Stay ConnectedTraceroute is a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of our digital world. Join a team of brilliant storytellers from Equinix and beyond as they peel back the layers of the stack to reveal the humanity in the hardware.
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"Aue, aue... when it's time to find home, we know the way."
⛵️ //
For the island nation of Tuvalu, the effects of climate change are more than a warning; they’re an eviction notice. Estimates vary as to when the small chain of coral islands could vanish beneath the waves, but experts agree that Tuvalu may be uninhabitable long before then, prompting its people to set sail for a new frontier… the metaverse.
Within this digital landscape, Tuvalu could potentially preserve its lands, heritage, and governance, effectively pioneering a new model for nationhood, in which a nation and its people exist in two realms—physical and virtual. But how does one go from sand to silicon while maintaining the essence of a culture? And what is the real-world environmental impact of storing a nation’s worth of data?
Whether we take Tuvalu’s proposal literally or view it as a symbolic call to action, unpacking the logistics of such an ambitious project offers a glimpse at the expertise required to bring it to life—from tech experts grappling with blockchain governance to cultural preservationists digitizing traditional art and oral histories. The work forces us to ask: Can you really backup a country the way you backup a computer? And if so, what does that mean for the future of nationhood, identity, and the planet itself?
Additional Resources
Connect with Grace Andrews: LinkedIn.
Connect with Amy Tobey on LinkedIn.
Connect with Mathr de Leon on LinkedIn.
Connect with David M. Carballo at Boston University
Connect with Ron Chapple on LinkedIn
Connect with Jonathan Gliboff on LinkedIn
Connect with Simon Kofe on LinkedIn
Connect with George Siosi Samuels on LinkedIn
Traceroute is a podcast from Equinix and Stories Bureau. This episode was hosted by Grace Ewura-Esi and Amy Tobey, and was produced by Mathr de Leon with help from Lixandra Urresta. It was edited by Joshua Ramsey, with mixing and sound design by Brett Vanderlaan, and additional mixing by Jeremy Tuttle. Our fact-checker is Ena Alvarado. Our staff includes Tim Balint, Mathr de Leon, Suzie Falk, Lisa Harris, Alisa Manjarrez, Sadie Scott, Stephen Staver, John Taylor, and Rebecca Woodward. Our theme song was composed by Ty Gibbons.
Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your friends and colleagues! Introduce them to the people and organizations who played a role in inventing the internet.
Mentioned in this episode:
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Or "Why You’ve Probably Never Heard of Waldo Waterman..."
🛸 //
We were promised flying cars. We were told that by the year 2000, cities would float in the clouds, robots would cut our hair, and there’d be a computer in everyone’s pocket. Well, one out of three ain’t bad.
The question is, why? Why did we think the future would bring interstate moving sidewalks, but we ended up with the internet instead? In this episode of Traceroute, we take an in-depth look at why we get the technology we get…and our trail leads to three distinct factors. Helping us unravel the reason behind these factors is Mike Winterfield, Founder of Active Impact Investments, a VC firm that specializes in Green Tech. We also talk with Oliver Walker-Jones of Joby Aviation, one of several companies that are finally making flying cars, who shares his insight as to why it took almost a hundred years to get from the idea of the flying car to the reality of one.
Additional Resources
Connect with Grace Ewura-Esi
Connect with Amy Tobey
Connect with John Taylor
Connect with Mike Winterfield
Connect With Oliver Walker-Jones
Traceroute is a podcast from Equinix and Stories Bureau. This episode was hosted by Amy Tobey and Grace Ewura-Esi, and was produced by John Taylor with help from Sadie Scott. It was edited by Joshua Ramsey, with mixing sound design by Brett Vanderlaan, and additional mixing by Jeremy Tuttle. Our fact-checker is Ena Alvarado. Our staff includes Tim Balint, Mathr de Leon, Suzie Falk, Lisa Harris, Alisa Manjarrez, Stephen Staver, Lixandra Urresta, and Rebecca Woodward. Our theme song was composed by Ty Gibbons.
Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your friends and colleagues! Introduce them to the people and organizations who played a role in inventing the internet.
Mentioned in this episode:
Vote for Traceroute at the 28th Annual Webby Awards
Visit bit.ly/traceroutewebby to cast your vote. Voting is open until Thursday, April 18th.
You know we're two hearts believing in just one mind…
💗 //
In part one of our story, we sourced the perfect tool for jamming together from miles apart. Today, we’re gonna take it for a little spin.
But between setup delays and spotty internet, a more nuanced issue begins to surface. Because, in navigating the challenges of remote music collaboration, we’re quickly reminded that adapting to new tech is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. So what are we to do when the tech itself starts to harsh the vibe?
And what even is this so-called vibe anyway? How are we supposed to capture it if we don’t know what “it” is? Stick around as we explore how tech both creates and disrupts our groove, and whether the secret sauce of in-person jams can really translate to the digital world.
Additional Resources
Connect with Amy Tobey
Connect with Mathr de Leon
Connect with John Taylor
Connect with Ilias Bergström
Connect with Alexander Carôt
Connect with Russell Gavin
Connect with Janine Hacker
Connect with Pamela Pavliscak
Connect with Arman Sedgwick-Billimoria
Connect with Florian Simmendinger
Traceroute is a podcast from Equinix and Stories Bureau. This episode was hosted by Amy Tobey and was produced by Mathr de Leon with help from Sadie Scott. It was edited by Joshua Ramsey with mixing and sound design by Brett Vanderlaan and additional mixing by Jeremy Tuttle. Our fact-checker is Ena Alvarado. Our staff includes Tim Balint, Suzie Falk, Lisa Harris, Alisa Manjarrez, Stephen Staver, Lixandra Urresta, and Rebecca Woodward. Our theme song was composed by Ty Gibbons.
