GarrenSmith

We are adding secondary indexes to @TigrisData on top of FoundationDB. There are a few great resources I always refer to when designing secondary indexes. They are all reasonably easy to read and really insightful 🧵👇

We just announced our $25M Series A, led by @sparkcapital with continued support from @a16z and @BasisSet. AI has changed how compute works, it’s now distributed, and localized. But storage hasn’t kept up. That’s what we’re fixing with Tigris. techcrunch.com/2025/10/09/thi…

Big News! @TigrisData raised $25M Series A led by @natalievais of @SparkCapital w/ @martin_casado of @a16z + @BasisSet Tigris is a faster, freer, AI-native storage cloud– running on our own hardware. Powering @fal, @krea_ai & @hedra_labs. Let's build the open cloud for AI. 📰 Read more on TechCrunch (link in reply)

Every try the SPRINGBOKS scored in their 67-30 annihilation of Argentina in Durban!

Streaming shouldn’t be limited by disks or clusters. @bufbuild + @TigrisData = unlimited retention, zero egress, cloud-native scale. It’s Kafka, re-imagined for today. Read more: tigrisdata.com/blog/bufstream/

🧵Okay so this is because I promised @Oom_Rugby something like this almost a year ago - so blame him! First off, I am a bit of a nerd, I love analysis, I love technology, studied data science, built systems and continuously read studies on what makes people successful. So read it as such. This is a bit of a long read, so I will split it in 5 different sections. And of course I am completely biased and have a huge respect for these two gentlemen. First some background. Professional rugby isn't for the faint-hearted, although I have not been involved in High Performance structures for 7 years now, I am still exposed to that environment enough to see this. Over the last two weeks, social media has been a rollercoaster of hot takes: from declaring Rassie Erasmus's era (and some players') over after that gut-wrenching Eden Park loss, to crowning him the greatest coach in world rugby following the Springboks' seismic 43-10 demolition of the All Blacks in Wellington. It's the same story across the Tasman—New Zealand fans and media went from euphoric vindication for Scott "Razor" Robertson after the Auckland win, to outright calls for his sacking or at least some soul-searching introspection after their heaviest-ever Test defeat. But my focus isn't on the All Blacks (though, let's be real, they could probably borrow a page or two from this playbook). Instead, let's deep-dive into the phenoms that are Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber. Yes, I said *Jacques* too—he was the defensive architect and cultural architect behind the Springboks' 2018 turnaround, sticking through to that back-to-back Rugby World Cup glory in 2023. Having had the privilege of working with both, I've seen up close how their partnership isn't just tactical brilliance; it's a masterclass in the psychology of success. It's about finding answers where others see dead ends, blending sky-high emotional intelligence (EQ) with intellectual firepower (IQ) to build unbreakable teams. To follow, I zoom into the 5 areas.

Excited to share that Tigris was featured in Oracle’s Q1 earnings under the Spotlight on AI Innovators. oracle.com/customers/earn… We’ve partnered with @Oracle to expand our footprint & support the world’s most data-intensive AI workloads. Oracle is seeing continued adoption from AI companies & we’re proud to be part of that story.

This is the way In every single round, we have given @supabase employees the option to cash out 25% of their vested options We also do it as a “cashless transaction” so that employees don’t need to front any cash to purchase stock. On top of that, we give employees a 10 year exercise window: whether they stay or leave the company.

#FoundationDB: A Distributed Database That Can't Be Killed thenewstack.io/foundationdb-a…

Lifecycle rules: A look at what I've been working on at Tigris the last few months. Its been really fun with a lot edge cases and weird scenarios to consider. tigrisdata.com/blog/lifecycle…

MORE SACHA FEINBERG-MNGOMEZULU FILTH! 🤤 #URC #STOvBEN

Get started #vibecoding here: tigrisdata.com/blog/mcp-serve…

Tigris keeps your data all over the globe, but how do we do it? It's all thanks to how we do global replication. Today Xe breaks down what we do, how it all works, and the invisible moving parts behind the scenes that make sure you can access your buckets quickly from anywhere!

