Innovation Thrives on Constraint, Not Complacency - Episode Hero Image

Innovation Thrives on Constraint, Not Complacency

The Pragmatic Engineer · · Listen to Original Episode →
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TL;DR

  • The Dotcom Bust fostered deeper innovation than the Boom by creating a sense of desperation that forced greater creativity and focus, leading to revolutionary system software like ZFS and DTrace.
  • Innovation requires desperation; good economic times can hinder true breakthroughs by fostering complacency and a belief that current successes are solely due to individual brilliance.
  • The shift from proprietary hardware/OS stacks to open-source Linux on commodity x86 hardware was driven by economic necessity and the practical advantages of open ecosystems.
  • Cloud neutrality, enabled by Kubernetes, emerged as a critical response to vendor lock-in, allowing organizations to gain flexibility and avoid dependence on a single cloud provider.
  • Hyperscalers like Google and Meta build custom hardware because off-the-shelf solutions are not designed for their immense scale, necessitating tailored designs for efficiency and reliability.
  • Building a computer from first principles, as Oxide does, involves overcoming significant technical debt in the PC ecosystem and requires deep expertise in areas like power engineering and signal integrity.
  • AI tools are valuable for tedious tasks like generating test cases and document comprehension but offer minimal assistance for complex hardware engineering challenges, highlighting their specialized utility.

Deep Dive

The history of computing infrastructure, from Sun Microsystems' servers to the rise of the cloud and the challenges of building modern hardware, reveals a recurring pattern: innovation thrives under constraints, and truly novel systems require a first-principles approach. This perspective is crucial as Oxide Computer, a hardware and software startup, navigates the current landscape of AI tools and evolving engineering practices, emphasizing that while AI can augment tasks, it cannot replace the fundamental human ingenuity and deep system understanding required for complex engineering.

The evolution of computing infrastructure demonstrates a cyclical nature, marked by periods of boom and bust. During the 1990s dot-com boom, the demand for servers was immense, yet the true innovation often occurred in the subsequent bust, when resource constraints forced engineers to be more creative and focused. This historical lens informs Oxide's approach to building hardware from scratch, a stark contrast to the commodity approach of the earlier PC era. The shift from proprietary hardware architectures like Sun's SPARC to the dominance of x86, coupled with the rise of open-source operating systems like Linux, paved the way for cloud computing. AWS emerged as a dominant force, initially by offering elastic infrastructure and later by strategically not breaking out its cloud financials, making it appear less profitable than it was. This created an environment where companies like Joyent, which competed directly with AWS, understood the underlying economics. The advent of Kubernetes then democratized cloud neutrality, allowing organizations to avoid vendor lock-in and deploy applications across multiple cloud providers. This period also saw hyperscalers like Google and Meta move towards custom hardware, recognizing that off-the-shelf solutions were inadequate for their scale. Oxide Computer continues this tradition of custom infrastructure, designing its own servers and switches to optimize for efficiency and manageability, particularly for organizations that prefer to own rather than rent their infrastructure.

The development of Oxide's computer system highlights the immense complexity involved in building modern hardware. It requires expertise not just in digital logic but also in analog signal integrity, power engineering, and RF design, often necessitating a departure from standard reference designs. This is further compounded by the software stack, which includes a custom operating system for the service processor and a sophisticated distributed control plane for the host CPUs. A key challenge is the ability to update this entire distributed system robustly, especially in air-gapped or secure environments where human intervention is limited. This necessitates a meticulous approach to software updates, ensuring reliability even during hybrid states where both old and new components coexist.

