The Queen’s Gambit: Through the Looking Glass into the Query Optimizer
There’s a question I like to ask people sometimes—especially at turning points:
“What’s your word?”
One word to capture how you feel, where you are, or what’s driving you right now. No explanations. Just instinct.
Today, mine is: Adventure.
Not necessarily the reckless kind, but the kind that stretches you—where you step into something unfamiliar and see what happens. That’s exactly what this season at MariaDB is like.
And maybe the most “adventurous” thing I’ve done so far? Emailing Andy Pavlo.
Yes, that Andy Pavlo. The brain behind Carnegie Mellon’s database group, the one who eats databases for breakfast. I had this wild idea—what if we invited him and his students to take a closer look at MariaDB? Maybe even challenge us a bit?
Monty, to his credit, agreed to go into the lion’s den and deliver a talk called “MariaDB’s Query Optimizer: A Multi-tool That Does Some Things Differently “. And what happened next was pure magic.
👉 You can watch it unfold here
It was more than a guest lecture. It was a spark. Monty, who’s been building databases longer than some of those students have been alive, lit up with their questions. Not because they were easy, but because they were fresh. Untamed by decades of “obvious” constraints. Honest, curious questions that made all of us think differently.
And just to make the webinar extra adventurous, Monty’s “long-lost daughter Monica” suddenly appeared in the chat, demanding to know why he hadn’t named a database after her.
To his credit, Monty didn’t even flinch—whether it was the pressure of the moment or my very pointed gaze, he delivered a pitch-perfect answer even to that curveball – “I really don’t need another fork”
Adventure Requires Trust
Here’s the thing about leading on adventure: you can’t micromanage your way through it. You make space. You say yes to strange proposals. You put Monty on Zoom with brilliant grad students and see what happens.
And most of all, you stay open—to the people asking questions that make you pause and say:
“Hmm… that’s actually a very good point.”
So to all the students, hackers, contributors, and bold thinkers joining this ride: you’re not here to be polite. You’re here to push us. To challenge us. To make us – as the White Queen in Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There” would say – “believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast”. Actually no – with your support we are ready to believe at least seven!
Because honestly, it’s the misfits and question-askers who make the impossible happen!