If you did, be sure to follow and share it with your friends!
Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your friends and colleagues! Introduce them to the people and organizations who played a role in inventing the internet.
Mentioned in this episode:
Vote for Traceroute at the 28th Annual Webby Awards
Visit bit.ly/traceroutewebby to cast your vote. Voting is open until Thursday, April 18th.
As the Bard of Brixton once sang, 'that's just the way it is, things'll never be the same...'
👨🎤 //
These days, our producer John Taylor's got more on his plate than just production for Traceroute. You see, by night he's also… kind of a rock star. And his band is really more like a second family. Lately, though, that family is going through ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. For starters his keyboardist, Arman, has moved away and left John at a real crossroads. Does he hire a new face to fill the void? Or does he cling to the vibe he's shared with Arman for the past year and turn instead to tech for a solution?
In this episode of Traceroute, we delve into a quest for the perfect tool to help bridge the physical and digital divides that increasingly appear between musicians like John and Arman. From California’s Bay Area to the buzzing streets of Hong Kong, we find a host of technologists who, spurred on by the impacts of a global pandemic, are already hard at work tackling the kind of low-latency global networking solutions that just might be the key to keeping the band in one semi-remote piece.
But within this particular stack, there lies an even bigger conundrum. Because even if we somehow manifest the right tool for the job, is the magic of this so-called “vibe” even replicable? Or is there another solution altogether?
Additional Resources
Connect with Amy Tobey
Connect with Mathr de Leon
Connect with John Taylor
Connect with Ilias Bergström
Connect with Alexander Carôt
Connect with Russell Gavin
Connect with Janine Hacker
Connect with Pamela Pavliscak
Connect with Arman Sedgewick-Billimoria
Connect with Florian Simmendinger
Traceroute is a podcast from Equinix and Stories Bureau. This episode was hosted by Amy Tobey and was produced by Mathr de Leon with help from Sadie Scott. It was edited by Joshua Ramsey with mixing and sound design by Brett Vanderlaan and additional mixing by Jeremy Tuttle. Our fact-checker is Ena Alvarado. Our staff includes Tim Balint, Suzie Falk, Lisa Harris, Alisa Manjarrez, Stephen Staver, Lixandra Urresta, and Rebecca Woodward. Our theme song was composed by Ty Gibbons.
If you did, be sure to follow and share it with your friends!
Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your friends and colleagues! Introduce them to the people and organizations who played a role in inventing the internet.
Mentioned in this episode:
Vote for Traceroute at the 28th Annual Webby Awards
Visit bit.ly/traceroutewebby to cast your vote. Voting is open until Thursday, April 18th.
Hey! Let’s unbox this new phone! And this new thumb drive! And this multi-million dollar SaaS platform…
🤳 //
Chris Sean isn’t your typical tech influencer. He was homeless and looking for a way to change his life when a YouTube video about Bill Gates convinced him he didn’t need a degree to get into tech. Now, Chris vlogs about his life and career as a self-taught developer to help others like him find their way into the industry. For Chris, creating content is more than a way to make money: it's a mission; it's a vindication.
In this episode of Traceroute, we peek behind the curtain of the exploding influencer marketing industry to understand who’s telling us how to feel about technology and why. We talk to Peter Kennedy, founder of influencer marketing SaaS technology platform Tagger Media, who discusses why tech workers make especially good influencers. We then go in-depth with co-hosts Grace and Fen, whose personal experience as Developer Advocate and Tech Evangelist reveals the greater truth behind this $250 billion industry: exactly who is influencing who?
Traceroute is a podcast from Equinix and Stories Bureau. This episode was hosted by Amy Tobey and Fen Aldrich, and was produced by John Taylor with help from Sadie Scott. Our senior producer is Mathr de Leon. It was edited by Joshua Ramsey with mixing and sound design by Brett Vanderlaan and additional mixing by Jeremy Tuttle. Our fact-checker is Ena Alvarado. Our staff includes Tim Balint, Suzie Falk, Lisa Harris, Alisa Manjarrez, Stephen Staver, Lixandra Urresta, and Rebecca Woodward. Our theme song was composed by Ty Gibbons.
Mentioned in this episode:
Vote for Traceroute at the 28th Annual Webby Awards
Visit bit.ly/traceroutewebby to cast your vote. Voting is open until Thursday, April 18th.
Repeat after me. Humans are friends, not food… or statistical data points in algorithmic targeting systems designed for warfare.
👾
It seems impossible to have a discussion about AI without bringing up the fear that killer robots are going to wipe out the human race. And if this emerging tech is truly a mirror of its creators, then the fear is justified, right? In part three, we look at how this concern is playing out in the real world, and how our relationship with AI, like any relationship, can suddenly create a whole lotta drama.
We talk with Dr. Catherine Connolly, of the aptly-named organization Stop Killer Robots, who is trying to pass laws to prevent AI from making autonomous life-or-death decisions. We also sit down with Mar Hicks, an Associate Professor of Data Science at the University of Virginia, whose insights on the history of technology help to put our relationship with AI in perspective.
