ControlTheory is a company that is dedicated to transforming observability through the power of controllability, cutting costs while turbocharging outcomes. Pulse 2.0 interviewed ControlTheory CEO Bob Quillin to learn more about the company.
Bob Quillin’s Background
What is Bob Quillin’s background? Quillin said:
“I’m a software startup entrepreneur driven by innovation and disruption. I began my career as a software engineer, moved into product and marketing roles, and eventually executive leadership. I’ve been part of 12 startups and six acquisitions, including the last three as founder and CEO. After starting in Washington, D.C. and working across multiple Silicon Valley startups in the Bay Area, I’ve spent the last decade in Austin, TX.”
“I hold a B.A. in Mathematical Science from Johns Hopkins and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from George Washington. I began in early AI, building expert systems for NASA and enterprise networking firms, and have worked up and down the IT stack—from networking and infrastructure to application performance. ControlTheory draws on this experience, combining observability, AI, and control theory to deliver a new level of insight and control.”
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for the company come together? Quillin shared:
“The idea for ControlTheory came together as we spoke with enterprises struggling to manage the rising costs and complexity of observability. Despite massive investments, many teams felt they were drowning in data without gaining meaningful insights. We realized the core issue wasn’t just visibility—it was the lack of control. That insight sparked the concept of bringing control theory principles to observability, introducing feedback loops, adaptive optimization, and cost governance.”
“As we explored the market further, it became clear that observability—now a $50B+ TAM—was at an inflection point. The space had consolidated around legacy tools focused on data collection, but innovation had slowed, and the architectures hadn’t evolved in over a decade. OpenTelemetry stood out as a turning point: a rapidly maturing open standard that allowed for greater interoperability, flexibility, and the ability to break vendor lock-in. It gave us the technical foundation to build something fundamentally new.”
“As the founding team behind StackEngine, which was acquired by Oracle Cloud, we led the build-out of Oracle’s large-scale managed Kubernetes services and cloud-native platforms. Drawing on that experience, we set out to solve a new generation of challenges—this time, by transforming observability into controllability.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Quillin reflected:
“Each phase of a company’s growth brings its own excitement, but for me, one of my favorites is the ‘idea’ phase—when you’re standing at the edge of a greenfield opportunity with a trusted team and a blank canvas. It’s a moment that draws on everything you’ve learned as an entrepreneur: understanding the technology, the market, the buyers, the budget constraints, the competitive landscape, and anticipating where the market is headed.”
“Startups, at their core, are an exercise in interpolation—starting from what you know today and building something that can meet the market at just the right point in the future. It’s during this phase that the a-ha moments happen, and for me, those moments are what make it all worth it.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Quillin explained:
“ControlTheory reframes observability for technology leaders by surfacing inefficiencies, rebalancing cost and value, and optimizing the outcomes observability is meant to deliver. By leveraging OpenTelemetry, we not only enable an open, non-proprietary collection layer but also accelerate the adoption of new, emerging technologies—especially data-intensive AI applications—through intelligent telemetry data pipelines. Rather than replacing existing observability tools, the ControlTheory Observability Control Platform enhances and extends them, introducing a dynamic, feedback-driven approach to managing telemetry from code to cloud, development to operations.”
“The platform delivers three pillars of value: cost control, operational control, and adaptive control.
— Cost control reduces waste through adaptive filtering, deduplication, and intelligent aggregation and enrichment.
— Operational control improves signal-to-noise ratios using intelligent sampling and illuminates telemetry health through observability “Meta-Metrics,” enabling better anomaly detection.
— Adaptive control is powered by our Elastic Telemetry Pipelines, which apply feedback loops to dynamically adjust telemetry flows, auto-tune configurations, and enforce policy-based governance.
“Powered by OpenTelemetry, the platform integrates seamlessly with existing instrumentation and tools, ensuring long-term flexibility and avoiding vendor lock-in.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Quillin noted:
“As we engaged more deeply with customers, it became clear that their most urgent need was to regain control over observability—specifically, to reduce cost, eliminate waste, and manage complexity. That insight shaped our initial offering: a platform focused on intelligent telemetry management, built to optimize existing observability systems without requiring a rip-and-replace. Our priority became helping organizations “stop the bleeding” with adaptive filtering, enrichment, and feedback-driven control.”
