# Why leaving Facebook/Meta was the best thing we could do for the Trino Community

DevFeed: [Why leaving Facebook/Meta was the best thing we could do for the Trino Community](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/why-leaving-facebook-meta-was-the-best-thing-we-could-do-for-the-trino-community-8682.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://trino.io/blog/2022/08/02/leaving-facebook-meta-best-for-trino.html>)

Author: Martin Traverso, Dain Sundstrom, and David Phillips

Published: 2022-08-02T00:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Trino Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/trino-blog.md>)

Topics: [data analytics](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/data-analytics.md>), [big-data](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/big-data.md>), [Open Source](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/open-source.md>), [SQL](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/sql.md>), [Meta](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/meta.md>)

Tags: [analytics](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/analytics.md>), [big-data](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/big-data.md>), [company](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/company.md>), [leaving](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/leaving.md>), [linkedin](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/linkedin.md>), [meta](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/meta.md>), [netflix](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/netflix.md>), [open-source](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/open-source.md>), [sql](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/sql.md>)

## AI overview

The article explains why leaving Facebook/Meta enabled the creators of Presto to build a broader open-source community around a distributed SQL query engine for big data analytics. It describes how Presto grew beyond Facebook, attracted participation from companies including Airbnb, Dropbox, Netflix, and LinkedIn, and served a wide range of analytics needs.

## Source excerpt

It might surprise some that our departure from Facebook was one of the simplest decisions we've ever made. Many posts that discuss leaving a FAANG company focus on leaving some grand sum of money or prestige of working at the company. For us, we were leaving the company where we had launched a project that we knew would quickly outgrow the walls of Facebook, and solve a much larger set of problems in the analytics domain. At the time we didn't quite anticipate that Presto, a distributed SQL query engine for big data analytics, would be adopted around the globe by thousands of companies and an overwhelming number of industries. We appreciate Facebook for serving as the launchpad that inspired others to adopt Presto. Despite the harmonious beginnings, once the needs of the community and Facebook no longer aligned, we had to leave, but we'll get to that part shortly.