And in the end, we may just need to sit down with AI and hammer this whole thing out, Because, as John’s therapist often reminds him, the foundation of any good relationship… is communication.
Traceroute is a podcast from Equinix and Stories Bureau. This episode was hosted by Fen Aldrich and Amy Tobey, and was produced by John Taylor with help from Sadie Scott. Our senior producer is Mathr de Leon. It was edited by Joshua Ramsey, with mixing and sound design by Brett Vanderlaan, and additional mixing by Jeremy Tuttle. Our fact-checker is Ena Alvarado. Our staff includes Tim Balint, Suzie Falk, Lisa Harris, Alisa Manjarrez, Stephen Staver, Lixandra Urresta, and Rebecca Woodward. Our theme song was composed by Ty Gibbons.
Mentioned in this episode:
Vote for Traceroute at the 28th Annual Webby Awards
Visit bit.ly/traceroutewebby to cast your vote. Voting is open until Thursday, April 18th.
All you need is love… and a lifetime subscription.
💒
Back in the summer of 2021, author Sara Megan Kay sat down at her computer to experiment with what she calls “an escape” - that is, a trial run with a tech startup offering its users a connection to their “AI soulmate.” But what started out as simple curiosity evolved to become more intimate and complex than Sara ever imagined.
In part 2 of our 3-part series on our relationship with AI, we explore how Large Language Models can be shaped to mimic the qualities of a human personality, and the implications that come with it. We are joined again by James Vlahos of Embodied, who sheds insight on why creating personas with AI and LLMs is like directing actors in a play, but a play that does not involve thinking or motivation the way we believe it to mean. The question is, however, if your chatbot can sound like a person, does that mean it can be a fulfilling substitute for the people in your life? Or do we need to recognize that a product is a product, regardless of its ability to convince you it’s not?
Traceroute is a podcast from Equinix and Stories Bureau. This episode was hosted by Grace Ewura-Esi, Fen Aldrich, and Amy Tobey, and was produced by John Taylor with help from Sadie Scott. Our senior producer is Mathr de Leon. It was edited by Joshua Ramsey, with mixing and sound design by Brett Vanderlaan, and additional mixing by Jeremy Tuttle. Our fact-checker is Ena Alvarado. Our staff includes Tim Balint, Suzie Falk, Lisa Harris, Alisa Manjarrez, Stephen Staver, Lixandra Urresta, and Rebecca Woodward. Our theme song was composed by Ty Gibbons.
Mentioned in this episode:
Vote for Traceroute at the 28th Annual Webby Awards
Visit bit.ly/traceroutewebby to cast your vote. Voting is open until Thursday, April 18th.
It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear…
🤖
Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, people have humanized technology. We name our cars, or we talk to our phone batteries and beg them not to die on us. However, perhaps no other technology has triggered our emotions quite as intensely as AI. The truth is, we interact with AI in a way we don’t with any other tech: a way that’s more immediate, more personal…more human.
The question is, why do we feel this way? In fact, why do we have feelings at all about AI? In this Traceroute two-parter, we go to couples counseling with AI and take a deeper look at this unique relationship. In part one, we explore the good side of our feelings. We talk with JD Ambati of EverestLabs, a company using AI to reduce thousands of tons of CO2e emissions, and we meet James Vlahos, the scientist giving voice to “Moxie,” an AI robot that teaches kids how to express their feelings and have deeper emotional connections. If AI can indeed solve problems and create emotional bonds, surely it would never try to do us harm… right?
Traceroute is a podcast from Equinix and Stories Bureau. This episode was hosted by Grace Ewura-Esi, Fen Aldrich, and Amy Tobey, and was produced by John Taylor with help from Sadie Scott. Our senior producer is Mathr de Leon. It was edited by Joshua Ramsey, with mixing and sound design by Brett Vanderlaan, and additional mixing by Jeremy Tuttle. Our fact-checker is Ena Alvarado. Our staff includes Tim Balint, Suzie Falk, Lisa Harris, Alisa Manjarrez, Stephen Staver, Lixandra Urresta, and Rebecca Woodward. Our theme song was composed by Ty Gibbons.
Mentioned in this episode:
Vote for Traceroute at the 28th Annual Webby Awards
Visit bit.ly/traceroutewebby to cast your vote. Voting is open until Thursday, April 18th.
Season 3 of Traceroute starts November 2nd with a special 3-part episode exploring humanity's burgeoning relationship to AI. Don't miss it!
In Part 2 of Traceroute’s season finale, we look at the fallout of the copyright infringement decision against The Internet Archive. If information eventually becomes commoditized, will we find someone to be a fair and responsible arbiter of history?
With nothing less than the future of our digitized history at stake, the final episode of Season 2 of Traceroute explores the threats and challenges the Internet Archive faces in the wake of its copyright infringement case. We are joined by Rebecca Tushnet, the Harvard Law professor who defended the Archive in the case, to discuss the potential fallout of the court’s ruling: are we moving towards a society where information is owned by an elite few and “rented out” at a price? If so, do we risk manipulation of that information for the sake of profit? Or will we find among our archivists, preservationists, librarians, and even activists a person who can be responsible enough to be dubbed “The Arbiter of History?”
Additional Resources
Visit Origins.dev for more information.
Traceroute is a podcast from Equinix, and is a production of Stories Bureau. This episode was produced by John Taylor, with help from Tim Balint and Cat Bagsic. It was edited by Joshua Ramsey and mixed by Jeremy Tuttle, with additional editing and sound design by Mathr de Leon. Our theme song was composed by Ty Gibbons.
