YugabyteDB is an open source project that aims to build a high growth business while maintaining sustainability in the long run. The company chose a permissive Apache 2.0 license and an open self-governance model for its open source YugabyteDB project, allowing users to contribute back to the project through their own volition. To monetize the open source project, Yugabyte plans to adopt an open core business model with the intent of adding a managed service offering in the future. This approach aims to balance user adoption and commercial features while avoiding the existential challenges faced by companies that failed to monetize their open source offerings. The company also acknowledges the cloud provider threat and plans to compete by building high value products that users and customers love to use, similar to Elastic's approach. YugabyteDB is designed to be a transactional, high-performance, geo-distributed database with all critical features, making it an attractive alternative to other databases like CockroachDB, Google Cloud Spanner, MongoDB, and Azure Cosmos DB.