How I got started with DBtune (& why we chose Postgres) with Luigi Nardi | Talking Postgres Ep35
Are self-driving databases the Waymos of the future? In Episode 35 of Talking Postgres, Luigi Nardi—founder and CEO of DBtune and Stanford researcher—joins Claire Giordano to explore his journey from academic research to Level 5 autonomous database tuning. We dig into Luigi’s early days with a Commodore 64, how he began his PhD in Paris before he had learned to speak French, and how "professor privilege" in Sweden helped him bootstrap his startup. You’ll learn why the DBtune team chose database tuning and Postgres as their focus, what the Jevons paradox means for the future of developers, and how the “Level 5” vision fuels the DBtune team’s work toward a truly self-driving system.Chapters:
⏩ 00:00 Music & introduction
⏩ 02:02 Commodore 64 beginning
⏩ 04:28 Compilers for physicists
⏩ 06:45 PhD in Paris (without speaking French)
⏩ 12:10 Moving toward automation
⏩ 17:56 Swedish Professor Privilege
⏩ 25:11 Self-driving databases vs. cloud services
⏩ 26:50 Level 5 autonomous tuning
⏩ 28:39 Growing up in an entrepreneurial home
⏩ 34:55 Building a deep tech startup team
⏩ 36:39 Academic rigor meets Silicon Valley roots
⏩ 42:11 How AI is changing coding workflows
⏩ 45:35 AI history: More than just LLMs
⏩ 48:42 Waymo analogy for database safety
⏩ 59:26 Jevons Paradox & future of developers
⏩ 1:02:07 Reviewing code vs. writing code
⏩ 1:04:56 CFP is open for POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2026
📜 Full transcript available at:
https://talkingpostgres.com/episodes/how-i-got-started-with-dbtune-why-we-chose-postgres-with-luigi-nardi/transcript
✅ Listen to more episodes of Talking Postgres:
https://talkingpostgres.com
💥 Subscribe to Talking Postgres, so you never miss an episode:
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Previously on Talking Postgres:
🔹 Talking Postgres podcast Ep30: AI for data engineers with Simon Willison: https://youtu.be/8SAqeJHsmRM
🔹 Talking Postgres podcast Ep23: How I got started as a developer & in Postgres with Daniel Gustafsson: https://youtu.be/EvxDYPOnEx0
More Links mentioned in this episode:
🔹 CFP for POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2026 to close on Sun Feb 1st, 2026 @ 11:59pm PST: https://posetteconf.com/2026/cfp/
🔹 Video of POSETTE 2024 talk: Autotuning PostgreSQL on Azure Flexible Server: https://youtu.be/G9ATyh8jLaY
🔹 PGConf India 2025: ML for Systems and Systems for ML, by Luigi Nardi: https://youtu.be/d0V3EbVwt7s
🔹 PGConf India 2025: Round Table Discussion about AI: https://youtu.be/Ssm17vZz6Rg
🔹 Oxide and Friends podcast: Engineering Rigor in the LLM Age: https://youtu.be/fmFt4-jjEc0
🔹 Wikipedia: Jevons paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
🔹 Wikipedia: Neuro-symbolic AI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-symbolic_AI
🔹 PGDay Lowlands, which Boriss Mejías calls the second-best Postgres conference in Europe: https://pgday.nl/
🔹 Calendar invite: LIVE recording of Ep36 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed Feb 18, 2026: https://aka.ms/TalkingPostgres-Ep36-cal
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