Mentioned in this episode:
Vote for Traceroute at the 28th Annual Webby Awards
Visit bit.ly/traceroutewebby to cast your vote. Voting is open until Thursday, April 18th.
In Traceroute’s Season 2 finale, we explore the Herculean efforts to back up the entire internet and save all human knowledge for future generations. But if information becomes commoditized, then who will own history?
As season 2 of Traceroute comes to a close, we take an in-depth look at one of the most important issues in tech today: the intersection between information, access, and ownership. In part one, we’re introduced to Alexis Rossi, the Director of Collections at the Internet Archive, a different kind of librarian (at a different kind of library) that’s attempting to back up the entire internet, as well as the breadth of human knowledge. But undertaking this mammoth tasks forces Alexis—and indeed all of us—to ask some critical questions: who or what decides what gets preserved…and why. But even as we made huge technical strides in preserving our history, more questions arise: as our analog history turns to dust, is the digital representation we replace it with actually history? Is history lost when all the artifacts are replicas, or do we qualify it somehow as an approximation of history?
Additional Resources
If you did, be sure to follow and share it with your friends!
Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your friends and colleagues! Introduce them to the people and organizations who played a role in inventing the internet.
Traceroute is a podcast from Equinix, and is a production Stories Bureau. This episode was produced by John Taylor, with help from Tim Balint and Cat Bagsic. It was edited by Joshua Ramsey and mixed by Jeremy Tuttle, with additional editing and sound design by Mathr de Leon. Our theme song was composed by Ty Gibbons.
Mentioned in this episode:
Vote for Traceroute at the 28th Annual Webby Awards
Visit bit.ly/traceroutewebby to cast your vote. Voting is open until Thursday, April 18th.
When we peel back the layers of the stack, there’s one human characteristic we’re sure to find: errors. Mistakes, mishaps, and miscalculations are fundamental to being human, and as such, error is built into every piece of infrastructure and code we create. Of course, learning from our errors is critical in our effort to create functional, reliable tech. But could our mistakes be as important to technological development as our ideas? And what happens when we try to change our attitude towards errors…or remove them entirely? In this fascinating episode of Traceroute, we start back in 1968, when “The Mother of All Demos“ was supposed to change the face of personal computing…before the errors started. We’re then joined by Andrew Clay Shafer, a DevOps pioneer who has seen the evolution of “errors” to “incidents” through practices like Scrum, Agile, and Chaos Engineering. We also speak with Courtney Nash, a Cognitive Neuroscientist and Researcher whose Verica Open Incident Directory (VOID) has changed the way we look at incident reporting.
Additional Resources
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Traceroute is a podcast from Equinix and is a production of Stories Bureau. This episode was produced by John Taylor with help from Tim Balint and Cat Bagsic. It was edited by Joshua Ramsey and mixed by Jeremy Tuttle, with additional editing and sound design by Mathr de Leon. Our theme song was composed by Ty Gibbons.
Mentioned in this episode:
Vote for Traceroute at the 28th Annual Webby Awards
Visit bit.ly/traceroutewebby to cast your vote. Voting is open until Thursday, April 18th.
Grace Ewura-Esi returns from a trip to Ghana, West Africa, with a new perspective on how technology helps us not only make new discoveries but gives old discoveries a new perspective. In this special episode featuring all four hosts in a fascinating discussion, Grace presents examples like Adinkra, the symbol-based language of the Ghana Empire which is a form of communication based on various observations of and associations between humans and the objects they use, not entirely dissimilar to block code that software engineers use today.
In addition, with the assistance of machine learning and artificial intelligence, ancient cultures are creating new visual representations of ancient gods for whom there were no depictions that lasted over the centuries. This same AI may even be used to help other nations, cultures, and tribes reconstruct missing portions of ancient languages and lost artifacts. It’s an episode that’s part mystery, part paradigm shift, and part digital archeology. As Grace puts it, “it’s the ancient as modern, again.”
Additional Resources
Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then please leave us a review. We’d also appreciate it if you would share the podcast with your friends and colleagues, as you get to know the people and technologies at the center of our digital world.
Traceroute is a podcast from Equinix, produced by Stories Bureau. This episode was produced by Grace Ewura-Esi, with help from John Taylor and Mathr de Leon. It was edited by Joshua Ramsey and mixed by Jeremy Tuttle and Tim Balint, with additional editing and sound design by Mathr de Leon. Our theme song was composed by Ty Gibbons.
Mentioned in this episode:
Vote for Traceroute at the 28th Annual Webby Awards
Visit bit.ly/traceroutewebby to cast your vote. Voting is open until Thursday, April 18th.
How do we prepare our kids for jobs that don’t exist? Studies show that technology is progressing at such a rapid pace that up to 85% of the jobs that will be available in 2040 have not been created yet. Will AI, ML, and hardware advancements create a society where careers we take for granted today won’t exist in the future? In this episode featuring hosts Grace Ewura-Esi and Amy Tobey, Producer John Taylor puts a personal face on this idea through his 13-year-old daughter, Ella, who wants to be a chef when she grows up. Together, they explore this issue with Executive Chef-turned-Dell Computer Advocate Tim Banks, as well as employment attorney Michael Lotito, whose Emma Coalition seeks solutions to TIDE, the technologically induced displacement of Employment. Between trips to fully-automated restaurants and the latest advancements in 3D food replication, we discover that Gen Z’s humanity may be their biggest asset in tomorrow’s job market.
