In this episode of Screaming in the Cloud, host Corey Quinn sits down with Roi Lipman, CTO and co-founder of Falco DB, to unpack the evolving role of graph databases in a world overflowing with data stores. Roi shares his journey from building RedisGraph at Redis to spinning it out into Falco DB, along with his enduring love of the C programming language (dad jokes included). The conversation explores why graph databases remain niche, but powerful, especially for pathfinding problems like supply chains and access management, how vector search became a feature rather than a standalone database, and what AI-assisted development means for modern engineering. Along the way, they tackle open source sustainability, Rust rewrites, AI-generated pull request chaos, and the looming question of where the next generation of senior engineers will come from.
Highlights:
(00:00) C Language
(00:27) Welcome
(01:18) Database Landscape Overview
(03:17) Why Graph Databases Matter
(07:25) AI Built Apps and Data Choices
(10:29) How FalcoDB Fits In
(12:20) Vector Search as a Feature
(16:48) FalcoDB Origin Story
(19:54) Open Source Business and Rust Rewrite
(25:23) Toy Graph Problems and Closing Thoughts
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