apache-kafka
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Confluent
Confluent is the data streaming company founded by the original creators of Apache Kafka. Its Data Streaming Platform - anchored by fully managed Confluent Cloud and a self-managed Confluent Platform, plus managed Apache Flink for stream processing - lets organizations connect, process, and govern data in motion across clouds in real time. Used by thousands of enterprises including a large share of the Fortune 500, Confluent went public in 2021 (NASDAQ: CFLT) and in December 2025 agreed to be acquired by IBM in a deal valuing it at roughly $11 billion.
Jay Kreps
Jay Kreps is the co-founder and CEO of Confluent, the data-streaming company built around Apache Kafka, the open-source platform he co-created at LinkedIn in 2010. In December 2025, IBM announced a deal to acquire Confluent for roughly $11 billion. He also serves on Anthropic's Board of Directors and wrote the book I Heart Logs.
Max Wang
Max Wang is the Co-Founder and CTO of Workstream, a San Francisco-based HR and payroll platform built specifically for America's hourly workforce. He co-founded China's AngelList equivalent (VC.CN) in 2011, built it to a 50-person team, then crossed the Pacific to co-build Workstream with Desmond Lim and Lei Xu after a 100-interview discovery sprint revealed that hiring hourly workers was a massive unsolved problem. Today, Workstream serves 4,000+ businesses across 24,000 locations, has raised $118 million, and is deploying AI tools - including VoiceAI - to compress hiring cycles from weeks to hours for restaurants, franchises, and deskless-workforce employers.