Additional Resources
Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then please leave us a review. We’d also appreciate it if you would share the podcast with your friends and colleagues, as you get to know the people and technologies at the center of our digital world.
Traceroute is a podcast from Equinix and is a production of Stories Bureau. This episode was produced by John Taylor with help from Tim Balint and Cat Bagsic. It was edited by Joshua Ramsey and mixed by Jeremy Tuttle, with additional editing and sound design by Mathr de Leon. Our theme song was composed by Ty Gibbons.
Mentioned in this episode:
Vote for Traceroute at the 28th Annual Webby Awards
Visit bit.ly/traceroutewebby to cast your vote. Voting is open until Thursday, April 18th.
How do we make technology that lasts? In this episode, Grace Ewura-Esi and Shweta Saraf join Producer John Taylor as he talks with two cutting-edge technologists who are trying to extend the life of the hardware infrastructure around us. From a cell phone tower that can be installed on your roof (and repaired just as easily), to a clock that is built to last ten thousand years, we uncover the common threads that run through technology that’s built to last. Woven in this framework is the story of Sandra Rodríguez Cotto, who worked tirelessly to restore civilization—as well as hope itself—to the island of Puerto Rico with the help of the only piece of hardware infrastructure that withstood the powerful forces of Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Additional Resources
Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your friends and colleagues!
Traceroute is a podcast from Equinix and is a production of Stories Bureau. This episode was produced by John Taylor with help from Tim Balint and Cat Bagsic. It was edited by Joshua Ramsey and mixed by Jeremy Tuttle, with additional editing and sound design by Mathr de Leon. Our theme song was composed by Ty Gibbons.
Mentioned in this episode:
Vote for Traceroute at the 28th Annual Webby Awards
Visit bit.ly/traceroutewebby to cast your vote. Voting is open until Thursday, April 18th.
In our minisode finale, Equinix Technical Storyteller Grace Ewura-Esi introduces our third new co-host for Season 2, Fen Aldrich, Developer Advocate for Equinix. In a compelling conversation, the two hosts reveal their passion for “digital anthropology,” and the topics they want to cover in the new season of Traceroute.
Additional Resources
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Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your friends and colleagues! Introduce them to the people and organizations who played a role in inventing the internet.
For more episode updates, tune in on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.
In the second of three Traceroute minisodes, Technical Storyteller Grace Ewura-Esi introduces a new co-host for Season 2, Shweta Saraf, Director of Platform Networking at Netflix. In a brief but compelling conversation, the two hosts reveal more about themselves, their roles, and their unique perspectives on the central theme of Season 2: the humanity behind the hardware.
Additional Resources
If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends!
Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your friends and colleagues! Introduce them to the people and organizations who played a role in inventing the internet.
For more episode updates, tune in on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.
In the first of three Traceroute minisodes, Technical Storyteller Grace Ewura-Esi introduces a new co-host for Season 2, Amy Tobey, Senior Principal Engineer at Equinix. In an insightful conversation, the two hosts reveal more about themselves, their roles, and the stories they’re looking forward to telling on the new season of Traceroute.
Additional Resources
If you did, be sure to follow and share it with your friends!
Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your friends and colleagues! Introduce them to the people and organizations who played a role in inventing the internet.
For more episode updates, tune in on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.
The invisible bones holding up the Internet are its hardware. One of the most prominent benefits we are reaping from hardware innovations is cloud services. And as you may have guessed, the cloud isn’t actually just somewhere up in space: physical data centers services are necessary to keep them up and running.
In this episode of Traceroute, we take a closer look at hardware and why its advancement is crucial to the development of the internet. We discuss the importance and benefits of optimization for hardware to suit the needs of software. Joined by our guests Amir Michael, Rose Schooler, and Ken Patchett, we explore the synergy of software and hardware in data center services and its effects on the connected world.
Episode Highlights
The important Relationship Between Hardware and Software
Amir Michael: “There are thousands of people at large companies that are driving not only the design of the hardware, but the supply chains behind them as well. And if you just look at the financial reporting from these companies, they spend billions and billions of dollars on infrastructure.”
The Building Blocks Of Getting Online
The Birth Of The Cloud
Amir Michael: “You know, no one really goes into a bank anymore. Everything's just done over the network over these cloud resources today. It's how we've become accustomed to getting a lot of work done today. And so you need all that infrastructure to drive that. And I think it's just going to become more and more so in the future as well.
The Nuts & Bolts Of Data Centers
Ken Patchett: “Data and the usage of data has become much like a microwave in a home, it is simply required, is expected. Most people don't look for it, they don't need it, and they don't really think about it that much until it doesn't work.”
What’s Next
Amir Michael began his career at Google, building and designing server and data center infrastructure. As Facebook's first hardware engineer, he led the team that came up with the first Open Compute server designs. He was also VP of Infrastructure at Salesforce, and now heads up Lightbits Labs, which builds a high-performance NVMe/TCP storage system.
Connect with Amir through LinkedIn for more information.
Rose Schooler is the Corporate VP of Data Center Sales at Intel Corporation and has worked in that company for over 30 years. She has previously served as the VP of the Internet of Things, Strategy, and Information Office, and the VP / General Manager of the Comms and Storage Group.
Connect with Rose through LinkedIn for more information on her work.
