It was November 2015, and Databricks, a two-year-old software company started by a group of seven Berkeley researchers, was long on buzz but short on revenue. The directors awkwardly broached subjects that had been rehashed time and again. The startup had been trying to raise funds for five months, but venture capitalists were keeping it at arm's length, wary of its paltry sales. Seeing no other option, NEA partner Pete Sonsini, an existing investor, raised his hand to save the company with an emergency $30 million injection. The next order of business: a new boss. Founding CEO Ion Stoica had agreed to step aside and return to his professorship at the University of California, Berkeley. The obvious move was to bring in a seasoned Silicon Valley executive, which is exactly what Databricks' chief competitor, Snowflake, did twice on its way to a software record $33 billion IPO in September 2020. Instead, at the urging of Stoica and the other cofounders, they chose Ali Ghodsi, the cofounder who was then working as vice president of engineering. "Some of the rest of the board was naturally like, 'That doesn't make any sense: Swap out one founder-professor for another?'" recalls Ben Horowitz, the company's first VC backer and himself initially skeptical of entrusting the company to a career academic with no experience running a business. A compromise was reached: Give Ghodsi a one-vear trial run.
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机译：它是2015年11月，并由一名七个伯克利研究人员始于一组两年历史的软件公司的DataBricks，很长的嗡嗡声，但收入短暂。董事尴尬地抓住了被重新努力的受试者。初创公司一直在努力筹集五个月的资金，但风险资本家们将其保持在ARM的长度，警惕其壮大销售。看不到其他选择，现有的投资者Nea Parts Pete Sonsini举手举手，以拯救公司的急救3000万美元。下一个业务顺序：新老板。成立CEO ION STOICA同意撇开并返回加利福尼亚大学伯克利加州大学的教授。显而易见的举动是带入经验丰富的硅谷高管，这正是Datapricks的首席竞争对手，雪花，在2020年9月到于7月20日在录制了330亿美元的途中进行了两次。相反，在敦促STOICA和另一个Cofounders，他们选择了Ali Ghodsi，该联合国作为工程副总统工作。 “董事会的其他部分是自然的，”这没有任何意义：换掉另一个创始人 - 教授另一教授？“”召回了本公司的第一个VC支持者，他最初持怀疑委员会委托公司一个没有经验的职业学术，没有经营业务。达到了一个妥协：给予Ghodsi一个vear试运行。
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