{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"NC Tweener Talks","title":"Peter Zaitsev: Open-Source Entrepreneurship and the Percona Story","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":5522,"description":"How do you grow a 350-person, globally distributed tech company—without outside venture funding? In this episode of Triangle Tweener Talks, we chat with Peter Zaitsev, Co-Founder of Percona, who bootstrapped his open-source database services and software company from a scrappy two-person startup in the U.K. to a $50M+ revenue business headquartered right here in the Triangle.Peter’s story is anything but linear. He talks about growing up in the Soviet Union, teaching himself assembly code on paper before he even touched a real computer, and starting his first company at age 19—where he quickly realized that “business risk is one thing, but risking a kidney is something else!” After stints with MySQL and a move to Seattle, he eventually settled down in Durham, North Carolina, growing Percona into an open-source industry leader that competes on pure value and top-tier support.Whether you’re an early-stage founder, a bootstrapper at heart, or just love the behind-the-scenes tales of pioneering in open source, this episode is packed with candid lessons on innovation, risk tolerance, and how to “grow or go” without losing sight of what matters to you and your customers.Tune in to hear:Peter’s early days in Russia, learning to code by writing programs on paper.The rise of open-source databases—and how Percona survived and thrived in the wave of cloud, AWS, and managed solutions.Peter’s take on bootstrapping vs. taking venture capital, plus how he steered Percona to $50M+ in revenue with zero outside funding.How his zero-to-one mindset paved the way for other ventures like Altinity, FerretDB, and Coroot.Why he chose to relocate Percona (and his family) to the Triangle—and how he learned he’s more of a “small team, big ideas” guy than a 350-person operator.Where to Find Peter Zaitsev:Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterzaitsev/PeterZaitsev.com: https://peterzaitsev.com/Percona: https://www.percona.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peterzaitsev/Where to Find...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/UEzoK7N1siD9YRaSVBWfZ8B3suSS2aonEIZ5NwBH1Gs/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS80NjBh/YWVhZTA4ZTUyY2Fl/MDdhNzQwZWFhNDI4/MDc3Zi5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}