Ken Patchett has over 25 years of experience working in data centers. He has worked with Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Oracle. His initial job as an ironworker led to his work in the Canyon Park Data Center in Bothell, Washington. He also cites experience working in the 2004 Olympics. Currently, he is the CEO at ServerDomes.
For more information about Ken’s work, connect with him through LinkedIn.
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Mentioned in this episode:
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Technology is a staple part of our lives. Its continuous growth has improved the world in countless ways. But what most people don’t know is the environmental impact of something as mundane as streaming a video.
In this episode, we discuss the impacts of data storage, technology, and the Internet on our world. Ali Fenn, David Mytton, and Jonathan Koomey share their insights on investing in sustainability and transitioning to more efficient energy sources. The key to global sustainability lies in the hands of data storage and technology industries. They need to find greener, more sustainable alternatives.
If you want to learn about the Internet’s environmental impacts and know how you can contribute to investing in sustainability, then this episode of the Traceroute podcast is for you.
Ali Fenn: “The manufacturing process has this huge carbon impact. So let’s think about a less wasteful, less linear stream, and let's at least maximize the value we can get out of all that stuff.”
David Mytton: “Improvements in their facilities mean that they are able to invest in efficiencies.”
David: “Until consumers truly understand the impact of their online habits, they won’t be able to make decisions about where they’re buying things or which companies they’re going to host their email with.”
Jonathan Koomey: “The higher efficiency allows them to deliver more services more cheaply. So you’re getting the higher efficiency, but you’re also getting a better business outcome.”
Grace: “Once again, innovation helps drive scale… and scale fuels innovation.”
Jonathan: “I’m hopeful that the industry will use its influence to help the rest of the economy become more efficient because those are the two big levers... to transform the global society to become, ultimately, zero emissions.”
Ali: “I think there’s a huge opportunity to harness the powerful potential [of the technology industry to drive inclusion and access]. There is no industry that’s more capable of innovation.”
Ali Fenn is the president at ITRenew. For two decades now, she has been building tech companies, shifting focus on infrastructure sustainability. With an economics degree from Yale and a master’s degree from the London School of Economics, she has raised capital, managed operations, and led business initiatives in various teams worldwide.
Ali is an executor driven by technology innovation, open source, circular economy, creating new markets, delivering financial returns, and social impact.
You can reach Ali through her LinkedIn and Twitter.
David Mytton is a former tech entrepreneur and co-founder of console.dev, the best tool for developers. Currently, he is studying sustainable computing at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London. He specifically studies how much energy, produced by burning fossil fuels, the computing industry uses.
With his expertise in tech, startups, and environmental technology, David has appeared on various podcasts and speaking engagements and published several academic papers.
Interested in David’s work? Check out his blog, and reach out to his LinkedIn or Email.
Jonathan Koomey is a researcher, author, and entrepreneur. His work spans climate solutions, critical thinking skills, and the environmental effects of information technology. He is known for describing a long-term trend in computing and energy efficiency called “Koomey’s Law.”
Jonathan regularly holds a short course called “Data Center Essentials for Executives: A Beginner's Guide.” With his work, he has been named as 1 of 10 innovators changing the game for Internet infrastructure by GigaOm, and as 1 of 15 superstars of sustainable IT by CIO Magazine/Infoworld.
Find out more about Jonathan on his website, and contact him through LinkedIn, Email, Twitter, or Phone at 650-517-3456.
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There is tension between the digital and the physical development spaces. As the world becomes more digital, the distance between software and hardware widens. Only a few people are attempting to bridge the gap. Unspoken competition, gatekeeping, differences in perspective — these reasons and more push experts from the software and hardware spaces apart. But open source is the key to furthering collaboration and innovation in technology development.
In this episode of Traceroute, we look deeper into the digital space and how it intrinsically connects to physical hardware. Joining us today are open-source advocates Jon Masters and Brian Fox. They share with us their insights on hardware and software proprietary rights. They also provide context on open-source technology and how vital open source is for innovation and increasing opportunities.
If you are someone looking to explore open source technology, then this episode of the Traceroute podcast might be perfect for you!
Jon Masters: “We build very boring, elaborate standards so that the average user, if they don't want to, doesn't have to understand every layer of what's going on.”
Jon Masters: “If you look at where the industry is going right now, hardware and software, they were always important counterparts to one another.”
Brian Fox: “I'm working on a vision detection system, and I want the other guy who was working on it to also be able to enhance it in the direction that he cares about or that she cares about. And it shouldn't stop me. That way, we can share and collaborate, and the entire science moves up.”
Brian Fox: “The thing that makes something open source isn't specifically the collaboration; it's the openness of the collaboration.”
Brian Fox: "This is the beauty of open-source—that we can build something useful, and then that utility can be delivered [and] can actually be delivered to the people who want to use it."
Jon Masters: "[Computers seem] to get 52% faster, which all that meant was that software developers would find ways to use that. Yet, the software never seemed to get much faster, but you had hardware just magically doing things for you."
Jon Masters: “If I could have one wish in life, it would be to remove that us versus them kind of language and just have us all collaborate more together. And I think that's going to be very important in the decade ahead.”
Jon Masters is an open-source advocate and computer architect. He previously worked at RedHat as a Distinguished Engineer. During his stay at RedHat, Jon created a technical mitigation team for cache side-channel attacks (Meltdown, Spectre, L1TF, MDS, etc.). He was also the Technical Lead for Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM and was involved in the design and implementation of 64-bit ARMv8 Architecture (AArch64) servers. Jon is currently delving deeper into Software/Hardware Codesign at Google.
