Lessons on building a unicorn used by 84% of the Fortune 100 | Emil Eifrem (Neo4j)
In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Emil Eifrem, Co-Founder and CEO of Neo4j, an open-source graph database. Neo4j enables organizations to unlock the business value of connections, influences, and relationships in data.
In our conversation today, we talk about the following topics:
• The origin story of Neo4j and why they chose open source
• Open source as a means of production vs. distribution
• How open source fosters trust and transparency
• The pros and cons of doing business in the US
• Why Neo4j updated their values and changed their stance on military contracts
• What a Leader’s Guide is and how it keeps companies tied to their mission
• The challenges of implementing AI
• An explanation of RAG information retrieval and how it relates to LLMs
• And more!
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Where to find Emil Eifrem:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emileifrem/
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Where to find Eric:
• Newsletter: https://ericries.carrd.co/
• Podcast: https://ericriesshow.com/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theericriesshow
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In This Episode We Cover:
(00:00) Intro
(01:42) How Eric and Emil got connected
(07:35) The origin story of Neo4j
(13:38) Why Emil went with an open-source model
(20:25) The benefits of being open source as a means of distribution
(25:07) Why Emil has no regrets about going open-source
(26:50) How open source builds trust
(30:33) The difference in doing business in the US vs. Sweden
(35:34) How Neo4j got to product market fit and early struggles
(38:30) Why Neo4j declined the GSA schedule and why it was a mistake
(46:22) Emil’s thoughts on changing his position, reworking values, and recommitting
(51:40) Eric’s advice to avoid mission drift: A leader’s guide, and a two-way review
(1:00:04) The challenge of implementing AI—and the possibility of massive opportunity
(1:09:20) How Neo4j successfully implemented AI
(1:11:55) An explanation of IR (information retrieval) and how it’s relevant to AI
(1:22:44) What gives us trust in the AI system
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- Neo4j: https://neo4j.com/
- Menlo Ventures: https://menlovc.com/
- Agile: https://www.agilealliance.org/agile101
- Scrum: https://www.scrum.org/resources/what-scrum-module
- Lean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing
- The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products That Win: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steve-Blank/dp/0989200507
- Oracle: https://www.oracle.com/
- Black Art of Java Game Programming: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Art-Java-Game-Programming/dp/1571690433
- Spring: https://spring.io/projects/spring-framework
- PHP: https://www.php.net/
- Real-Time Graph Analysis of Documents Saves Company Over 4 Million Employee Hours Challenge: https://neo4j.com/customer-stories/cisco/
- GSA: https://www.gsa.gov/
- Netflix Culture: https://jobs.netflix.com/culture
- Howard Schultz on X: https://x.com/howardschultz
- Reid Hoffman challenges your thinking on AI, governance, and politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhhzySUqKx0
- RAG: How Retrieval Augmented Generation Systems Work: https://www.willowtreeapps.com/craft/retrieval-augmented-generation#
- Lycos: https://www.lycos.com/
- Excite: https://www.excite.com/
- AltaVista: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista
- PageRank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank
- GraphRAG: https://medium.com/@zilliz_learn/graphrag-explained-enhancing-rag-with-knowledge-graphs-3312065f99e1
- GraphRAG: The Marriage of Knowledge Graphs and RAG: Emil Eifrem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knDDGYHnnSI
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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/.
Eric may be an investor in the companies discussed.
