Row Zero

Don’t send data to people. Send people to data. That’s the core advantage of modern cloud security — and what most companies still get wrong. They migrate to the cloud and check all the boxes... yet still use files. Teams export CSVs of sensitive data from CRMs, ERPs, BI tool dashboards, and hundreds of other tools. Data is pushed out - so that it can be opened in a spreadsheet. Somehow in the transition to the cloud, we forgot to connect the most important tool: the spreadsheet. It’s not just a security risk. It’s really inefficient. At Row Zero, we rebuilt the spreadsheet from the ground up for modern cloud security and big data performance. Row Zero is 1000x more powerful than legacy spreadsheets, securely connects to your data warehouse, and is instantly familiar to anyone who uses Excel or Google Sheets. There's no files. Data never leaves the cloud. Go deeper here - https://lnkd.in/e2n9KriK #DataGovernance #DataStrategy #DataSecurity

This is the story of the largest cut/paste in the history of computing. First, some history. S3 launched in 2006. It was a different time. Facebook was cool, the Excel row limit was 65k, and, importantly for this story, EC2 didn't exist. So when S3 launched it was built in Amazon's "Prod" network - the same one running Amazon dot com. S3 is a storage service - it doesn't execute untrusted code. So having S3 servers next to the servers storing customers' credit card numbers was fine. But EC2 was a different story. Servers execute whatever code customers want. It would have been super bad if an attacker could launch an EC2 instance and start probing Amazon retail for vulnerabilities. That's why the creators of EC2 wisely segregated those instances in a separate network - the EC2 network. And so it was for a decade. The Prod network housed S3, and the EC2 network housed the rest of AWS. Often in the same building. But this was expensive. Here's why: Imagine you've got a picture on your phone and you want to send it to your laptop. If your phone is connected to wifi, the transfer takes 2 hops (phone -> router -> laptop). But if your phone is using cellular data, the bytes have to travel from: - Your phone - To the cell tower - To the Verizon backbone - To wherever Verizon peers traffic with Comcast - Back to your neighborhood - To your wifi router - To your laptop To move the data 6 inches, it had to travel 100 miles across a dozen routers. For one picture it's fine. But S3 transmits more than a Petabyte per second! [1] That means the routing capacity for every hop needs to run at that scale, which is outrageously expensive and a logistical nightmare. So the decision was made to move S3 to EC2. In theory all you have to do is unplug the servers, roll them across the aisle, and plug them into a different network switch. But that's scary because it takes capacity offline, which risks downtime. The solution was to cut and paste the data on each server to a new server in EC2. The migration would take years and require moving every byte in S3. My task was to produce a monthly forecast of how much routing capacity AWS needed to connect the Prod and EC2 networks during the migration. This was more complicated than "how fast are you cutting and pasting" because once S3 straddled both networks, reads, writes, and repairs would also traverse the inter-network link. I spun up Excel and built a model of how bytes flowed internally. The model required 30+ inputs from internal AWS systems like S3, Redshift, and Cloudwatch. I copied and pasted these to my assumptions tab, built the forecast for us-east-1, and showed it to the networking team. "Perfect! Now can you do it for the other 30 AWS regions?" FML. The problem was Excel was tied to my desktop, but the data I needed was in the cloud. What I wanted was a cloud-native spreadsheet with deep AWS integration and Google Sheets-style collab. And that is the moment Row Zero was born.

I'm excited to announce the release of our Amazon Athena connector! Row Zero users can now directly query S3 tables, the AWS Glue Catalog, and other Athena-supported data sources from a familiar, secure spreadsheet. This puts all your AWS data at your fingertips. You can seamlessly pivot, COUNTIF, and graph billions of rows without the mess of exporting csv files to Excel.

Row Zero now has a built-in Athena connector! You can seamlessly query Athena to import data to your workbook and dynamically re-run for the latest data. Everything built on connected data stays in sync and updates as source data is refreshed, including pivot tables, charts, formulas, etc. See how to connect to Athena here - https://rowzero.io/athena

We're excited to announce the winner of our 2025 Data Analytics Scholarship is Khushi Mathur from the University of Florida! Learn more about our 2025 winner and apply for our 2026 Scholarship here - https://lnkd.in/eZR2Fn4X

Row Zero now supports write-back to Redshift! You can easily connect to Redshift using our built-in connector to seamlessly import and export data and create connected spreadsheets that auto-update. You can also share one-click data sources backed by Redshift queries. Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/ezSXXMhC

Row Zero now supports array functions and spilled arrays! Spilled array formulas automatically populate multiple cells with results from a single formula in the top-left cell of the spill range. New array functions available include TEXTSPLIT, FILTER, SORT, SORTBY, TRANSPOSE, VSTACK, HSTACK, etc. Explore the latest product updates here: https://rowzero.io/updates

I waited to send out the May recap so I could include highlights from the Snowflake and Databricks summits, which just wrapped up last week. In this month’s edition: 🔹 MAU in Vegas – It was awesome to reconnect with colleagues and friends, and to discover so many new mobile apps, but I walked away with mixed feelings about the speakers, talks, and content: 1. Activation is still misunderstood as a one-time onboarding event, not a signal of long-term retention. 2. ARPU and LTV are being misused as A/B test success metrics. Unless you're changing price, these can be misleading, especially when the variable breakdown isn’t clear. 3. There’s a growing tension between product and marketing. Product growth is increasingly being treated as a sub-function of marketing. Too bad. 🔹 Amplitude’s new AI Agent feels promising, though real-world hypothesis testing use cases are far more complex than the demo suggested. Still, super exciting to see it in action. 🔹 dbt launched the Fusion Engine, featuring a VS Code extension and several new improvements. So, should we switch to Fusion or continue with Core? 🔹If you’re a student or recent graduate, check out RowZero - a fast-growing spreadsheet tool built for big data. They’re offering a free plan to help you learn analytics, practice with large datasets, use pivot tables and charts, and publish your work - https://rowzero.io/edu ⭐Also featuring: - Mixpanel’s Guide to User Journeys: https://lnkd.in/gaAQZj3t - How Public Companies Define ARR from CJ Gustafson: https://lnkd.in/g-x8kkyg - Visualizing Causal Inference from Vasil (Vasco) Yasenov, PhD: https://lnkd.in/gbxzRKqQ - Everything Becomes BI from Benn Stancil: https://lnkd.in/gwnW2vXn - 🔥 ⭐ The Illusion of Causality in Charts by Enrico Bertini: https://lnkd.in/gjX9fK2N Read full newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gFqS6QQi

I'll be at the Databricks Data and AI Summit with Row Zero this week. Swing by booth 308 to see a demo of the world's fastest spreadsheet in action (or just to say hi!). See you there!

Excited to see what’s next for Row Zero—a spreadsheet that’s 1000x faster than Excel and built to handle 1000x more data. Now hiring engineers in Seattle, Pittsburgh, and SF.