E186: Unlocking Your Unstructured Data with Typedef

In our latest episode, our co-hosts Robby and Tim talk with Yoni Michael and Kostas Pardalis, Co-Founders of Typedef. Both have deep backgrounds in data infrastructure (Starburst, Tecton, etc.) and, after meeting through a "blind date" at Blue Bottle Coffee, decided to team up to address the growing brittleness of large-scale data pipelines - issues made worse by the rise of AI.They explain how traditional systems like Spark weren’t designed for today’s AI workloads, especially unstructured data and LLM inference. Fenic was their answer: an open-source engine and DataFrame library built specifically for LLM workflows, multi-step reasoning, and agentic systems - without the operational complexity.Their biggest lessons: start GTM early, talk to as many data leaders as possible, and keep validating - insights that led directly to open-sourcing Fenic and building its MCP-powered developer experience.