For startups, how many clouds to use may be the wrong question

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Should early-stage startups Looking for a single-cloud, multi-cloud, or on-premises strategy when you’re just starting out?

Well the simple answer to that question is just a cloudbut as a result of the collapse of the Silicon Valley bankRedundancy Has Been Sexy Again: Who wants to rely on a single vendor for any mission-critical activity?

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But it seems that the main consideration is not redundancy, but rather the type of computing load a startup has to deal with, according to a TechCrunch+ survey of various startup founders and CTOs. In particular, the founders we heard from were generally bullish on using a single cloud for young startups, with important caveats: If a young tech company is simply hosting software, then a single cloud will suffice to begin with, but if the company is working on AI-related tasks, such as training models, it may need more.

Satyen Sangani, co-founder and CEO of Alation, described when it might make sense to use something other than the cloud:

If your company needs a lot of infrastructure up front (say, you’re training the next big language model), it might make sense to buy hardware instead. In general, the early days of enterprises are full of experimentation, and the flexibility that clouds provide is a great benefit in those days.

A good question right now is what fraction of “AI first” startups are training their own models instead of remixing or restructuring the UI layer of existing LLMs, for example. We believe that it is not too high.

Regardless, after analyzing the responses to our first question, the next time we ask a related question, we will modify our notice to: When should a startup move to a multicloud setup?

For now, read on for answers to our question: Should early-stage startups look at a multi-cloud or on-premises approach when they’re just getting started?

We spoke with:

• Tobi Knaup, Founding CEO, D2iQ
• Mang-Git Ng, Founder and CEO, Anvil
• Joe Mainwaring, Director of Infrastructure, WorkTango
• Vikas Bhatia, Co-Founder, CEO and Chief Risk Officer, JustProtect
• Satyen Sangani, Co-Founder and CEO, allation
• Steve Mullaney, President and CEO, aviator
• Ed Thompson, CTO, matillion
• Adrian Estala, Vice President, Field CDO, starburst
• Shane Buckley, President and CEO, gigamon

Tobi Knaup, Founder and CEO of D2iQ: As always, it depends. But most software startups need to start in a cloud and be careful not to create too many locks by using proprietary services so you can more easily optimize and migrate later.

If your company needs a lot of infrastructure up front (say, you’re training the next big language model), it might make sense to buy hardware instead. In general, the early days of enterprises are full of experimentation, and the flexibility that clouds provide is a great benefit in those days.