E24: Self-Taught to Startup Success: The Unconventional Path of InfluxDB's Paul Dix

In this episode, I sit down with Paul Dix, the founder and CTO of InfluxData to explore his journey from a self-taught programmer to a leader in database systems. We discuss his role in building the NYC Machine Learning meetup, the creation of InfluxDB and the strategic move to make it open source. He shares insights into the decision to rewrite InfluxDB in 2020 and the power of community in tech development. We also touch on his transition from CEO to CTO and his advice for founders on making business-driven decisions. This discussion left me inspired and excited for the future of InfluxData.Highlights:[00:48] - Paul shares his circuitous route towards getting to school after working in technology directly out of high school[04:41] - Getting involved with Ruby meetups and developing applications on Rails[05:50] - Paul talks about his motivation behind starting the New York Machine Learning meetup[09:22] - We dive into how Paul's early experiences translated into what he built with InfluxDB[15:08] - Paul shares how InfluxDB has approached open source and, later,  commercialization, including how they've navigated challenges presented by the cloud providers[21:57] - Paul talks through some of the changes they’ve made to InfluxDB recently and what motivated those changes[27:40] - Digging into how the Influx team has taken a different approach to open source over the last few years[28:42] - Paul shares advice for engineer-founders considering CEO vs. CTO roles-- 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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