Building a Global Scale Authorization Startup: The Story of AuthZed's Co-Founder Jimmy Zelinskie

Optimize All The Things

In this episode, we talk with Jimmy Zelinskie, co-founder and CPO of AuthZed, about his journey in building a global scale OSS authorization startup. Jimmy shares insights into the creation and evolution of SpiceDB, an open-source database optimized for authorization decisions. We chat about Jimmy’s story of transitioning from an engineer to a product manager, the importance of open-source in building the business, and the strategies that helped AuthZed find its first customers. Jimmy also discusses the inspiration behind AuthZed, Google’s Zanzibar paper, and the unique challenges of building a startup grounded in cutting-edge research.

Where to find more about Jimmy and AuthZed:

- LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jzelinskie/

- X - https://x.com/jimmyzelinskie

- Jimmy’s Github - https://github.com/jzelinskie

- AuthZed - https://authzed.com/

- SpiceDB on Github - https://github.com/authzed/spicedb

- The Zanzibar Paper annotated by AuthZed - https://authzed.com/zanzibar

- Discord - https://authzed.com/discord

Where to find Bartek:

- LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bwplotka/

- X - https://x.com/bwplotka

Where to find Ivan:

- LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-valkov/

- X - https://x.com/ivvalkov

As always, feedback and questions are welcome! You can use this form - https://forms.gle/NmUGeqMtyP6H6mMP9

Episode breakdown:

0:00 Episode intro

2:05 Jimmy’s introduction

3:53 Jimmy’s software engineering background

9:06 On becoming a founder

14:47 Experimenting with different startup ideas

20:41 The Zanzibar paper and using research in startups

26:44 Finding your first customers

31:56 Building SpiceDB

38:11 Monetization in an OSS startup

42:34 Authorization deep-dive

52:19 Product management in a startup

1:01:47 Where to find out more