Justin Borgman is the Cofounder and CEO of Starburst, the data platform for building enterprise data apps and agents. AI is only as good as the data it has access to, and Starburst is able to use all of the data an enterprise has without compromising performance.
Before founding Starburst, he was Vice President & GM at Teradata (NYSE: TDC), where he was responsible for the company’s portfolio of Hadoop products. Justin joined Teradata in 2014 via the acquisition of his company, Hadapt, where he was co-founder and CEO. Hadapt created “SQL on Hadoop” turning Hadoop from a file system to an analytic database accessible by any BI tool.
For those who aren’t familiar, can you start by explaining what Starburst does and how it helps organizations manage and leverage their data?
At Starburst, our mission is to help organizations unlock the full value of their data no matter where it lives. Most enterprises today operate in highly complex environments, with data scattered across cloud, on-prem, and hybrid systems. Moving or duplicating that data is expensive, risky, and slow. Starburst provides a unified data platform that enables fast, secure access to distributed data without requiring migration. Built on open-source technologies like Trino (formerly Presto) and Apache Iceberg, we give organizations the flexibility to build modern data applications and AI solutions on an open lakehouse architecture that ensures governance, scalability, and performance.
Starburst recently introduced new AI capabilities. Can you walk us through what’s new and how these innovations support enterprise AI adoption?
We’ve launched a suite of AI-driven innovations aimed at helping enterprises move from experimentation to production more efficiently. This includes our new AI Workflows, which orchestrate everything from unstructured data search to governed model access without requiring complex pipelines. We also introduced the Starburst AI Agent, a conversational interface that enables faster insights using natural language. Together, these tools let organizations tap into all their data securely and build AI-driven apps with confidence. By integrating these capabilities natively into our platform, we remove common friction points around data access, governance, and performance so teams can focus on building real business value.
What is “lakeside AI,” and why is that approach significant for organizations working with data across cloud, on-prem, and hybrid environments?
“Lakeside AI” is our vision for enabling AI innovation directly where your data lives, at the edge of the lakehouse. Rather than forcing enterprises to centralize or move data, Starburst brings AI capabilities lakeside to unify data access and governance across environments. This approach is critical because data gravity is real, especially in large, regulated industries. Lakeside AI allows teams to build and run AI workflows without compromising security, compliance, or speed. It gives organizations the flexibility to operate in air-gapped, hybrid, or cloud-native architectures, all while maintaining visibility, control, and real-time performance.
Starburst just received a strategic investment from Citi. What does this partnership signal about the role Starburst plays in highly regulated industries like financial services?
Citi’s investment is a strong endorsement of our vision to deliver AI-ready data infrastructure for the world’s most data-intensive and regulated industries. Financial services firms face immense pressure to innovate while maintaining strict governance and compliance standards. Our ability to provide secure, federated access to distributed data, without moving it, is a game changer for these environments. This partnership not only validates our technology, but also reinforces the role we’re playing in helping global institutions build secure, scalable, and intelligent data applications that can power next-generation financial services.
AI workflows often involve complex pipelines and siloed tools. How does Starburst help streamline that process for enterprise teams?
Traditional AI workflows are notoriously brittle, often requiring stitched-together pipelines, manual governance, and coordination across fragmented tools. With Starburst AI Workflows, we remove that complexity by integrating all the critical capabilities into one unified platform. Teams can search unstructured data using vector-native AI Search, orchestrate tasks with SQL, and manage model access securely, all without needing to move data or manage external tooling. This dramatically simplifies AI development and allows enterprises to iterate quickly and securely, with full confidence in the performance and governance of their workflows.
What sets Starburst apart from other players in the data and AI platform space, especially as enterprises grapple with hybrid environments and rising AI demands?
What truly sets Starburst apart is our ability to provide fast, secure access to all your data; whether it’s in the cloud, on-prem, or somewhere in between. Most AI platforms assume your data is centralized and in the cloud, but that’s just not reality for global enterprises. We meet customers where their data lives. AI can’t thrive on partial data It needs everything, governed and in context. We believe the days of monolithic SaaS apps are numbered. The future is open, modular, and composable. Starburst is building the AI-native data platform that fits that future, not the legacy SaaS past.
Looking ahead, how do you see Starburst helping enterprises not just experiment with AI, but operationalize it at scale in a secure and cost-effective way?
Operationalizing AI at scale requires more than just good models. It requires a robust data foundation. That’s exactly what we provide. Our open lakehouse architecture ensures high-performance, federated data access with governance and control baked in. Our AI capabilities are purpose-built to reduce time-to-value while maintaining security and compliance. Whether it’s through automated maintenance, seamless ingestion, or integrated AI workflows, we help enterprises move from proof-of-concept to production faster, with lower risk and cost. Starburst is here to help customers build AI that actually delivers, securely, efficiently, and at scale.
