Data Centres and Cloud
Where the computing actually happens. The warehouse-scale machine, AWS and Azure, virtualisation and containers, the power and water they draw, and the shift from owning servers to renting them.
Part of Technology
12 moments in this segment.
- - AWS Born. 2002. Amazon launches Amazon Web Services as an internal toolkit. The S3 + EC2 public launches in 2006 created the modern cloud-computing industry. By 2024 AWS revenue: $107B annual.
- - AWS S3 + EC2 Launch. 2006. Amazon launches S3 (March) and EC2 (August) as public services. Modern cloud computing begins. By 2024 AWS revenue: $107B annual.
- - Airbnb Founded. August 2008. Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, Nathan Blecharczyk found Airbnb. Initially "AirBed & Breakfast", air mattresses in their San Francisco apartment during a conference. By 2024: 4M+ hosts, 220+ countries.
- - Bitcoin Genesis Block. January 3, 2009. Satoshi Nakamoto mines Bitcoin's genesis block. The first cryptocurrency. Reaches $69,000 per coin (Nov 2021), $100,000 (Dec 2024). The financial-industry tremor of the 2010s.
- - Palantir Founded. 2003. Peter Thiel + Alex Karp + Joe Lonsdale + Stephen Cohen + Nathan Gettings found Palantir. Funded by In-Q-Tel (CIA's VC arm). The most controversial data-analytics company of the 21st century.
- - Bitcoin Explained - Early Footage. Early-period documentary explainers of Bitcoin from 2009-2011. The community that mined Bitcoin on laptops before any exchange existed.
- - Kickstarter Launches. April 28, 2009. Kickstarter launches in NYC. Crowdfunding becomes a real category; Pebble (2012) raises $10M; Oculus VR (2012) raises $2.4M and gets acquired by Facebook for $2B.
- - Stripe Founded. 2010. Patrick and John Collison found Stripe in Ireland, ages 22 and 19. Simplifies online payments to 7 lines of code. By 2024: $70B valuation; processes ~10% of global e-commerce.
- - Zoom Becomes the World's Office. March 2020. Zoom's daily active users go from 10M (Dec 2019) to 300M (April 2020) as the world locks down. The pandemic-era video-conferencing standard; "Zoom fatigue" enters the cultural lexicon.
- - Vitalik Buterin Pitches Ethereum. January 25, 2014. 19-year-old Vitalik Buterin unveils Ethereum at the Bitcoin Miami conference. "World computer." Ethereum mainnet ships July 30, 2015.
- - Zoom CEO Eric Yuan on the Pandemic. March-April 2020. Eric Yuan interviews as Zoom DAU goes from 10M to 300M. "Zoom fatigue" enters the lexicon; remote work becomes a category.
- - Crypto Super Bowl Commercials. February 13, 2022. Super Bowl LVI runs $400M of crypto ads, FTX, Crypto.com, Coinbase. Larry David in FTX's "Don't miss out." Eight months later FTX collapsed; the commercial became one of the all-time advertising disaster reels.
