Yesterday we announced Polaris specifically so (1) customers don't get locked into a catalog; (2) people know Snowflake works with AWS, Azure, Confluent, etc.
I’d take issue with the “Iceberg is slow” theme that Databricks in particular has tried to push.
If that were true, Snowflake would not be as fast on Iceberg/Parquet as its native format. The engine makes something fast or slow, not the table format.
Disclaimer - work at Snowflake. Two quick points to mention.
1. Snowflake has always used blob stores + file data + metadata. Architecturally it’s actually always been very Lakehouse-y
2. Parquet and Iceberg should be equivalent in performance and features. It’s more than playing nicely - it’s more choose your own adventure where all things are equal.
I talk to customers basically all day about table formats. Only one customer has really brought up Hudi in a meaningful way. IMO, Hudi is basically out of contention for 95%+ of people looking at table formats.
I’ll just point out on the Snowflake side, we’ve been very public saying we want Iceberg/Parquet to be at or as close to parity as possible with our native format. The value add is the platform, not lock in. That also forces us to be the best on open formats, which IMO is also a good thing for everyone.
Disclaimer: I work at Snowflake literally on this with my team. :)
I will just point out that when my team and I talk about streaming, we are focused on not real-time because in many cases, the value to a customer is not there. Not every "streaming" use case is fraud detection. In fact, we have been saying for awhile that for many streaming use cases, the value is 60 seconds < [value here] < 60 minutes.
"At times it seemed he trusted random feedback more than the people in the room who spent their lives dedicated to tackling the problem at hand."
But also
"Twitter moved at the speed of molasses and suffered from bureaucracy"
I think this blog points at a common issue in the tech world. Many want to have a hand in the majority of decisions, but also deride at how slowly things end up moving. It's very hard to have it both ways.
That and every company generally operates the same way. Tech is not special and humans are pretty consistent.
If you are an REI member, they often have stuff in the used (Garage) site that is in excellent quality and also less expensive. Patagonia also has worn wear that does the same thing. Win-win - awesome stuff, no need to make a new one for you, and less expensive!
- The guy who now has too many nanopuff jackets, but I will die on this hill.
As a data point, if you examine something more granular and trend/topic tied, like Snowpark (which is close to Clickhouse alone) or "Snowflake Table" I would propose the overall point being made kind of stands.
The original term is ambiguous (I wish Snowflake had different branding) but more specific terms to Snowflake still rank high and are maybe less wonky of a comparison.
I’ve built my product career working on projects that present risks to the status quo for companies.
This isn’t unique to Apple. Not to defend them specifically, but a company willing to focus on long term is the exception.
Most companies have leaders that are given goals that constrain them to short term gains. It drives truly suboptimal long-term decision making, but it also usually aligns with their incentives.
Changing that view takes (1) an existential threat, (2) a lot of data, and (3) a team that can execute quickly and reliably once a window opens.
Wow, gee wiz. I can’t wait to synergize in real time for action oriented solutions.
/s
This website feels like an HR person asked Claude to make a website. If you’re swayed by a simple website, you’re not high caliber talent.