Tidbits

Before AWS, Joyent was powering the internet’s biggest platforms. Started in 2004 by a former cancer researcher, Jason Hoffman, it hosted early infrastructure for Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook’s third-party apps (in partnership with Dell). They built their own OS, SmartOS, and used container virtualization via Solaris Zones—8 years before Docker even existed. Their containers were so efficient that one Joyent server could match multiple AWS instances.

But they built everything on Solaris instead of Linux, which most developers preferred. In 2010, they brought in Ryan Dahl, the creator of Node.js, and became its official maintainer. Despite this, Joyent struggled to scale like AWS, which aggressively cut prices, launched global data centers, and focused on developers with free tiers, and events. Joyent stayed niche and shifted focus to big enterprise clients like Telefónica—while AWS went after every developer and startup.

By 2010, AWS had become synonymous with “cloud.” In 2016, Samsung acquired Joyent for just $125M, while AWS was already valued at over $100B. By 2019, it shut down completely—the company that once powered Twitter was now helping customers move to AWS.

During the A380 program (2004), Airbus discovered a flaw: 500 km of electrical wiring was short by several centimeters across the aircraft.

The French and British teams designed with newer CATIA V5 CAD software. German and Spanish teams were stuck with older CATIA V4. The two systems handled 3D models differently, causing measurements mismatch.

For this, Airbus had to completely redesign the electrical harnesses. 100,000 wires and 40,000 connectors were manually torn out and reinstalled. German and Spanish plants were forced to upgrade to CATIA V5. All A380s were opened up and reworked.

Delivery delays of over 2 years with losses of €4.8 billion. Stock price tanked and Airbus underwent a major management overhaul.

Tinkoff Credit Systems (TCS) is one of the world’s largest digital neobank and also one of the leading providers of Credit Cards in Russia.

In 2008, Dimitri Argarkov, was offered a credit card contract from TCS. He sent an altered contract whereby it had 0% interest with no credit limit. If the bank failed to comply with the rules, he would fine them 3 million rubles. If Tinkoff tried to cancel the contract, it would have to pay him 6 million.

Tinkoff didn’t check the same, signed and provided him a credit card with a copy of the contact. TCS charged him 45,000 rubles for fees and charges which weren’t actually preset in the amended contract. By 2013, Dimitri sued the bank for 24 million for not honouring the contact. Tinkoff managed to sue Dimitri as well.

Later, both of the parties backed out with an out of court settlement.

This story begins with a game developed by Blizzard, called “World of Warcraft”. This is a highly popular game played by millions of players annually. At one point in 2010, Blizzard introduced a feature that led to weakening of powers in characters.

A young boy, was quite unhappy with this new introduction. “I cried myself to sleep, and on that day I realized what horrors centralized services can bring. I soon decided to quit.", he later said. At the same time, he developed an interest for crypto coins, worked as a writer and launched his first magazine called “Bitcoin Magazine”.

He later along with his colleague launched a white paper detailing his idea for a “decentralised mining network and software development platform rolled into one”. That white paper would lead to the birth of the now famous “Ethereum”. And that young boy was none other than Vitalik Buterin.

Despite having data concerning size of atom, speed of bombarding neutron, probability and stuff, it was quite impossible to predict the real life events by conventional mathematics. So, what they did was amazing. They hired 100s of women & gave them sheets of paper and asked them to perform mathematical calculations by hand for each neutron. In reality, using random inputs and estimations, they calculated and simulated test scenarios on paper for thousands of neutrons about how they will react and scatter during explosion.

This task was spearheaded by Stanislaw Ullam, a polish nuclear scientist, who code named this activity as “Monte Carlo” which came to be regarded as the famous “Monte Carlo” simulations in mathematics.

The cleaning has to be done every single day. Yet, after cleaning, the machine throws error which requires cleaning it again. When frequent error comes up, the franchisee calls Taylor technicians that charge thousands of dollars for checkup. Taylor has 25% of its annual revenue coming through maintenance operations! In fact, Taylor never mentions the possible troubleshooting tips or type of errors in its manual.

In 2020, a startup called Kytch used a tracking system that could identify errors. But McDonald’s barred it citing warranty expirations and had Taylor install their own tracking. This led to a $900 million lawsuit by Kytch who allege that Taylor reverse engineered their system & showing confusing messages and prohibiting users to access menu controls that can help them repair errors on their own.

