E17: The Visionary Behind Vercel with Guillermo Rauch

In this episode, we explore Guillermo Rauch's path from a teen hacker in Argentina to the founder of Vercel. We touch on his engineering roots, the role of open-source in his success and Vercel's creation to simplify deployments with Next.js. We compare Vercel's innovations to the evolution of electric cars, discuss the significance of speed in edge computing and peek into the future of building data-intensive applications with the help of AI.Guillermo, balancing roles as an engineer and CEO, reveals how he's shaping Vercel to develop products that let developers focus on their passions. The episode concludes with insights into AI's impact on Vercel and the soon-to-be-launched V0.dev.Highlights[01:01] - We discuss how Guillermo's parents' humble beginnings, their engineering backgrounds and exposure to technology early led him to the world of open source and working in engineering from an early age.[03:32] - Guillermo shares how the open source community has helped him and how it has shaped his career.[05:50] - Guillermo's insights on what it takes to build a modern infrastructure company, having been involved in many open source projects throughout his career.[09:08] - Guillermo details how the strategy behind Next.js began in real time.[13:00] - We talk about whether edge computing was around when Guillermo was building Next.js and how Vercel fits into the contemporary landscape of edge computing.[22:10] -  Why React and Next.js have unlocked all kinds of data-intensive applications and how  the flexibility in today's environment enables users to pick the right backend for each problem.[23:35] - Guillermo's experiences as an engineer CEO: understanding his audience and building better products and features that developers truly care about[26:06] - How Guillermo is still able to "scratch his engineering itch" while serving as a Founder/CEO.[27:58] - Guillermo's views on how AI will impact Vercel and how that ties with Vercel's overarching mission -- 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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