Fame Podcast Host
Benjamin Wagner is the CEO of Firebolt, where he is leading the company's evolution into an AI-first analytical database built for high-performance analytics, AI agents, and modern data infrastructure.
Before becoming CEO, he served as Firebolt's VP of Engineering, helping shape the company's core database architecture and spearheading innovations in query execution, scheduling, and cloud-native analytics. Benjamin first fell in love with database systems while studying computer science at the Technical University of Munich.
A respected database systems researcher, Benjamin has co-authored academic work on high-performance query engines and regularly shares insights on the future of AI-native database architecture, focusing on performance, simplicity, and developer productivity.
Ask me
- 1
Benjamin, what's been the funniest or most unexpected part of going from leading Firebolt's query processing team to sitting behind the mic and interviewing some of the biggest names in data?
- 2
You've argued that databases need to become “agent-first” rather than simply “AI-enabled.” What architectural decisions has Firebolt made over the past year that would've seemed counterintuitive before the rise of coding agents and LLMs?
- 3
Firebolt recently launched Firebolt Core, making your engine self-hosted and free forever. That's a significant strategic shift. What customer problem convinced you this was the right move, and what has surprised you most since the launch?
- 4
You're building for a world where data engineers, analysts, and AI agents all query the same data platform. What's been the hardest engineering challenge in designing a system that performs equally well for humans and autonomous AI workloads?
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