In this episode of Screaming in the Cloud, host Corey Quinn sits down with Roi Lipman, CTO and co-founder of Falco DB, to unpack the evolving role of graph databases in a world overflowing with data stores. Roi shares his journey from building RedisGraph at Redis to spinning it out into Falco DB, along with his enduring love of the C programming language (dad jokes included). The conversation explores why graph databases remain niche, but powerful, especially for pathfinding problems like supply chains and access management, how vector search became a feature rather than a standalone database, and what AI-assisted development means for modern engineering. Along the way, they tackle open source sustainability, Rust rewrites, AI-generated pull request chaos, and the looming question of where the next generation of senior engineers will come from.

Highlights: 

(00:00) C Language

(00:27) Welcome

(01:18) Database Landscape Overview

(03:17) Why Graph Databases Matter

(07:25) AI Built Apps and Data Choices

(10:29) How FalcoDB Fits In

(12:20) Vector Search as a Feature

(16:48) FalcoDB Origin Story

(19:54) Open Source Business and Rust Rewrite

(25:23) Toy Graph Problems and Closing Thoughts

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