
Summary
Written by a model from the transcript; not yet reviewed.
This episode covers Supabase Select, the company's annual customer conference, with co-founders discussing their growth from zero to a $10 billion valuation over six years. The founders break down three core themes of build, operate, and scale, detailing major technical announcements like Supabase Compute, the open-source Aureon DB engine, MultiGrass for Postgres sharding, and the acquisition of Tursa. They explain how the surge of AI-driven 'vibe coding' and agentic workflows has massively accelerated user acquisition and monetization, while transforming how developers interact with databases.
- Run long-running workloads, background tasks, and agentic code right next to your database using Supabase Compute. 6:44
- Upgrade storage performance without changing your setup by adopting Aureon DB as a drop-in Heap replacement. 7:56
- Scale out efficiently to support high-volume applications by leveraging the technology from the Tursa acquisition. 13:17
- Drive predictable growth by analyzing product usage triggers and offering personalized engineering support rather than cold sales pitches. 42:22
Chapters
- 0:00Podcast Intro and Supabase Background
Hosts introduce the episode and discuss their close relationship with Supabase, highlighting its rapid growth and role as a Postgres hosting standard.
- 1:15Supabase Themes: Build, Operate, Scale
The host outlines Supabase’s three core themes—build, operate, and scale—explaining how each contributes to their success with agents and developers.
- 5:20Multi‑Grids and Sharding Innovation
The team discusses Multi‑Grids, a ground‑up rewrite of Postgres operators that guarantees no data loss and supports sharding, positioning Supabase for massive scale.
- 6:16Compute and Edge Functions Announcement
Supabase announces its new Compute product, enabling long‑running, serverless workloads collocated with the database, expanding beyond the previous Edge Functions limit.
- 7:30Tursa Acquisition and SQLite Scaling
Supabase acquires Tursa to bring SQLite-based multi‑writer capabilities, enabling scalable agentic databases and expanding their product portfolio.
- 12:00Enterprise Strategy and Control Tower
The hosts discuss Supabase’s enterprise focus, introducing Control Tower for managing fleets of databases and detailing their product‑led sales approach.
- 14:20Future Growth and Scaling Outlook
Supabase outlines its plans for billions of databases per month, multi‑cloud partnerships, and the evolving role of AI in accelerating adoption.
- 35:38Community Engagement and Crowdfunding
Supabase shares its community‑driven crowdfunding initiative, awarding stock to active members and highlighting the importance of open‑source contributions.
- 47:54Supabase’s Migration Strategy and Oracle Legacy
Discussion of the challenges and strategies for migrating legacy Oracle workloads to Supabase, highlighting the complexity of OLTP migrations.
- 52:00Scaling to Billions of Databases
Conversation about the need to support billions of Postgres instances per month to meet the demands of large AI models like ChatGPT.
- 53:41Durable Workflows and Temporal Integration
Overview of how Supabase is integrating durable workflow capabilities, building on Temporal, and enabling long‑running processes.
- 56:25P‑Zero Objectives and PLG Growth
Explanation of Supabase’s P‑Zero strategy, focusing on winning strategic labs, models, and expanding product‑led growth.
Highlights
- 6:44
Introducing Supabase Compute for long-running workloadsstrategy
Supabase Compute allows developers to run serverless, long-running workloads and full containers in the same private network as their database, supporting Rust, Python, and agents.
- 7:56
Aureon DB boosts Postgres storage performanceinsight
Aureon DB serves as a drop-in replacement for the standard Postgres Heap storage engine, running 1.5 to 2 times faster and removing background vacuum tasks.
- 9:06
MultiGrass solves Postgres sharding without breaking queriesstrategy
MultiGrass is a ground-up rewrite of the database operator designed to provide zero-downtime failovers and sharding for Postgres without requiring any code changes.
- 13:17
Acquiring Tursa for agentic database scalestory
Supabase acquired Tursa to gain MVCC for SQLite architecture and build out smaller instance types like Supabase Spark for rapid prototyping.
- 29:15
Scaling up from prototype to petabytedata
The rise of non-technical builders and AI-driven app creation has led to users generating serious cash within days of launching on the platform.
- 42:09
Unconventional product-led sales through triggersstrategy
Instead of cold pitching, Supabase monitors product triggers, contacts users experiencing issues or scaling limits, and has engineers help them.
- 59:05
Declarative schemas for agent-friendly developmentinsight
Supabase is shifting toward code-first, Git-native workflows with declarative schemas via PG Delta, making it easier for coding agents to understand database structure.
Quotes
“They went from zero to 10 billion in valuation in the last six years.”
Unnamed speaker · 0:47 “where you can run compute next to the database.”
Unnamed speaker · 2:25 “But like, you want declarative schemas rather than the standard SQL paradigm”
Unnamed speaker · 2:44 “This is why Supabase engineered their branding to prototype to Petabyte.”
Unnamed speaker · 4:29 “You can run agents inside it. It's basically just a full Compute instance.”
Unnamed speaker · 7:08 “The problem is that usually your OLTP database is powering your most revenue generating application.”
Unnamed speaker · 49:42 “We know that agents are going to operate mostly on code. They don't want to reach out to anything.”
Unnamed speaker · 1:00:33 “If you want to become the preeminent database company, someday you have to have an answer.”
Unnamed speaker · 53:31
About this episode
AI agents are creating more software—and that changes what a backend needs to do. Supabase co-founders Paul Copplestone and Ant Wilson join swyx to discuss running long-lived workloads alongside the database, making schemas easier for agents to underst...
Transcript
14,518 words · 3 speakers
Topics
- Supabase
- Postgres
- Go
- Rust
- SQLite
- AWS
- Oracle
- DuckDB
- Duck Lake
- GitHub
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