How to Build and Scale an Open Source Company: JSEE, WebRTC, Agora.io, BEA Systems and more
Race Capital is proud to present How to Build and Scale an Open Source Company and learn from founder and early investors in BEA Systems, Agora.io, Databricks, etc.
Despite the premise of open-source software distribution being “free,” companies like Databricks, Agora.io, BEA Systems, RedHat, MongoDB, GitLab, and Elastic have already become unicorns multiple times over with open source at their core.
How do you build a vibrant and trusted developer community while finding your way to commercialize into a successful company?
In this talk, you will meet and learn how Alfred Chuang turned JSEE into BEA Systems, and how Tony Zhao transformed WebRTC into Agora.io. Additionally, you'll hear their thoughts on how GenAI and LLM will change the open-source and enterprise world.
Speakers include:
Tony Zhao is the founder and CEO at Agora. Founded in 2013, Agora is the #1 real-time interactive voice and video engagement platform for the enterprise. Tony previously served as the CTO and director of YY (renamed JOYY Inc.), a video-based social network listed on the Nasdaq.
Prior to joining YY, Tony was the founder and CTO at NeoTasks. Before NeoTasks, he served as a senior engineer at WebEx, where he was responsible for developing audio and video calling functions and designing backend architecture. Mr. Zhao is a graduate at Peking University.
Alfred Chuang - General Partner at Race Capital, Founder and CEO of BEA Systems and Seed Investor in Databricks
Alfred Chuang is is the founder and general partner at Race Capital. Recognized by Andreessen Horowitz as the “Silicon Valley CEO’s CEO”, Alfred is an accomplished entrepreneur and venture capitalist.
Race Capital is a world class venture capital firm for all things enterprise and software infrastructure with many industry transformational portfolio companies including Databricks, Vectara, Lightning Network, Opaque, Zeet, and many more to come. Prior to Race, Alfred co-founded and took BEA Systems public (Nasdaq: BEAS). In addition, Alfred became BEA’s chairman of the board where he remained until BEA was sold to Oracle in 2008 for $8.6B. BEA was the fastest enterprise technology company to reach revenue of USD$1B.
Prior to BEA, Alfred spent eight and a half years at Sun Microsystems, Inc. During his tenure, Sun grew from less than 1000 to 60,000 people strong with revenue over $6B. Alfred led product development, network infrastructure, systems architecture, and expanded Sun’s business to Asia.
Alfred’s notable awards include C/F Silicon Valley Philanthropist of the Year, SD Forum Visionary Award, CIO Magazine 20/20 Vision Award Honoree and Community Star from Asian Americans for Community Involvement, eChina Forum Silicon Valley Award Honoree, and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist. University of San Francisco President’s Ambassador, UC Davis Outstanding Alumnus Award, UC Davis Distinguished Engineering Alumni Medal.
Alfred is an independent advisor at the University of San Francisco School of Engineering, Member of the UC Davis Chancellor’s Board of Advisors, Member of the School of Business Dean’s Committee, City University of Hong Kong, and Member of the School of Engineering Industrial Advisory Committee, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Alfred received a B.S. in computer science from the University of San Francisco and a master’s degree in computer science with specialization in distributed data management from the University of California, Davis. Alfred also attended St. Andrews College and Wah Yan College.
About Race Capital
Race Capital is an early-stage venture fund focused on investing in exceptional founders who are building market-transforming companies in the data, enterprise, infrastructure, and fintech sectors. Our team are seed investors in Databricks, Solana, Agora.io, and many other great companies. For more information, visit https://race.capital/.