E07: Monetizing Open Source w/ Wes McKinney

Pete chats with Wes McKinney, the inspiration behind many popular OSS data & data science tools like pandas, Apache Arrow, Ibis and others. We learn from Wes' experience in starting businesses around OSS tooling, and hear his thoughts on monetization, ecosystem building and challenges in starting his companies as an engineer-founder.Wes is currently the co-founder & CTO of Voltron Data, which is building accelerated computing technologies powered by Apache Arrow.Highlights:[0:50]: Wes’ thoughts on monetizing open source software (OSS)[3:10]: Potential ways of turning a library/utility into a business[4:53]: Example of DuckDB Labs + Motherduck partnership[7:05]: Advice that Wes would give other engineer-founders[11:00]: Working with design partners & early customers[13:02]: Building relationships across the Arrow ecosystem[14:45]: What’s the true value of OSS from Wes’ perspective[17:03]: Wes’ advice on personal brand building as an engineer-- Mark your calendars for May 12-14, 2026 and join us for Data Council AI, the technical conference built by engineers for engineers. It's the only event where you'll be able to connect with 2,000+ practitioners for 3 full days of technical deep dives, battle-tested architectures and production insights in San Francisco, the heart of the AI world. Visit us at https://www.datacouncil.ai/ for the latest updates or subscribe to the newsletter as we release more details about the 2026 event!

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