Subvolts take ClickHouse CEO Aaron Katz explains building the database powering major AI labs. Mar 31, 2026 - Developers
- Learn about the foundational database technology powering leading AI labs and its role in building for the agent era.
- Business
- Understand how a critical infrastructure company scaled to a $15 billion valuation by serving the AI industry.
This episode features the CEO of a critical AI infrastructure company discussing its growth and future direction.
Why Netflix, Uber, and Spotify Never Lag: The Database Nobody Talks About | Aaron Katz
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From Subvolts
Summary and analysis by Subvolts editorial, AI-assisted.
Lukas Biewald interviews Aaron Katz, CEO of ClickHouse, on the podcast Gradient Dissent. They discuss ClickHouse's journey from an internal Yandex tool to a $15 billion company powering major AI labs like Anthropic and OpenAI. The conversation covers building for the agent era, infrastructure for AI, and business strategy.
This episode talks about ClickHouse, a powerful database that many big AI companies use. It's like the engine room for AI, helping them process lots of information quickly. Understanding this database is important because it's key to how AI is built and scaled today.
This episode is for AI infrastructure engineers and business leaders. It explains how a foundational database technology, ClickHouse, became critical for leading AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. Listeners learn about building scalable infrastructure for AI agents, a key area for frontier labs. The discussion on market strategy and acquisitions offers insights into growing a developer-focused company in the current AI landscape.
- HostLukas Biewald
- GuestAaron KatzCEO, ClickHouse
- Guest: Aaron Katz, CEO of ClickHouse
- Show: Gradient Dissent
- Length: 44 minutes
- ClickHouse valuation: $15 billion
- ClickHouse funding: $300 million
- Companies using ClickHouse: Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta, Tesla
"Companies designing for agents, not humans, are going to get a lot of lift."
ClickHouse started as an internal tool at Yandex. Today it's the database Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta and Tesla all run on.
In this episode, CEO Aaron Katz joins Lukas Biewald to talk about how he turned an open source project into a $15B company, why he acquired LangFuse knowing it could cost him customers, and what he's actually building for the agent era.
Snowflake, Datadog and Databricks all come up. He doesn't shy away.
Connect with us here:
Aaron Katz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-katz-5762094
ClickHouse: https://www.linkedin.com/company/clickhouseinc/
Lukas Biewald: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lbiewald/
Weights and Biases: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wandb/
00:00 Trailer
00:57 The Origin Story: From Yandex to ClickHouse Inc.
04:43 Building ClickHouse Cloud & Raising $300M
10:36 Growing Up Around Xerox PARC
12:51 Salesforce, Mark Benioff & the Dot-Com Bust
15:32 Cloud Skeptics vs. AI Skeptics | History Repeating
18:05 Building a Modern Go-To-Market Playbook
21:57 The SaaS Crash, Agents & the Future of Infrastructure
27:09 The Datadog Love-Hate Story
35:21 Hardest Moments: Russia, SVB & Sleepless Nights
43:16 Outro
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Questions people ask
- What is ClickHouse and why is it important for AI?
- ClickHouse is a database that started as an internal tool at Yandex and is now used by major AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI. It is crucial for processing the large amounts of data required for AI development and operations.
- What is Aaron Katz building for the agent era?
- Aaron Katz is focused on building infrastructure for the agent era, suggesting a shift towards designing systems for AI agents rather than just humans.
Page generated Oct 19, 2026. Summaries are Subvolts' own; the audio, artwork and notes belong to Lukas Biewald.