Andy Konwinski

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Andy Konwinski
Andy Konwinski.jpg
Born (1983-10-15) October 15, 1983 (age 42)
Wisconsin, United States
Alma mater University of Wisconsin-Madison (BS)
University of California, Berkeley (MS, PhD)
Known for
  • Co-founding Databricks
  • Co-founding Perplexity
  • Laude Institute
  • Laude Ventures
  • Konwinski Prize
  • Apache Mesos
  • Apache Spark
Scientific career
FieldsComputer Science
Institutions Databricks
Perplexity
Laude Institute
Laude Ventures
UC Berkeley
Thesis Multi-agent Cluster Scheduling for Scalability and Flexibility  (2012)
Doctoral advisor Randy H. Katz
Website andykonwinski.com

Andy Konwinski (born October 15, 1983) is an American computer scientist and billionaire businessman. [1] He is known for co-founding Databricks, a data and AI platform, and for his early contributions to Apache Spark. He also co-founded Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine, the early-stage venture capital firm Laude Ventures, and Laude Institute, [2] a nonprofit institute for computer science researchers. His work bridges research and real-world deployment in software infrastructure and artificial intelligence.

Contents

Early life and education

Andy Konwinski was born in 1983 in rural Wisconsin to a religious family who follows Jehovah's Witness. [3] His father worked as a machinist, and his mother was a homemaker and school bus driver. [3] Raised in the Jehovah's Witness faith, Konwinski and his four siblings frequently traveled with their parents, who were senior leaders in the organization, to religious conventions. [3]

During high school, Konwinski began to question the tenets of his religion. [3] His inquiries were discouraged by the community, and at age 18, he was disfellowshipped (expelled) from the faith. Consequently, he was estranged from his community and family members. [3] Following a period of personal difficulty, a high school counselor encouraged him to pursue higher education. [3]

Konwinski attended a trade school and a community college before transferring to the University of Wisconsin–Madison. [3] After receiving his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Konwinski received his PhD from UC Berkeley, advised by Randy H. Katz. [4] [5]

Career

2013–2022: Apache Spark and Databricks

While at UC Berkeley, Konwinski was an early organizer of the Computer Science Graduate Entrepreneurs club. [3] Working in the computer lab alongside fellow researcher Matei Zaharia, he helped develop open-source architectures for large-scale data processing, including Apache Mesos and Apache Spark. [3] [6]

In 2013, Konwinski, Zaharia, and five other researchers founded Databricks to commercialize their open-source work. [3] [7] Konwinski's early role in the company was akin to a product manager; he focused on community building, organizing user conferences, and assisting early customers with software deployment. [3] [8] He stepped back from day-to-day operations in 2019. [3]

2022–present: Perplexity and Laude

After leaving daily operations at Databricks, Konwinski began investing in early-stage startups. [3] Through his initial investment fund, Computer Science Graduate Ventures (CSGV), he met Aravind Srinivas. [3] In 2022, he co-founded the AI-powered search engine Perplexity AI with Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, and Johnny Ho. [9]

In 2024, he co-founded Laude Ventures, an early stage venture firm focused on investing in technical founders, mostly with research backgrounds, with Pete Sonsini and Andrew Krioukov. [10] [11] [12] [13] In 2025, he pledged $100M to establish Laude Institute, an organization for computer science researchers, with Dave Patterson, Jeff Dean, and Joelle Pineau. [2] [14]

He co-teaches UC Berkeley’s Research to Startup seminar. [15]

Research

Konwinski has co-authored several influential papers, including "Shaping AI's Impact on Billions of Lives" (2024) with David Patterson, Jeff Dean, John L. Hennessy, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, and Finale Doshi-Velez; [16] [17] [18] Dominant Resource Fairness (2011) with Ali Ghodsi, Matei Zaharia, Benjamin Hindman, Scott Shenker, and Ion Stoica; [19] and "A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing" (2009) with David Patterson, Ion Stoica, and Matei Zaharia. [20]

Konwinski is also co-author of the O’Reilly Learning Spark Book. [21]

Personal life

Konwinski is married and has two daughters. He resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. [3]

Recognition

In 2025, Konwinski delivered the commencement address at the University of California, Berkeley for the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society. The address took place over two ceremonies at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, California. [22] [23] [24]

At the 2024 NeurIPS conference in Vancouver, he announced the Konwinski Prize, a $1 million competition to advance AI capabilities in real-world software engineering, by incentivizing open-source progress on a contamination-free version of the SWE-Bench benchmark. [25] [26]

In 2025, Konwinski and Turing Award recipient David Patterson gave academic talks on their "Shaping AI" paper to university computer science departments across the United States. [27] [28] [29]