If you want to get in touch with Jon, you can reach him through LinkedIn and Twitter.
Brian Fox is a computer programmer and open-source technology advocate. In 1985, he joined the Free Software Association, where he authored several command languages and systems under the GNU Project. Brian also co-founded several ventures, including Virtual World Computing, LLC and Orchid Labs. He also serves as the CEO for Opus Logica, Inc. He presently commits to removing surveillance and censorship on the internet at Orchid Labs.
Want to know more about Brian Fox? Visit his LinkedIn or send him a message on Twitter.
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The term 5G has been the talk of the town. Much of the hype is due to its faster internet speed that allows the handling of multiple devices compared with previous networks. Recently, some countries have started to roll out this technology. However, it's still in its early years, so we have yet to discover its full potential.
In this episode, we'll hear insights from Ed Knapp, Sue Marek, and Sascha Segan on the topic of wireless network connection. We discuss the development of the wireless industry and how internet infrastructure spurred its growth. We also go through the generations of wireless network connection, from 2G to 4G, and peer into how the development of 5G will unfold.
If you want to know more about next-generation wireless networks and how technology develops to support them, then this episode is for you.
Sue Marek: “Every generation of cellular [technology] is about every 10 years. So 2020 is 5G, 2010 was 4G, 2000 was really the 3G. 3G was really when we used to talk about the mobile web or the wireless internet.”
Sascha Segan: "Once the phones became digital, you could push the internet through them. But more importantly, you could just get a lot more people talking at once on each cell."
Sascha Segan: “People have an emotional connection and a social connection to their phones and to these networks, in a way they don't necessarily have to their PC or their office printer.”
Sascha Segan: " ...as computers get more powerful and the computers in phones get more powerful, and the computers and towers get more powerful and more wireless spectrum becomes available, it becomes possible to encode the airwaves in new, more complicated ways. And each time you break with the previous path, that's a new generation."
Sascha Segan: “5G is almost certainly going to have at least that big of a change in the world. We just really aren't sure about the details yet.”
Ed Knapp is the CTO of American Tower, one of the leading independent tower companies in the world. He has 40 years of experience in wireless technology and has been one of the critical figures since the industry started. To date, his company continues to deliver innovative infrastructures to enable 5G wireless network technology.
Learn more about Ed’s work on the American Tower website and connect with him on LinkedIn.
Sue Marek is the editor-in-chief of SDxCentral. She is also a professional speaker for telecom and technology industry events and has moderated panels for the Consumer Electronics Show, the Competitive Carriers' Show, The Wireless Infrastructure Show, 5G North America, DC 5G, Interop, and more.
Marek has over 25 years of experience in covering stories for the cellular industry, and she has continuously followed the advancement of technology throughout her career.
You can connect with Sue over on Twitter.
Sascha Segan is the lead mobile analyst of pcmag.com and has reported on the wireless market for more than 15 years. He is known for his reviews on smartphones, tablets, and other gadgets. He is also a well-renowned travel writer who has contributed to Frommer’s series of travel guides for more than ten years.
Want to know more about Sascha? Head over to his LinkedIn and Twitter.
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Vote for Traceroute at the 28th Annual Webby Awards
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When we open web browsers and streaming services, we expect them to work seamlessly without interruptions. Sounds basic enough, right? But have you considered how much data goes over your local network? Now imagine all the computers communicating worldwide! It took years for internet service providers to make the internet work the way it does today. Without the physical infrastructure underpinning our networks, connecting computers the way they are now would have been impossible.
In this episode, Dave Temkin, Ingrid Burrington, Jack Waters, and Andrew Blum join us to discuss how the internet works. They detail the hidden infrastructure involved in getting computers connected around the world. Contrary to what digital natives might think, your connection to the World Wide Web isn't 100% wireless. They also discuss the rise of Netflix and the need for an interconnected and open global network.
If you want to understand the massive network of physical infrastructure required to connect computers worldwide, then this episode of the Traceroute podcast is for you.
Dave Temkin: “We always knew that streaming was going to be the future. It's not a coincidence that the company was called Netflix, the intention was always to deliver it over the network. We just needed to feel that the network was ready.”
Ingrid Burrington: “There is a resiliency built into the way that Internet networks function in that it's not just like one single cable that gets cut and everyone loses their internet access.”
Jack Waters: “I do think it is probably one of the most important things that have ever been developed for mankind. And I think it's changed everyone's lives for the better, even though there are many downsides that we're navigating through.”
Andrew Blum: “Fundamentally, a network means that we can connect to each other across distance and we can expand those connections constantly.”
Dave Temkin: “If we didn't have that infrastructure, it would be years and not measured in weeks, months or days.”
Dave Temkin is a seasoned technology executive with experience in building and scaling world-class infrastructures and teams. He was the Vice President of Network and Systems Infrastructure at Netflix and built the world’s largest content delivery network. He is also the founder and board member of Community IX FL-IX, the largest member-run internet exchange platform. You can contact him on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Ingrid Burrington is a journalist who writes about technology, data centers, and networks. She wrote the New York: An Illustrated Field Guide To Urban Internet in 2016 and has contributed to several books and exhibition catalogs. You can learn more about her work on her website and contact her on Twitter and through email (lifewinning@gmail.com).
Jack Waters is a digital infrastructure executive with extensive experience in telecommunications, engineering for enterprise customers, and customer relations. He was the CTO of Level 3 Communications, President of the Zayo Group, and currently the Chairperson of Digital 9 Infrastructure PLC. You can contact him on LinkedIn.