Knight Capital was a former global financial services that provided electronic trading services. Its algorithms were top notch, helping it gain 17.3%/16.9% market share in NYSE/NASDAQ - the largest at that time.

On 1st August 2012, there was an update (Power Peg Program) loaded onto Production servers. There were warnings that the deployment wasn’t correct. The bug actually was programmed to buy stocks at high prices and execute by selling them at low prices (completely opposite of what the ideal practice is). Moreover, the program was actually a simulation of a test environment whereby it artificially inflated stock prices so that the QA team could check other features.

This led to a faulty system that resulted in $460 million loss along with a $12 million fine by SEC for carelessness involved in launch release and documentation. This led to compnay almost getting bankrupted, and had to be eventually acquired by KcG Holdings in July 2013.

One of the best thing about the theme parks storytelling is the smell. Artificial smells are pumped via a machine called Smellitzer (patented by Disney in 1986) that uses pressurised gas to blow scented air. The creative team first works on a concept as per the vision and story to be told to the audience as per the place.

They then hire a perfumer that works on a brief and develops the scent that matches the taste. In one scenario, Disney was looking to create the smell of “ocean”. So, after many failures, someone dipped a pair of socks in Pacific Ocean, sent it in an airtight bag to the perfumer and it worked!

In 2004, there was a Hollywood movie named “Idiocracy”. It is about a dystopian future where the American society has evolved so much that everybody has become an idiot due to technology.

The film’s costume designer didn’t have a big budget and was out looking for shoes that seemed futuristic but also idiotic. She stumbled upon a startup that was experimenting with funny looking shoes that seemed perfect and weren’t sold yet.

The movie’s producer, Mike Judge, was skeptical about what if the startup actually turned out to be big and the shoes became famous? The designer ignored the same and went on with her idea.

Interestingly, the shoe startup turned out to be “Crocs” that went on to become a multibillion dollar company in future. So much for “idiocracy”!

In the 1990s, console and arcade games were quite rudimentary but popular. There were no age restrictions leading to sexual and violent graphic scenes being released in games without any consent.

The launch of “Mortal Kombat” in 1993 changed that. Thanks to a marketing campaign to create hype & due to depiction of violence and gore, it was heavily scrutinised by US Congress along with several other games to launch a regulation based rating system.

An independent group, IDSA, rebranded to Entertainment Software Association in 2004, launched the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) that released video game ratings like Kids, Mature, Adult, etc.

That’s how, Mortal Kombat because one of the first games to be granted the “Mature” only rating in video game history!

The world’s largest delivery service, UPS, has spent decades building efficient shipping routes & systems for swift and reliable deliveries.

The company spends millions of dollars annually to build ML models that avoid delivery drivers making left turns wherever possible. This helped save millions of gallons of fuel and avoid accidents. From an HBR survey, it was found that 90% of turns are right. But, if required, drivers can decide depending upon the situation.

In fact, the number speak for themselves. In US, more than 50% of cross-path accidents are because of left turns. Left turns were 10 times more likely to involve crashes than right turns. Fatal bike accidents were far more frequent with left turns too.

Unfortunately, Phillip was lobbying for MP2 player that had more clarity but quite cumbersome to implement. The Motion Pictures Experts Group or MPEG agreed and shut out MP3.

Brandenburg wanted to make it easy and so uploaded a software on his website for a few to download the recorder and player. But it failed to get a mass usage and was abandoned.

In 1990s, hacker groups got hold of his software, cracked and started using it to distribute pirated material. And since all the pirated songs were released using MP3, people bought and downloaded cracked MP3 software’s that ultimately exploded in usage.

And Phillip and Sony had to ultimately develop MP3 players. Sometimes, innovation comes through unlikeliest of places!

In the 1970s, the first company of Bill Gates was not Microsoft but “Traff-O-Data”. It was cofounded by Bill, Paul Allen and Gilbert.

Local governments periodically reviewed traffic surveys with a pneumatic air counter laid on the roads. The counts were punched on a paper tape that were then supplied to private companies to process data and output insights.

Bill and his friend, Allen decided to use their time at Lakeside School to build a new program using an Intel 8008 processor. They later hired Gilbert, an Electrical Engineer to build a system that automated manual calculations.

They sold their services and also earned little money. But this was the beginning of their ideas to create software and hardware products that would ultimately create the Microsoft!

The period of 1980s was quite famous for Nintendo as they had released their newest game - Super Mario Bros. It became the largest successful game globally, selling more than 58 million copies.

