In this episode I examine the infrastructure software company, HashiCorp. In Part One I lay out HashiCorp's value proposition, business model, and potential for competitive advantages. In Part Two [26:20] Kelsey Hightower joins me to test all of this research and try to determine what factors really matter to HashiCorp over the long-term.

Today's episode is sponsored by Stream by AlphaSense. Stream is an on-demand library of over 25,000 expert interview transcripts. Stream eliminates the time, money and hassle that comes with conducting expert calls and interviews. My research strategy that I employ at Asheville Capital is focused on finding key qualitative data points that point to a business being competitively advantaged or not. Stream helps me execute this strategy in a practical way because they either already have dozens of calls on the company that interests me, or they are able to quickly source numerous experts for me that are well-qualified to answer my questions. In the six months that I have been using Stream, it has often served as a substitute for most of the podcasts that I used to listen to. The reason is because of there seem to be more nuggets of helpful information in each of these calls that help me to better understand the topic or company that I am interested in at that time.

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Part 1: HashiCorp Analysis

01:48 - HashiCorp Overview

04:30 - Terraform

06:25 - Vault

08:32 - Consul

10:13 - Adoption Process

13:38 - Monetization

17:44 - Unit Economics/Operating Leverage

19:58 - Market Opportunity

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Part 2: Kelsey Hightower Q&A

26:20 - Open-Source Business Model Evolution

30:52 - HashiCorp's Evolution

41:47 - HashiCorp's Ecosystem

45:14 – Terraform vs. Pulumi

56:07 – Vault

01:08:33 – Competition

01:13:24 – HashiCorp’s Primary Advantage

01:17:10 – Multi-Cloud Inevitability

1:22:04 - HashiCorp vs. Cloud Providers

01:23:59 – HashiCorp’s Dilemma

01:30:06 – Cloud Platform

01:33:43 – Switch Costs

01:37:02 – New Functions/Product Maturity

01:39:39 – De Facto Standard (yes or no?)

01:44:46 – Consul

01:53:20 – Biggest Opportunities/Risks for HashiCorp