Spencer Kimball

Spencer Kimball is a programmer and technology entrepreneur best known as the co-founder and CEO of Cockroach Labs, where he led the development of CockroachDB, a globally distributed SQL database built for resilience and strong consistency at scale. His work focuses on distributed systems and reliability, grounded in the idea that failure should be treated as a normal operating condition. Before founding Cockroach Labs, Kimball worked at Google on large-scale infrastructure, experience that directly shaped his approach to building durable, production-grade systems. Earlier in his career, he co-created GIMP, a landmark open-source project that reflects his long-standing commitment to open and rigorous software development.