. We've deliberately chosen not to take venture capital, so we can focus on sustainable engineering, correctness, and keeping DuckDB open and MIT-licensed for everyone. “ Future will tell if that ends up being true.

The past tells us not to hold our breath
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