Regarding AI tools, Oxide employs them primarily as augmentative aids for tasks like document comprehension, test case generation, and code editing, particularly for idiomatic Rust programming. However, the team emphasizes that AI is not a replacement for the deep, first-principles engineering required for hardware development. Complex problems, such as debugging a CPU reset issue during a board bring-up, demand human ingenuity, iterative problem-solving, and a collaborative team approach that AI cannot currently replicate. The company's commitment to transparency and a unified compensation structure, where everyone is paid the same base salary, is seen as a testament to its principled culture and attracts individuals who value this ethos. This approach extends to hiring, where a rigorous process ensures that candidates are genuinely drawn to Oxide's mission and culture. Even with the rise of AI, the company believes that human energy, creativity, and the ability to tackle novel problems will remain paramount in engineering, advocating for a mindset focused on continuous improvement rather than solely on automation. The historical parallels of the dot-com bust, where innovation flourished despite economic hardship, serve as a reminder that challenges can foster deeper technological advancements.

Action Items

  • Audit authentication flow: Check for three vulnerability classes (SQL injection, XSS, CSRF) across 10 endpoints.
  • Create runbook template: Define 5 required sections (setup, common failures, rollback, monitoring) to prevent knowledge silos.
  • Implement mutation testing: Target 3 core modules to identify untested edge cases beyond coverage metrics.
  • Profile build pipeline: Identify 5 slowest steps and establish 10-minute CI target to maintain fast feedback.

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Key Quotes

"we did much more technically interesting work in the bust than we did in the boom because i think that when you're in boom times you know everyone kind of like secretly believes that this is because of me like i that it is because of the thing that i am working on if i you know i once had you know one of the one of the early technologists behind java once told me with a straight face every server that sun sells they sell because of java and i'm like you know what you know what's most amazing i you believe that is actually the more interesting fact that i mean it is like obviously false especially with you know databases databases databases being the top three applications but that that kind of reflects the psyche of the time that everyone believes that this is you know if i work on the microprocessor it's because of the the the microprocessor is perfect if i work on the operating system it's because oh this is the operating system that people are buying the machine for and it like that doesn't really lend itself to really to real innovation i think i think there's a degree to which like innovation requires some level of desperation that good economic times are it's kind of hard to summon that desperation sometimes"

Bryan Cantrill argues that periods of economic downturn, or "busts," can foster more genuine innovation than periods of rapid growth, or "booms." He suggests that during booms, individuals may attribute success to their own efforts or specific technologies, leading to a less critical and potentially less innovative mindset. Cantrill posits that true innovation often arises from a sense of urgency or "desperation" that is harder to cultivate during prosperous times.

"i think there's a degree to which like innovation requires some level of desperation that good economic times are it's kind of hard to summon that desperation sometimes so i think that during the boom it was and it was just it was frothy and it felt like there was a period of time where i'm like this obviously can't go on forever and you know the economist is having these very like gloomy covers about how this is all going to end and it's going to be an apocalypse which i believed and then i just stopped believing it i'm like well maybe the economist is right and just went on longer and you know one of my early life lessons from the boom and bust is these things go on longer than you think possible but when they switch they will collapse faster than you can fathom"

Bryan Cantrill shares a personal lesson learned from the dot-com boom and bust, emphasizing the unpredictable nature of economic cycles. He notes that while booms may seem unsustainable, they often persist longer than anticipated, but their eventual collapse can be far more rapid and severe than expected. This observation highlights the importance of recognizing the potential for sudden shifts in market conditions.

"the thing that i noticed is that the people that had moved out to silicon valley because they were they really had an interest in the technology all were there all stayed and were not adversely affected honestly i mean i the um yes we every one of us if you had equity in your company which of course you all did like you tried not to overthink it right you're just trying to like you try to remind yourself like i never had it to begin with so like it's hard to you know but it's definitely gone sun lost 98 of its value -- so it's like definitely gone and you know there was some thinking and i think it also like a boom can get you to care about things that you actually don't care about and a boom can get you to because in a boom everyone is so financially driven that it's hard not to become financially driven but it's like that's actually not why i got into this and so during the bust i'm you know definitely able to put you know put a meal on my table and a roof over my head -- but the it was really a reminder about like what's important and again because we did we did do better technical work in the bust than we did in the boom and i think it's because in the bust it's like okay now like we really we have to focus we have fewer resources that that the fewer resources actually force more creativity"

Bryan Cantrill reflects on the impact of the dot-com bust on individuals in Silicon Valley. He observes that those who remained in the industry were primarily driven by a genuine passion for technology, rather than solely financial gain, and were thus less adversely affected. Cantrill suggests that the bust served as a crucial reminder of what truly matters, leading to a renewed focus on core technical work and fostering creativity through resource constraints.

