James Spoor is Principal at the tech consulting firm Square Circles. He’s the founder of Octopipe, a platform built specifically to change the way we think about data pipelines for the AI age. Spoor’s journey to founding Octopipe is marked by diverse experiences, from adventure instruction in northern England to engineering roles in high-tech companies. His vision for Octopipe is clear: to become the default engine for data pipelines and achieve $1 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) through an open-source-first strategy.
Prior to that, Spoor was a key player at DeepCode, an AI-driven code analysis company acquired by Snyk. He’s been on the front lines of bringing DeepCode’s powerful AI-patented capabilities into Snyk’s platform. All this, before introducing developer-friendly features like a command-line interface or facilitating pull request scanning capabilities. After departing Snyk in 2022, he started Anarchy. This developer-first platform became an overnight success when it was accepted into the highly competitive Y Combinator program. The result Early users of Anarchy reported realizing a time-to-value in less than 15 minutes, demonstrating Spoor’s dedication to improving the developer experience.
A Diverse Background Leading to Innovation
This varied experience gave Spoor a wealth of perspectives that he has leveraged throughout the course of his career. He has often stated, “Failing at my first two venture-backed companies was brutal. It taught me lessons most people never get. I still believe. I still build.” This resilience must have helped determine his approach — both his combined startups and crash of the tech bubble.
From DeepCode to Octopipe
As a founding engineer at DeepCode, Spoor’s mission was to make artificial intelligence more accessible and practical for developers. “My job was to make AI useful for developers. I learned how to ship fast, ship smart, and solve for real-world pain,” he remarked. His experience running DeepCode guided him in understanding the ways developers are nuanced. It underscored the value of a smart infrastructure to have in place.
Upon leaving Snyk, Spoor identified an opportunity in the market for new, streamlined data pipelines designed specifically for AI use cases. He explained, “In the AI era, your stack should work for you—not the other way around. That’s what Octopipe does.” His goal is to make the integration of these data tools as simple as possible. In this manner, engineers can spend their time creating exciting new solutions to today’s transportation needs rather than being weighted down by clunky infrastructure.
The Vision for Octopipe
Octopipe is designed with a clear mission to provide a seamless experience for developers navigating the complexities of modern data environments. By taking an open-source-first strategy, Spoor wants to encourage community collaboration and innovation.
The ultimate goal is ambitious yet achievable: reach $1 million in ARR while positioning Octopipe as the go-to solution for data pipelines in the AI landscape. Every day, Spoor is continuing to focus and sharpen his dream. Bryan is passionate about empowering developer productivity and realizing the promise of AI-powered technologies.