References

  1. ↑ Carson, Biz; Maloney, Tom; Sloan, Dylan (March 28, 2025). "The New Billionaires of the AI Boom". Bloomberg.
  2. 1 2 Sullivan, Mark (23 June 2025). "This Perplexity cofounder wants to help AI breakthroughs graduate from university labs". Fast Company. Mansueto Ventures, LLC. Retrieved 18 July 2025.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Carson, Biz (December 3, 2025). "Andy Konwinski Went From Jehovah's Witness Outcast to AI Evangelist". Bloomberg.
  4. ↑ Nelson, Sara (18 April 2025). "AI Trailblazers Return to UW–Madison to Shape What's Next". School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences. University of Wisconsin-Madison. Retrieved 12 June 2025.
  5. ↑ Lohwater, Tiffany. "Andy Konwinski to speak at CDSS undergraduate commencement ceremonies on May 22 | CDSS at UC Berkeley". UC Berkeley College of Computing, Data Science, and Society. Retrieved 27 March 2025.
  6. ↑ Metz, Cade. "Return of the Borg: How Twitter Rebuilt Google's Secret Weapon". Wired. Retrieved 3 April 2025.
  7. ↑ Cai, Kenrick. "Accidental Billionaires: How Seven Academics Who Didn't Want To Make A Cent Are Now Worth Billions". Forbes. Retrieved 2 April 2025.
  8. ↑ "People to Watch 2025 - Andy Konwinski". BigDATAwire. Retrieved 28 April 2025.
  9. ↑ Wiggers, Kyle (4 April 2023). "AI-powered search engine Perplexity AI lands $26M, launches iOS app". TechCrunch. Yahoo. Retrieved 20 March 2025.
  10. ↑ Bort, Julie (18 March 2025). "Arcade raises $12M from Perplexity co-founder's new fund to make AI agents less awful". TechCrunch. Retrieved 12 June 2025.
  11. ↑ Konrad, Alex. "Laude Ventures Raises $150 Fund With Databricks, Perplexity Founders". Forbes. Retrieved 27 March 2025.
  12. ↑ Chernova, Yuliya (3 May 2024). "Pete Sonsini, Early Investor in Databricks, Gets Closer to Launching New VC Firm". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 3 April 2025.
  13. ↑ "Pete Sonsini". Forbes. Retrieved 27 May 2025.
  14. ↑ Bort, Julie (23 June 2025). "Databricks, Perplexity co-founder pledges $100M on new fund for AI researchers". TechCrunch. TechCrunch Media LLC. Retrieved 18 July 2025.
  15. ↑ "Seminar (2024) - Research to Startup". startups.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 18 July 2025.
  16. ↑ Cuéllar M, Dean J, Doshi-Velez F, Hennessy J, Konwinski A, Koyejo S, Moiloa P, Pierson E, Patterson D (2024-12-11). "Shaping AI's Impact on Billions of Lives". arXiv: 2412.02730 [cs.AI].
  17. ↑ "An agenda to maximise AI's benefits and minimise harms, by David Patterson". The Economist. Retrieved 3 April 2025.
  18. ↑ "Shaping AI's Impact on Billions of Lives". Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Retrieved 3 April 2025.
  19. ↑ Ghodsi A, Zaharia M, Hindman B, Konwinski A, Shenker S, Stoica I (2011). "Dominant resource fairness: Fair allocation of multiple resource types". 8th USENIX symposium on networked systems design and implementation (NSDI 11).
  20. ↑ Armbrust, M.; Fox, A.; Griffith, R.; Joseph, A. D.; Katz, R. H.; Konwinski, A.; Lee, G.; Patterson, D. A.; Rabkin, A.; Stoica, I.; Zaharia, M. (2009). "Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing". Technical Report UCB/EECS-2009-28, EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley.
  21. ↑ "Learning Spark". O’Reilly Media. Retrieved 3 April 2025.
  22. ↑ Tiffany, Lohwater. "Andy Konwinski to speak at CDSS undergraduate commencement ceremonies on May 22". CDSS at UC Berkeley. Retrieved 3 April 2025.
  23. ↑ Lohwater, Tiffany. "Students celebrate, get inspired by alum speaker at CDSS college graduation". CDSS at UC Berkeley. Retrieved 27 May 2025.
  24. ↑ "Andy Konwinski commencement speech". YouTube. 27 May 2025. Retrieved 18 July 2025.
  25. ↑ Albergotti, Reed. "Databricks co-founder offers $1 million prize to solve AI coding problems". Semafor. Retrieved Dec 18, 2024.
  26. ↑ Brandom, Russell (23 July 2025). "A new AI coding challenge just published its first results — and they aren't pretty". TechCrunch. TechCrunch Media LLC. Retrieved 24 July 2025.
  27. ↑ Benisch, Annie. "Andy Konwinski & Dave Patterson | Shaping AI's Impact on Billions of Lives | Stanford HAI". hai.stanford.edu. Stanford University. Retrieved 12 June 2025.
  28. ↑ Mai Truong, Kailee. "Dave Patterson (Google and UC Berkeley) & Andy Konwinski (Laude Institute) – "Shaping AI's Impact via Berkeley Style Research Centers"". UC Berkeley Sky Computing Lab. SKY Computing UC Berkeley Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department (EECS). Retrieved 12 June 2025.
  29. ↑ Rangel-Fuentes, Alma. "CMS Seminar-Shaping AI for the Public Good via the Berkeley Lab Model". California Institute of Technology. Retrieved 12 June 2025.
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