"so the shift was first of all open source right so then so you know we said in the mid 90s linux was kind of still very much at the hobby project not so by the 2000s right so it grew up it grew up absolutely and it grew up because you had a bunch of companies that really backed up the truck and you know the things that at first ibm and sgi data general some other companies those companies were very important because they decided to contribute their technologies like xfs right xfs many people still use today on linux that's from sgi xfs was an sgi on irix that was happening in kind of those the late 90s and then in the 2000s i mean google was always built on linux right and so you had kind of the companies that that became that that next boom were all built on open source and indeed needed to be built on open source they economically relied on open source to be able to build what they build so then it became much more practical to certainly run wrote linux and i think the other bsds or the we open sourced solaris so there were a lot of options that were now available so that shifted"

Bryan Cantrill explains the significant shift in the computing landscape driven by the rise of open-source software. He highlights that by the 2000s, Linux had matured from a hobbyist project into a robust operating system, largely due to substantial backing from major companies like IBM and SGI. Cantrill emphasizes that these companies' contributions of technologies, such as XFS, and the adoption of Linux by giants like Google, were critical in establishing open source as the foundation for subsequent technological booms.

"i think that the thing that is that is top of mind right now for me -- is and especially because you know we raised a big series b which is great -- i think much more importantly we're seeing a lot of customer traction which is great so we've seen really exclusive yeah i know it really is it's very great and we kind of knew that that was going to happen in the abstract -- but it's fun to actually see it happen and fun to actually see -- the customers that are you know like you know i bought one rack and i mentioned it but now i want to buy a lot more racks i love what i'm seeing and i want you know that's great very very very exciting stuff that means we're growing the company a bunch and one of the things that's very important to me because i've seen this happen so many times is companies take their eye off

Resources

External Resources

Books

  • "Solve for the New Machine" by Tracy Kidder - Mentioned as a foundational text for engineers, detailing the building of a new computer at Data General.
  • "Skunk Works" by Ben Rich - Referenced for its extraordinary story about engineers tackling impossible tasks.
  • "Steve Jobs and the Next Big Thing" by Randall Stross - Discussed as a masterful account of Steve Jobs's time at NeXT, highlighting missteps essential for Apple's resurrection.

Articles & Papers

  • "Startups on hard mode: Oxide. Part 1: Hardware" (The Pragmatic Engineer) - Mentioned as a deep dive into Oxide.
  • "Startups on hard mode: Oxide, Part 2: Software & Culture" (The Pragmatic Engineer) - Mentioned as a deep dive into Oxide.
  • "Three cloud providers, three outages: three different responses" (The Pragmatic Engineer) - Referenced as a relevant deep dive.
  • "Inside Uber’s move to the Cloud" (The Pragmatic Engineer) - Referenced as a relevant deep dive.
  • "Inside Agoda’s private Cloud" (The Pragmatic Engineer) - Referenced as a relevant deep dive.

