Season 3 · Episode 10
Open Source Innovation, The GPL for Data, and The Data In to Data Out Ratio with Larry Augustin
This episode features an interview with Larry Augustin, angel investor and advisor to early-stage technology companies. Larry previously served as the Vice President for Applications at AWS, where he was responsible for application services like Pinpoint, Chime, and WorkSpaces.
Before joining AWS, Larry was the CEO of SugarCRM, an open source CRM vendor. He also was the founder and CEO of VA Linux, where he launched SourceForge. Among the group who coined the term “open source”, Larry has sat on the boards of several open source and Linux organizations.
In this episode, Sam and Larry discuss who owns the rights to data, the data in to data out ratio, and why Larry is an open source titan.
Episode Guest
Episode Transcript
Read the full transcript here.
Guest Quote
"People are willing to give up so much of their personal information because they get an awful lot back. And privacy experts come along and say, ‘Well, you're taking all this personal information’. But then most people look at that and say, ‘But I get a lot of value back out of that.’
And it's this data ratio value question, which is: for a little in, I get a lot back. That becomes a key element in this. And I think there has to be some kind of similar thought process around open source data in general, which is if I contribute some data into this, I'm going to get a lot of value back. So this data in to data out ratio, I think it's an incredibly important one. It's a principle that I drive into application development. If you put a user in front of an app and they start using the app, you're going to ask them for things. And my principle is always, ‘How do you figure out how to never ask them and only give them?’ And you can't get 100% of the way there, but every time it's like, ‘Why did you ask them for that? Couldn't you figure it out?’ And it gets everyone in the mindset of, ‘How do I provide more and more and take less and less?’ It's a principle of application development that I like a lot. And I think there's a similar concept here around open-source data. Are there models or structures that we can come up with where people can contribute small amounts of data and as a result of that, they get back a lot of value.” – Larry Augustin
Episode Timestamps
(02:14): How Larry is spending his time now after AWS
(06:01): What drove Larry to open source
(18:04): What is the GPL for data?
(23:51): Areas of progress in open source data
(28:37): The data in to data out ratio
(36:02): Larry’s advice for folks in open source
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