Data is Back: MongoDB, Databricks, Snowflake
About this episode
CJ Desai discusses the importance of data in AI applications and the challenges faced by hyperscalers at the RAISE Summit in Paris.
CJ Desai, CEO of MongoDB, joins Sourcery at the RAISE Summit in Paris. We cover why data is the downstream winner of the AI cycle, how hyperscaler capacity limits are pushing workloads back on-prem, the return of data sovereignty, & what a bank's real agentic architecture actually looks like. "Data is the unsung hero and data is back. You cannot create an AI application without a great data layer, and your AI application is as good as your data." "You see these hyperscalers, some of them are running out of capacity. And the hyperscaler said, 'Sorry, we don't have a capacity.' And they are one of the top 50 customers for that hyperscaler." CJ took over MongoDB (NASDAQ: MDB) in November 2025 after Dev Ittycheria's 11-year run, with a mandate to reposition the company as the default modern database for AI applications. MongoDB carries a market cap of roughly ~$25 billion. CJ runs on a cadence of speaking to 10 to 12 customers a week, and in this conversation he brings that view straight from frontier labs, AI-native startups, and Global 2000 enterprises. Plus prediction markets under World Cup load, the open vs closed source model debate, data centers in…
More episodes of Sourcery
- Dylan Patel, SemiAnalysis, Nebius, Glean, Legora.. 12 Hot Takes From The Biggest Names in AI
- AMD, Starcloud, Coatue..10 Hot Takes From The Biggest Names in AI
- SambaNova CEO on Raising $1B at $11B: "It's a Land Grab Right Now"
- Fmr SpaceX CIO Ken Venner on Elon, Gwynne, & SpaceX Playbook
- Senra Systems' $65M Series B: Fixing Aerospace & Defense's Biggest Bottleneck
- Andrew Feldman on Building a Chip 58x Larger Than Nvidia's
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Sourcery podcast page.