People

  • Bryan Cantrill - Co-founder and CTO of Oxide Computer, formerly a distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems and founder of Joyent.
  • Tracy Kidder - Author of "Solve for the New Machine."
  • Ben Rich - Originator of Skunk Works at Lockheed Martin, author of "Skunk Works."
  • Clarence "Kelly" Johnson - Originator of Skunk Works at Lockheed Martin.
  • Randall Stross - Author of "Steve Jobs and the Next Big Thing."
  • Armin Ronacher - Creator of Flask, founder of a startup using AI interns for prototyping.
  • Richard Sutton - Inventor of reinforcement learning.
  • Dave Pacheco - Engineer who led the development of Oxide's update functionality.
  • Simon Wilson - Mentioned for his quote about running LLMs on personal laptops.
  • Jeff Bonwick - Mentioned as someone who wanted to rethink file systems at Sun Microsystems.
  • Matt Eren's - Mentioned as someone who, with Jeff Bonwick, rethought file systems.
  • Greg Papadopoulos - Former CTO of Sun Microsystems.
  • Larry Ellison - Mentioned in relation to Oracle's acquisition of Sun and his management style.
  • Jeff Bezos - Described as the apex predator of capitalism, referencing Amazon's strategy.
  • Craig McLuckie - Mentioned for pushing for the formation of the CNCF around Kubernetes.
  • DHH - Mentioned for a blog post about the economic advantage of on-premise infrastructure.
  • Kat Cosgrove - Release project manager on Kubernetes.

Organizations & Institutions

  • Oxide Computer - Company developing server infrastructure, building both hardware and software.
  • Sun Microsystems - Company where Bryan Cantrill worked during the Dotcom Boom and Bust, known for Solaris and Spark servers.
  • Data General - Company involved in building a new computer, as detailed in "Solve for the New Machine."
  • Lockheed Martin - Company where Skunk Works originated.
  • Apple - Company Steve Jobs returned to after founding NeXT.
  • NeXT - Computer company founded by Steve Jobs after leaving Apple.
  • Oracle - Company that acquired Sun Microsystems.
  • Amazon - Mentioned for its aggressive pricing strategy with AWS and its retail business.
  • AWS (Amazon Web Services) - Public cloud offering from Amazon.
  • Azure - Public cloud offering from Microsoft.
  • GCP (Google Cloud Platform) - Public cloud offering from Google.
  • Joyent - Public cloud company that competed with AWS.
  • Eucalyptus - Company that attempted to be API compatible with EC2.
  • Kubernetes - Open-source container orchestration system, discussed for enabling cloud neutrality.
  • CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation) - Foundation formed around Kubernetes.
  • Google - Mentioned for its early use of Linux and its development of Borg and GCP.
  • Meta (Facebook) - Mentioned for building its own servers and internal tools.
  • Microsoft - Mentioned in relation to Azure and its historical pay grades for QA.
  • Dell - Company whose servers were discussed in the context of hyperscalers building their own hardware.
  • HP (Hewlett-Packard) - Company whose servers were discussed in the context of hyperscalers building their own hardware.
  • Supermicro - Company whose servers were discussed in the context of hyperscalers building their own hardware.
  • Samsung - Acquired Giant.
  • Giant - Company acquired by Samsung due to its high cloud bill.
  • Basecamp - Mentioned for its use of on-premise hardware and its economic advantage.
  • Statsig - Season sponsor, a unified platform for flags, analytics, experiments, and more.
  • Linear - Season sponsor, a system for modern product development with an open API for AI agents.
  • Oculus - Mentioned as a company where some Oxide engineers previously worked on virtual reality.
  • Ge Medical - Mentioned as a company where some Oxide engineers worked on CT systems.
  • Benchmark Electronics - Manufacturer of Oxide's hardware in Rochester, Minnesota.
  • Renaissance - Manufacturer of a controller with a firmware bug affecting Oxide's bring-up.
  • Intel - Mentioned for its Tofino silicon used in Oxide's programmable networking.
  • Broadcom - Mentioned as a proprietary provider of switching silicon.
  • IBM - Mentioned for contributing technologies to Linux.
  • SGI (Silicon Graphics International) - Mentioned for contributing XFS technology to Linux.