Due to its popularity, players were always looking for ways to beat the game. With lack of internet and online forums, people shared lots of tips and tricks to beat various levels of the game. Some of these tips were aggregated and shared collectively by friends.

The official strategy book, Super Mario Bros: The Complete Strategy Guide was launched in 1985 by Famicom. The book went on to sell more than 600,000 copies and became the top selling book in Japan for two straight years. It was later translated to English and sold overseas by Nintendo Power.

In 1920, the US Govt. enacted a ban on the use and sale of alcohol except for medical purposes. But rural people continued to produce booze illegally and sell them.

For transportation, bootleggers used large stills and filled up their vehicles to the brim. They made engine upgrades and also installed accessories that let them drive at high speeds to evade authorities.

Even after the ban was lifted in 1930s, the drivers liked to drive cars and participate in races. Due to lack of official rules and fanfare & payments to drivers, it failed to attract much attention for long.

One racer, Bill France took the initiative with several mechanics & drivers, created the “NASCAR” program in Feb, 1948 and laid out the groundwork for the future. Today, it houses 35+ teams and generates more than $650 million in revenues annually!

Andy Hildebrand was a scientist (Exxon) who created seismic monitoring system for digging oil. He left & founded Landmark Graphics, a 3D Seismic imaging software company. It was highly profitable & later sold off in 1989.

Andy was a flutist and decided to research on music composition. During this, he had difficulty in recording and producing digital notes from instruments.

He created a recording algorithm called Infinity & formed Antares Audio Technology. In 1996, via autocorrelation & processing, he used a Mac to build auto-pitch correction tool called “Auto-Tune”.

It exploded and was bought by all music studios. In fact, Believe by Cher became the first Auto-Tuned song that won a Grammy Award and sold 11 million copies in 23 countries!

In 1994, Microsoft engineers were busy building their newest OS- Windows 95 & looked for a nice ambient music that played when the OS loads in PC.

So, Microsoft’s UI Architect, Mark Malamund approached an English music composer - Brian Eno to produce a simple music that was only 3 seconds long.

Brian went onto create 84 samples out of which one was selected. Little known, all of these songs were actually composed using an Apple Mac! He admitted that he wasn’t good with computers and wanted to keep things a secret.

The song became popular & was called as “Microsoft Sound” that remained an important influence on future OS music versions!

Fei Fei Li, a researcher, looked to establish a dataset to help build AI algorithms to classify images - giving birth to ImageNet dataset in 2009 - containing 3.2 million images with over 1000 classes.

This led to annual “ImageNet” Competition, encouraging researchers to build efficient image classification models. By 2012, Alex Krizhevsky, Ilya Sutskever & Geoff Hinton created a stacked “deep neural model” called “AlexNet” that registered a very high accuracy.

Google hired them to start early AI projects leading FB, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple to take notice and build their own that ultimately led to the current AI boom.

By 2013, Alex & Illya tried out Nvidia’s GPUs that reduced training TAT by 50% & increasing performance - a breakthrough that led to increased use of GPUs for complex model training.

In 2015, Ilya cofounded OpenAI & Alex joined Google Photos. Google had hired an intern - Wojciech Zaremba - to recreate AlexNet model, who also later cofounded OpenAI.

Adult Entertainment (AE) started with magazines. Later, video recording allowed AE customers popularise the use of VCR & handy-cams. This helped Cable TV services to get subscribers for “premium (adult) content”.

In fact, use of early online bulletin boards & forums exploded via quick & private sharing of adult content that later gave birth to internet file transfer protocols.

Speed, connectivity & high traffic forced AE websites to innovate & become earliest adopters of credit card payments, email marketing, subscriptions, site membership & fraud detection that laid the foundation for e-commerce.

AE websites heavily customised content based on clicks & affiliate tracking, optimising fees and UX for the masses - that helped in the growth of User-Data analysis!

In 1793, the US Govt. needed a standard system of measurement. Every state was using its own system leading to difficulty in inter-state commerce.

Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State, knew the French had developed a system that US could use. So, Joseph Dombey, a French scientist, was sent to US carrying a 1 kg platinum cylinder - a standard for weighing things.

But Joseph’s ship was caught in a storm. He was later captured by the British Pirates and his items, including the cylinder were auctioned off to hoarders.

Quite later, the cylinder was given to National Institute of Standards and Technology. For years, the US Govt. also pushed guidelines to adopt the metric standard but the FPS system stayed.