Ben Horowitz to Databricks founders: "I'm not going to write you a check for $200,000. I'll write you a check for $10 million." When Ben first met them, they were six PhD students and their professor. "What they had was this thing called Spark, and the competitor was something called Hadoop. Hadoop had very well-funded companies already running toward it... so the clock was ticking." For professors and academics, Ben says, "it's a pretty big win if you start a company and make $50 million. You're a hero on campus... So I'm always a little nervous about a company that comes out of academia thinking too small." "I'm not going to write you a check for $200,000. I'll write you a check for $10 million," he told them and then explained why: "You need to build a company. You need to really go for it if you're going to do this. Otherwise you guys should stay in school." In August, Databricks surpassed a $7 billion run rate, growing at 80% YoY and was valued at $190 billion. You can read Ben's full profile on Databricks below. Video: @lennysan (2025)