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a16zHow Kong Was Born: APIs, Hustle, and the Future of AI Infrastructure
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At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Kong’s origin story: relentless hustle, pivots, and AI-ready infrastructure
- Marietti describes arriving in the U.S. with almost no money and a 90-day deadline, using extreme hustle (including mass cold-emailing investors) to secure an early angel lifeline.
- He details years of near-poverty and visa obstacles while iterating from an app-builder concept to an API marketplace, culminating in a notable seed round backed by top-tier firms and prominent angels.
- The API marketplace model ultimately failed to deliver durable economics, leading the team to reframe their internal API engine as the product and open-source it as Kong, betting on enterprise API infrastructure.
- Kong’s open-source launch created sudden pull and credibility, enabling a narrow escape from running out of cash, a Series B led by a16z, and rapid growth to major ARR milestones.
- Looking forward, Marietti argues AI will dramatically increase machine-to-machine “internet consumption,” making unified API + AI traffic management (auth, governance, routing, rate limits) a strategic connectivity layer for enterprises.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasDesperation can force focus, but only if paired with relentless execution.
Marietti’s 90-day U.S. deadline and near-zero cash pushed unusually aggressive outreach (hundreds of emails overnight) and rapid iteration, turning a tiny initial check into momentum.
Ultra-low burn buys you learning time when product-market fit is uncertain.
Living on roughly $1,000/month for three people extended runway long enough to iterate through multiple architectures and a major pivot—time that ultimately enabled the Kong outcome.
API marketplaces are structurally hard without true exclusivity and a balanced long tail.
Mashape struggled because supply wasn’t exclusive (developers could bypass the marketplace), power concentrated in a few top APIs, and quality/trust was difficult to guarantee—breaking marketplace liquidity and economics.
Your “failed” product may contain the winning product as an internal subsystem.
The team’s marketplace required a robust gateway (auth, rate limiting, routing, logging, billing), and recognizing that this engine was broadly valuable led to open-sourcing Kong.
Open source can be the fastest credibility and distribution engine in infrastructure.
Kong’s GitHub traction and organic user advocacy created a “zeitgeist” effect that helped overcome skepticism about a seven-year-old startup and unlocked major financing and adoption.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesWe had no money. We, we, we, we just take 600 bucks last left to go to a United flight, and we had 90 days to just, uh, make it or break it. We knew that if we couldn't raise, so we would go back, uh, to Italy broke, and that was it.
— Augusto Marietti
We steal- ... the things with all the email and the registration, and we walk home with that. And that night till 5:00 AM, I write s- all the 400 emails- ... about, "Hey, you need to know about Mashape. We didn't have time to catch up at the mixer, but I'm happy to give you a pitch tomorrow."
— Augusto Marietti
So we live it in, uh, on Airbnb somewhere else at, like, 100 bucks, and all in the same mattress.
— Augusto Marietti
We build it three times, and the third time was the great one. And we say, "Wait a second, every company will become an API company. Why we don't take this, this engine and we give it to the whole world?" And that was the beginning of open source Mongo, and so boom, we, we open source, uh, Kong API gateway.
— Augusto Marietti
Never. Never. The, the reason is I could never visualize myself going back to the airport in Italy and my dad picking me up and say, "How's it going?" And it's just like would fail with my tails and my legs, like I could never-- I would have died here without food. Like I cannot do that.
— Augusto Marietti
SPEAKERS
Augusto Marietti
guestFounder and CEO of Kong (formerly Mashape), an API infrastructure and gateway company.
Martin Casado
hostGeneral Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) focused on infrastructure and enterprise/AI systems.
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