Finding the Joy: How AI Helped Us Capture 25 Good Vibes for 2025 open.substack.com/pub/shelleyton…

New post out. Using AI as a photography coach open.substack.com/pub/shelleyton…

@ShelleyTSmith took my photos of otters and wrote an awesome blog post How AI Turns Photos into Nature Lessons 🦦 Link: shelleytonkinsmith.substack.com/p/beyond-the-s…

The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain. Well not always. I wrote a post about using AI to transform a phrase using different tones. open.substack.com/pub/shelleyton…

it is really unfair that Bulls is allowed to have 4 players in the front row. Wessels Grobelaar Left thigh of Louw Right thigh of Louw

Vamos, @RafaelNadal!   As you get ready to graduate from tennis, I’ve got a few things to share before I maybe get emotional.   Let’s start with the obvious: you beat me—a lot. More than I managed to beat you. You challenged me in ways no one else could. On clay, it felt like I was stepping into your backyard, and you made me work harder than I ever thought I could just to hold my ground. You made me reimagine my game—even going so far as to change the size of my racquet head, hoping for any edge.   I’m not a very superstitious person, but you took it to the next level. Your whole process. All those rituals. Assembling your water bottles like toy soldiers in formation, fixing your hair, adjusting your underwear... All of it with the highest intensity. Secretly, I kind of loved the whole thing. Because it was so unique—it was so you.   And you know what, Rafa, you made me enjoy the game even more.    OK, maybe not at first. After the 2004 Australian Open, I achieved the #1 ranking for the first time. I thought I was on top of the world. And I was—until two months later, when you walked on the court in Miami in your red sleeveless shirt, showing off those biceps, and you beat me convincingly. All that buzz I’d been hearing about you—about this amazing young player from Mallorca, a generational talent, probably going to win a major someday—it wasn’t just hype.   We were both at the start of our journey and it’s one we ended up taking together. Twenty years later, Rafa, I have to say: What an incredible run you’ve had. Including 14 French Opens—historic! You made Spain proud... you made the whole tennis world proud.   I keep thinking about the memories we’ve shared. Promoting the sport together. Playing that match on half-grass, half-clay. Breaking the all-time attendance record by playing in front of more than 50,000 fans in Cape Town, South Africa. Always cracking each other up. Wearing each other out on the court and then, sometimes, almost literally having to hold each other up during trophy ceremonies.   I’m still grateful you invited me to Mallorca to help launch the Rafa Nadal Academy in 2016. Actually, I kind of invited myself. I knew you were too polite to insist on me being there, but I didn’t want to miss it. You have always been a role model for kids around the world, and Mirka and I are so glad that our children have all trained at your academies. They had a blast and learned so much—like thousands of other young players. Although I always worried my kids would come home playing tennis as lefties.   And then there was London—the Laver Cup in 2022. My final match. It meant everything to me that you were there by my side—not as my rival but as my doubles partner. Sharing the court with you that night, and sharing those tears, will forever be one of the most special moments of my career.   Rafa, I know you’re focused on the last stretch of your epic career. We will talk when it’s done. For now, I just want to congratulate your family and team, who all played a massive role in your success. And I want you to know that your old friend is always cheering for you, and will be cheering just as loud for everything you do next.   Rafa that!   Best always, your fan, 
 Roger

My third book, Moving the Needle is released today. The subtitle is 'How an average climber can do the hardest route in the world' davemacleod.com/shop/movingthe…

I'm always looking for companies to collaborate with because: 1. @Hookdeck is a platform that connects applications and services 2. Collaborations reach new audiences This introduces me to new tech and use cases. So, projects, albeit small, are learning opportunities and mostly greenfield. For example, I'd heard and seen @clerk before but hadn't had a chance to get hands-on. Also, I have used @xata (serverless Postgres) before. However, during our conversations, they shared the idea of per-user databases💡 Before that conversation, I wasn't really aware of per-user (or per-device) databases as a concept, didn't know the use cases, and assumed it would be really hard to achieve. Here's the result: hookdeck.com/webhooks/platf…