Andrew Blum is a journalist and writer. He writes about technology, infrastructure, design, architecture, cities, art, and travel. In 2012, he wrote Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet, and in 2019, he wrote The Weather Machine: A Journey Inside the Forecast. You can learn more about his works on his website and email him at ab@andrewblum.net.
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Vote for Traceroute at the 28th Annual Webby Awards
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There are a lot of components that make up a computer. It’s amazing how the tiniest little chips can make the whole thing work. However, not many of us think about these today. We just expect our devices to work as they should. But did you know that only some decades ago, the innovations we enjoy today were essentially unthinkable? The pursuit of something better brought the tech space to where it is today.
In this episode, Renée James and Jon Gertner join us to talk about what silicon is used for in computer hardware. They break down the history of semiconductors and transistors. They also lay down the various experiments and breakthroughs that occurred before the conception of the industrial and consumer products we enjoy today.
If you want to know why and how silicon metal runs everything in tech, this episode is for you.
Jon Gertner: “It made everything smaller, it made it faster, and it made it better.”
Jon Gertner: “The backbone of electronics and the backbone of these vast interconnected communication systems, it's actually this sort of decades-long or almost century-long pursuit of understanding the kinds of materials we needed to create the system.”
Jon Gertner: “When you're seeking to solve a really difficult problem—the answer would not come easy, and the answer might take a very long time.”
Renée James: “There's a tremendous amount of artistry to [chip design] in the sense that the computer scientists and the physicists and the architects who do this work, in many, many ways, are dreaming up what's possible.”
Renée: “A transistor is not visible to the naked eye. It is that small, it is that complicated, and it enables us to know things we couldn't have known before, to find things we couldn't find before, to do things we couldn't do before.”
Renée James is the founder and CEO of Ampere Computing. Ampere Computing is a startup semiconductor company building high-performance microprocessors for cloud and edge computing. Renée is also presently Director at Citi Corp and Oracle. Before that, she served as President of Intel for 28 years.
Renée has extensive global operating experience in hardware and software development and semiconductor manufacturing. She advocates for representation in tech and pushes for the future of the US semiconductor industry.
To connect with Renée, visit her LinkedIn page.
Jon Gertner is a journalist and author. He wrote the books, The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of Innovation and The Ice at the End of the World. Jon is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. He also has published articles in major publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Wired.
To know more about Jon’s work, visit his website and Twitter.
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Mentioned in this episode:
Vote for Traceroute at the 28th Annual Webby Awards
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Inventing the internet can be traced from its formation for military and academic use. Since then, we've made huge leaps in terms of communication and interconnectivity. Greater interconnectivity has changed the game for building networks between people. The projects that began in 1966 have fundamentally altered communication practices all over the world.
In the first episode of Traceroute, we go back to the start of the Cold War. What was the initial purpose of computer networking? How has it changed over time? We'll answer these questions with insights from Jay Adelson, Sarah Weinberger, John Morris, and Peter Van Camp. In this episode, we'll discover how the very nature of digital communication evolved and continues to evolve today. One major contribution to the interconnectivity we enjoy today is the neutral exchange framework spearheaded by Equinix.
Sharon Weinberger: “He sort of looked ahead and said, the way that we work with computers is going to fundamentally change our society.”
John Morris: “Back in the '80s, commercial communications were prohibited on the internet. The internet was only for government and academic communication.”
John Morris: “It was critically important that we enabled very broad, ubiquitous connections to allow large and small speakers to be able to reach their audience quickly and reliably and without necessarily being throttled or regulated by an individual network provider.”
Jay Adelson: The truth is, sometimes, the simple solution is sometimes the best. And much like telephone operators plugging cables into different patch panels, we were doing that in a data center.
Jay Adelson: “I think everybody's still very committed to an open framework by which they can interconnect with each other and do what they need to do within their sort of their various camps. I don't see a technology breaking point, coming anytime soon.”
Jay Adelson is a serial entrepreneur. He's also the co-founder of Equinix, Digg, Revision3, SimpleGeo, Opsmatic, and Scorbit. Currently focused on his gaming company, he is serving as the chairman and co-founder of Scorbit. His sustaining business model has helped Equinix achieve its global success. Time Magazine selected him for their Top 100 Influential People in 2008.
To see more of Jay Adelson’s work, contact him through LinkedIn or Twitter.
Sharon Weinberger is a national security reporter and editor. Her 20 years of work focuses on the intersection of national security, technology, and science. She currently is working as Yahoo!’s Bureau Chief in Washington, D.C. Her book, The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World, is about the military beginnings of computer networking and the internet.
Interested in more information about Sharon Weinberger? Check out her LinkedIn, and reach her through Twitter.
John B. Morris, Jr. is a nonresident fellow for Governance Studies at the Center for Technology Innovation. He served at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration as Head of the Office of Policy and Analysis Development. His work is centered on free expression, data governance, government surveillance, internet standards, competition, open internet policy, and integrity and security issues.
You can reach John through LinkedIn.
Peter Van Camp is the executive chairman at Equinix, the world’s digital infrastructure company. Together with Jay Adelson and Andy Smith, they built Equinix from the ground up and are responsible for its continued success.
To get more information about Equinix and the work they do, go to their website here. Connect with Peter Van Camp through LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
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Vote for Traceroute at the 28th Annual Webby Awards
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