40: From Bootstrap to Billion-Dollar Business, with Tristan Handy CEO of dbt Labs
Onward, a Fundrise ProductionShow Notes
The data revolution is transforming every business in the world, and Tristan Handy sits near the center of it. Starting with a simple idea, he and his team built dbt Labs into a multi-billion-dollar tech company by understanding how technology is changing the world and what that meant for how people should change with it.
This episode dives into Tristan’s journey, his thoughts about entrepreneurship, and the lessons he learned while leading one of the most central companies in the industry.
From Practitioner to Pioneer Tristan Handy’s journey began with years of experience in data roles, culminating at RJMetrics. There, he encountered a transformative moment: the rise of Amazon Redshift, the first cloud-native data warehouse. This innovation disrupted traditional business intelligence (BI) tools and catalyzed Tristan’s realization that the future of data analytics lay in the cloud. He then launched Fishtown Analytics, a consultancy that helped startups implement cloud data systems. This endeavor ultimately gave birth to dbt (Data Build Tool), a revolutionary approach to data transformation and governance.
Building the Foundations of dbt Dbt wasn’t initially a product; it was a tool Tristan and his co-founder created to solve a problem that they thought needed solving. However, as people adopted and expanded its use, a community began to form. The project’s open-source nature fueled its growth, with dbt becoming a core tool for data teams worldwide. Today, over 50,000 companies use dbt in production, and it serves millions of data practitioners.
Scaling the Business, Preserving the Culture The journey from a bootstrapped consultancy to a venture-backed powerhouse worth over $4 billion wasn’t without challenges. Tristan shared insights on scaling while maintaining the culture and values that defined the company’s early days. He emphasized the importance of retaining long-tenured team members who deeply understand the product’s ethos.
Lessons on Venture Capital and Founding Reflecting on the venture capital landscape, Tristan offered candid observations. While acknowledging the resources VC brings, he highlighted the inherent misalignment between founders’ visions and the VC focus on extreme outcomes. He underscored the importance of founders being intrinsically driven by the change they wish to create, cautioning against entering entrepreneurship solely for prestige.
The Future of Data and AI The conversation touched on the evolution of data, from structured rows and columns to the vast potential of unstructured data in AI applications. Tristan acknowledged the paradigm shift AI represents, predicting that while today’s AI aids discrete tasks, its true potential lies in reshaping how we create and use knowledge. However, he remains cautious, stressing that transformative change requires time and iterative progress.
Nonlinear Growth and Innovation One of the key takeaways was the importance of nonlinear growth. Both Ben and Tristan discussed how significant breakthroughs—those “10x moments”—often define the trajectory of a business. These nonlinear events, coupled with steady incremental progress, are what drive true innovation and scalability.
Closing Thoughts Tristan Handy’s story is a masterclass in thoughtful entrepreneurship. From leveraging community-driven growth to balancing the demands of scaling a business, his journey offers invaluable lessons for founders and technologists alike. As dbt Labs continues to shape the data ecosystem, Tristan’s commitment to empowering practitioners and fostering innovation stands as a model for what’s possible in the rapidly evolving tech landscape.
Listen to the full episode for more on Tristan’s journey, the challenges of scaling a mission-driven business, and the future of data and AI. Onward!
—
For a deeper dive into these insights and more, be sure to listen to the full episode of the Onward podcast.
Have questions or feedback about this episode? Drop us a note at Onward@
More from Onward, a Fundrise Production
What happens if artificial intelligence becomes as capable as—or more capable than—human beings? Most conversations about AI stop at whether artificial general intelligence will arrive. In this episode of Onward, Ben Miller and Kanika Bahl accept that premise and ask the more difficult question: What happens after? Kanika is the founder and CEO of the AI Access Initiative and a former founding member of Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust, an independent governance body created to help ensure that Anthropic develops AI for the long-term benefit of humanity. She previously led Evidence Action, where her work helped deliver health and economic interventions to hundreds of millions of people living in poverty. Drawing on her experience at the intersection of AI, global development, and large-scale systems change, Kanika explains why transformative AI may arrive sooner than many people expect—and why creating powerful technology is only the beginning. The more difficult challenge will be ensuring that its benefits actually reach people. Ben and Kanika explore how AI could improve healthcare, education, agriculture, and economic opportunity around the world. They also confront the deeper fears underneath the AI debate: What happens when machines can perform much of today’s work? How will people find purpose, status, and identity? Who will own the wealth AI creates? And how can society distribute its gains without relying solely on universal basic income? The conversation ultimately offers a cautiously optimistic vision. AI could create extraordinary abundance, but only if governments, companies, nonprofits, philanthropists, and individuals begin preparing now for the social changes it may bring. In this episode
Days after ChatGPT launched, Intercom called it an “iPhone moment" and bet a $300 million ARR business that AI was the future of customer service. On this episode of Onward, Ben talks with Paul Adams, Chief Product Officer of Fin (formerly Intercom), about the pivot to AI customer service: why the decision was easier than you might think, why the culture change was brutal, and how the bet ended up strengthening the legacy business instead of killing it. Since Fundrise runs its own investor relations program on Fin, the episode doubles as a customer interview. They get into AI's effect on knowledge work, the risk of letting an agent write to a database, Claude Code as "magic," and why Paul calls himself a "delusional optimist" about what comes next. — For a deeper dive into these insights and more, be sure to listen to the full episode of the Onward podcast. Have questions or feedback about this episode? Drop us a note at [email protected]. Onward is hosted by Ben Miller, Co-Founder and CEO of Fundrise. Podcast production by The Podcast Consultant. Music by Seaplane Armada. About Fundrise:
What if the biggest barrier to a longer life isn't science, but the economic incentives of corporations? In this episode of Onward, Ben sits down with Celine Halioua, founder and CEO of Loyal — the biotech company on track to earn the first-ever FDA approval for a drug whose only purpose is to extend lifespan. The catch: they're starting with dogs. Celine walks Ben through why the U.S. healthcare system is structurally incapable of building preventative medicine, why each dog-owner relationship is a "micro single-payer health care system," and how a quiet 2019 change to FDA regulation was the one-to-one cause of Loyal existing at all. ("If this pathway didn't exist, Loyal wouldn't exist. October 2019, I incorporated.") From there, the conversation widens. Celine lays out the Tesla-style master plan — save the dogs, save the world — that uses dog-drug revenue to fund human longevity work, escaping the discipline of biotech VC entirely. Ben presses her on AI in drug development (she's skeptical it will change clinical trials anytime soon), public-market short-termism, and the kind of scenario planning that prepares a company for what nobody saw coming. — For a deeper dive into these insights and more, be sure to listen to the full episode of the Onward podcast. Have questions or feedback about this episode? Drop us a note at [email protected]. Onward is hosted by Ben Miller, co-founder and CEO of Fundrise. Podcast production by The Podcast Consultant. Music by Seaplane Armada. About Fundrise With over 2 million users, Fundrise is America's largest direct-to-investor alternative asset investment platform. Since 2012, our mission has been to build a better financial system by empowering the individual. We make it easier and more efficient than ever for anyone to invest in institutional-quality private alternative assets — all at the touch of a button. Please see fundrise.com/oc for more information on all of the Fundrise-sponsored investment funds and products, including each fund’s offering document(s). Want to see the specific assets that make up and power Fundrise portfolios? Check out our active and past projects at www.fundrise.com/assets.
Raza Habib, Member of Technical Staff at Anthropic (creators of Claude and Claude Code) unpacks what “Artificial General Intelligence” even means, why the pace of AI progress still looks steep, and what that implies for jobs, companies, and public policy. Raza shares how his own “AGI probability” evolved from PhD-era skepticism to today’s conviction that we’re on a transformative trajectory. — For a deeper dive into these insights and more, be sure to listen to the full episode of the Onward podcast. Have questions or feedback about this episode? Drop us a note at [email protected].
IPO Roadshow: VCX is the public ticker for private tech The number of public companies has been cut in half over the past 25 years. The best private companies are staying private longer than ever. As a result, ordinary investors have been locked out of the biggest wealth-creation opportunities of this generation. With AI threatening to drive wealth inequality to new levels, Ben calls this a fairness problem as much as a financial one. His answer: take the Fundrise Innovation Fund public under the ticker VCX, creating the first publicly traded venture capital fund and a new category Ben calls the PVC (Public Venture Capital fund). In this episode, Ben and co-host Cardiff Garcia (Economic Innovation Group, New Bazaar podcast) examine the history of financial innovations, what VCX is, and what it means for the everyday American investor who's been locked out of private markets. For a deeper dive into these insights and more, listen to the full episode of the Onward podcast. You can learn more about VCX at https://www.getvcx.com. Questions or feedback? Drop us a note at [email protected]. Onward is hosted by Ben Miller, co-founder and CEO of Fundrise, with co-host Cardiff Garcia. About Fundrise With over 2 million users, Fundrise is America's largest direct-to-investor alternative asset investment platform. Since 2012, our mission has been to build a better financial system by empowering the individual. We make it easier and more efficient than ever for anyone to invest in institutional-quality private alternative assets — all at the touch of a button. More Info & Disclaimers Investing in the Innovation Fund (the “Fund”) is speculative and involves substantial risks. You should purchase shares of the Fund only if you can afford a complete loss of your investment. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Current and future holdings are subject to risk. Returns of one company are not indicative of an investment in the Fund. To obtain Fund performance, visit getvcx.com. The Fund's most recent schedule of investments is available at getvcx.com. Investors should consider the Fund’s investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses before investing. This information is included in the Fund Prospectus and can be accessed by calling (202) 804-0023. Read the prospectus carefully before investing. The Innovation Fund is publicly registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940 as a non-diversified, closed-end management investment company. The Fund’s portfolio will be concentrated in securities issued by technology companies and other investments that provide economic exposure to technology companies and as such, it may be subject to more risks than if it were broadly diversified across additional sectors and industries of the economy. Certain technology companies may face special risks that their products or services may not prove to be commercially successful. Technology companies are also strongly affected by worldwide scientific or technological developments, and as a result, their products may rapidly become obsolete. The Fund’s investments in companies involved in, or exposed to, artificial intelligence-related businesses may be negatively impacted because of, among other things, limited product lines, markets, financial resources and/or personnel; intense competition and potentially rapid product obsolescence these companies may face; loss or impairment of intellectual property rights; and the inability to successfully develop products or services even after spending significant amount of resources. The Fund’s investment in private company securities, whether made directly or indirectly (e.g., through derivatives or private pooled investment vehicles) are generally illiquid. Because private company securities are thinly traded, such securities may display especially volatile or erratic price movements, sometimes in response to relatively small changes in investor supply or demand or other market conditions. Nothing