Sachin Rekhi

I often get asked what motivates me as an entrepreneur to do what I do. For some it’s fortune, for others it’s fame. But for me, it’s this:



Seeing the positive impact the software I’ve built has on real people every day. That’s what motivates me. That’s why I do what I do!

I recently went through the thought exercise of trying to define my professional identity on the web. When thinking about the various components that make up my professional identity, I thought about it in terms of what I’d like people to know about me and what best represents myself and my work.

Given the recent acquisition of Connected by LinkedIn, I thought it would be a great time to reflect on what worked well with our technology stack as well as what I would like to improve going forward.

If you haven’t had a chance to check them out, feel free to review my previous posts where I detail our technology stack and the open source libraries we leverage. In this post I’ll jump right into our learnings.

The cost of building software products has dramatically fallen compared to a decade ago. Products that used to take millions of dollars are now being built for hundreds of thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars. Two of the most important drivers of falling costs have been open source software and cloud computing.

Yesterday I had the delightful task of rebuilding one of our production cloud images for Connected. What I realized during that process was the full extent to which we rely on open source software to build Connected. Connected wouldn't be what it is today and couldn't have been built nearly as quickly or cheaply without the incredible amount of open source used throughout the stack. I thought I'd take a moment to catalog all the open source software we use to give you a sense of just how much it has truly changed the cost of software development.

Social is clearly one of the biggest trends on the web right now, with the majority of new apps and services taking advantage of your friends to provide a more participatory experience. This extends across desktop and mobile applications as well as across most verticals, including media, e-commerce, travel, and more.

But what’s most exciting to me is what is happening a layer below these applications - the rise of the social data layer. The social data layer provides a set of compelling APIs that any application can take advantage of to quickly immerse it’s experience in social. Just as cloud computing significantly reduced the cost of building web applications, these social data platforms are significantly reducing the friction in creating compelling social experiences.