“Interestingly, our original focus had been on developers and source-code-level instrumentation. The logic was simple: Address issues at the origin, and you minimize downstream impact. While that remains a compelling long-term goal, we quickly realized that most teams aren’t there yet. They’re overwhelmed by volume and cost today. By first helping customers stabilize their telemetry environments, we lay the foundation to help them move to a more proactive, preventative strategy with us down the line.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Quillin cited:
“ControlTheory officially launched in April 2025, marking two foundational milestones: the public debut of our Observability Control Platform and the announcement of our $5 million seed round, led by Silverton Partners. While these are important early achievements, we’re just getting started.”
“The launch represents the starting line, not the finish. With a strong technical foundation, a clear market need, and the backing of a trusted investor, we’re now focused on building momentum—scaling the platform, deepening customer engagement, and continuing to evolve our technology in response to real-world challenges.”
Customer Success Stories
When asking Quillin about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“One of our early success stories comes from a Datadog customer who faced rapidly rising observability costs driven by excessive telemetry volume. By deploying ControlTheory, they were able to reduce their telemetry flow into Datadog by over 35%, cutting costs across ingestion, indexing, and retention. This initial phase focused on eliminating waste through smarter filtering and deduplication—quick wins that delivered immediate impact.”
“What’s most exciting is that this is just the beginning. With the initial inefficiencies addressed, we’re now working with them on the next phase: gaining deeper visibility into their telemetry flows, detecting anomalies earlier, and fine-tuning their observability strategy to drive even greater value and control. It’s a clear example of how small, targeted changes can unlock a path to more intelligent, adaptive observability over time.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Quillin assessed:
“ControlTheory is targeting the observability market, which analysts and industry leaders like Dynatrace estimate at over $50 billion—and growing rapidly. This growth is being fueled by a continuing wave of cloud investment, including the rise of AI-driven workloads. Meanwhile, new open-source standards like OpenTelemetry are breaking down barriers to entry and creating new opportunities for innovative solutions like ours to redefine how observability is delivered and managed.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Quillin affirmed:
“ControlTheory stands apart by introducing a fundamentally new layer to observability: a control plane that actively manages telemetry in real time. Unlike traditional tools that passively collect and display data, our platform is built to respond—intelligently adapting to changing environments, optimizing data flows, and delivering meaningful efficiencies across the observability lifecycle.”
“At the core of our approach is adaptive control. Through the use of real-time feedback loops and reinforced learning, the platform continuously auto-tunes telemetry pipelines, adjusting filtering, sampling, and enrichment dynamically based on system behavior and operational priorities. This ensures high-signal, low-noise observability without the need for constant manual adjustments.”
“Equally important is our commitment to open control. ControlTheory is built entirely on OpenTelemetry, which not only ensures compatibility across modern environments but also frees teams from proprietary lock-in. This gives organizations full flexibility to evolve their observability strategy without being tied to a single vendor’s ecosystem.”
“These capabilities converge to deliver powerful cost control. By embedding intelligence directly into the telemetry pipeline, we eliminate unnecessary data at the source, reducing ingestion, indexing, and storage overhead. The result is an observability system that’s not just more responsive, but also significantly more efficient and sustainable. ”This combination of adaptive intelligence, open architecture, and cost efficiency is what makes ControlTheory a distinctly modern and strategic solution in a category overdue for reinvention.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Quillin concluded:
“ControlTheory’s goal is to help lead the evolution of observability into the AI era by making controllability a core capability in modern software operations. We’re focused on building a platform that actively orchestrates, routes, and transforms data—adapting in real time, integrating seamlessly with existing tools, and delivering meaningful, measurable outcomes across cost, performance, and reliability.”
“This vision is taking shape at a critical moment in the industry. Observability is entering a major transition point: while incumbents continue to expand and consolidate their stacks, innovation has stalled, and customer frustration is growing. The rise of AI and ML at the source-code level accelerates demand for smarter, more responsive observability. OpenTelemetry has emerged as the first major disruptor, opening the door for interoperability and flexibility. We believe controllability will be the next, and ControlTheory is committed to leading that transformation.”