Tools & Software

  • Solaris - Operating system developed by Sun Microsystems.
  • Spark - Hardware architecture and microprocessor developed by Sun Microsystems.
  • Linux - Open-source operating system.
  • FreeBSD - Open-source operating system.
  • Hurd - Operating system project.
  • ZFS - File system developed at Sun Microsystems.
  • DTrace - Dynamic instrumentation and monitoring tool developed at Sun Microsystems.
  • Kubernetes - Container orchestration system.
  • Cloud Code - AI tool used at Oxide for generating boilerplate and test cases.
  • GitHub Copilot - AI coding assistant.
  • OpenAI Codex - AI model for code generation.
  • Devin - AI agent mentioned in relation to Linear.
  • Cursor - AI coding agent.
  • Sentry - Tool for root cause analysis.
  • Borg - Google's internal cluster management system.
  • Tofino - Intel silicon enabling programmable networking.
  • EDA (Electronic Design Automation) - Tools used for board layout and simulation.
  • SolidWorks - Software for 3D design.
  • Altium - Software for electronic design.
  • Hubris - De novo operating system developed by Oxide for its service processor.
  • Humility - Debugger for Hubris.
  • Omicron - Oxide's control plane software, previously named before the COVID variant.
  • Terraform - Tool for provisioning infrastructure.
  • MUP (Minimum Update) - Oxide's initial update functionality requiring control plane parking.

Websites & Online Resources

  • Levels.fyi - Forum for sharing salary information.
  • Hacker News - Online forum where blog entries are discussed.
  • Statsig.com/pragmatic - URL for Statsig.
  • Linear.app/pragmatic - URL for Linear.
  • Penname.co - Production and marketing service.
  • Newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/subscribe - Subscription page for The Pragmatic Engineer.
  • Github - Platform where Oxide's open-source stack can be found.

Other Resources

  • Dotcom Boom - Period of rapid growth and speculation in internet-based companies.
  • Dotcom Bust - Period of decline and collapse of many internet-based companies following the boom.
  • Cloud Computing - The delivery of computing services over the internet.
  • Elastic Infrastructure - The ability to scale computing resources up or down as needed.
  • API-driven Infrastructure - Infrastructure managed through application programming interfaces.
  • Open Source - Software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance.
  • Risk Management - The identification, assessment, and control of threats.
  • Security - Measures taken to protect systems and data.
  • Economics - The study of how people use scarce resources.
  • Technical Debt - The implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer.
  • AC Power - Alternating current power.
  • DC Bus Bar - Direct current power distribution system.
  • RF (Radio Frequency) - Electromagnetic waves used for communication.
  • FDA Approvals - Regulatory approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
  • Signal Integrity - The quality of an electrical signal.
  • PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) - High-speed interface for connecting components.
  • DDR5 (Double Data Rate 5) - Fifth generation of DDR SDRAM memory.
  • Memory Wall - A bottleneck in computer performance caused by the increasing speed gap between processors and memory.
  • Speculative Execution - A performance optimization technique used by processors.
  • Warehouse Scale Computer - Concept of building and operating large-scale data centers.
  • Power Sequencing - The order in which power is supplied to different components.
  • Power Distribution Network (PDN) - The system that delivers power to electronic components.
  • Environmental Management - Systems for controlling temperature, humidity, etc., in data centers.
  • Blind Mating - A connection method where components connect automatically without manual alignment.
  • Cold Aisle - The aisle in a data center where cool air is supplied to equipment.
  • Hot Aisle - The aisle in a data center where hot air is exhausted from equipment.
  • Networking Switch Silicon - The integrated circuits that form the core of a network switch.
  • Tofino Silicon - Programmable networking silicon from Intel.
  • Broadcom - A company providing switching silicon.
  • Firmware Bug - An error in the low-level software that controls hardware.
  • I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit) - A serial communication protocol.
  • EDA Tools - Software used for designing electronic circuits.
  • Simulation Work - Using software to model and test hardware designs.
  • Boilerplate Code - Standard code that is repeated in many places with little variation.
  • React - A JavaScript library for building user interfaces.
  • TypeScript - A typed superset of JavaScript.
  • Operating System Kernel - The core component of an operating system.
  • AI (Artificial Intelligence) - The simulation of human intelligence processes by machines.
  • LLM (Large Language Model) - A type of AI model trained on vast amounts of text data.
  • **AGI (Artificial

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