200: Tech Tales Found

Phabricator began as an internal tool at Facebook, crafted by Evan Priestley during a 2007 hackathon to solve the inefficiencies of code review. What started as 'Diffcamp' evolved into Differential, then expanded into a full-featured development suite including tools like Diffusion for repository browsing, Maniphest for task tracking, Herald for automation, and Phriction for documentation. Designed for speed, scalability, a...

This is the story of WorldCom, a telecom giant that rose from humble beginnings in a Mississippi coffee shop to become one of the largest companies in the U.S., only to collapse under the weight of the biggest accounting fraud in history. Founded as Long Distance Discount Services (LDDS) in 1983, the company was built on aggressive acquisitions and visionary leadership, particularly under CEO Bernard Ebbers. By the late 1990s, afte...

In a world where artificial intelligence is everywhere—from your phone’s camera to life-saving medical diagnostics—an invisible force ensures these systems work together seamlessly. ONNX, short for Open Neural Network Exchange, emerged as a universal format that allows AI models built using different frameworks like PyTorch or TensorFlow to communicate and run across diverse devices and platforms. Born from a surprising collaborati...

Broadcast.com, originally known as AudioNet, was a revolutionary tech startup born from a simple frustration—Mark Cuban’s inability to listen to his beloved Indiana Hoosiers basketball games from afar. In the mid-1990s, when internet speeds were painfully slow and streaming media was science fiction, Cuban and Todd Wagner pioneered the idea of broadcasting live audio and video over the web. What began as a way for sports fans to fo...

This episode of '200: Tech Tales Found' dives deep into the origins, evolution, and enduring impact of Fedora, one of the most influential yet often overlooked open-source operating systems in modern technology. Hosts Amanda and Jason explore how Fedora emerged from Red Hat's strategic pivot in 2003, establishing itself as a community-driven platform for innovation while serving as the experimental arm of enterprise Lin...

PlanetOut emerged in 1995 as a groundbreaking digital sanctuary for the LGBTQ+ community, long before social media or widespread internet access made online connection commonplace. Founded by Tom Rielly, the company began as a forum on MSN and AOL, offering chat rooms, personals, news, and entertainment at a time when physical spaces for queer people were often dangerous or inaccessible. It quickly became a beacon of hope for those...

This episode dives into the fascinating origin and evolution of Jenkins, the open-source automation server that transformed how software is built, tested, and deployed. Initially born as Hudson in 2004 by developer Kohsuke Kawaguchi at Sun Microsystems, Jenkins was created out of frustration with constant build failures that disrupted development teams. By automating testing and integration processes, it allowed developers to merge...

Photobucket emerged in 2003 as a revolutionary platform that made photo sharing accessible to the masses, solving a critical problem in the early digital era—how to easily host and share images online. It quickly became the backbone of personal expression on the internet, embedded in blogs, forums, eBay listings, and especially MySpace profiles. Its founders, Alex Welch and Darren Crystal, built the service from scratch into a powe...

GitLab Community Edition (CE) began as a side project by Ukrainian developer Dmytro Zaporozhets in 2011 and evolved into a cornerstone of modern software development. Designed as an open-source platform built on Git, GitLab CE offers developers a collaborative environment for managing code, tracking issues, conducting reviews, and automating CI/CD pipelines—essentially acting as a digital construction site for building software. It...

Palm, Inc. was a groundbreaking force in mobile computing that transformed how people interacted with technology, only to fall victim to rapid industry shifts and strategic missteps. Founded by Jeff Hawkins in 1992, Palm introduced the PalmPilot in 1996—a revolutionary personal digital assistant (PDA) that became an instant cultural phenomenon. With features like HotSync for seamless desktop synchronization, Palm devices quickly be...

This is the story of Brave, a revolutionary web browser born from the mind of Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript. After a dramatic exit from Mozilla due to past political controversies, Eich co-founded Brave in 2015 with a bold mission: to reclaim digital privacy by blocking invasive ads and trackers that exploit user data. Built on Chromium like Google Chrome, Brave offers a seamless browsing experience while prioritizing spe...

In 1999, amid the peak of the dot-com boom, AllAdvantage launched with a promise that seemed like digital alchemy: pay users to surf the web. At its height, the company attracted over 10 million members worldwide in just 18 months, paid out more than $160 million to users, and raised nearly $200 million in venture capital. Its Viewbar software, a persistent ad banner on users’ screens, tracked browsing hours and rewarded them with ...

This episode explores the transformative impact of PyTorch, a powerful open-source machine learning framework that has quietly become a cornerstone of modern artificial intelligence. Developed initially as an internship project in 2016 by Adam Paszke and Soumith Chintala at Meta's AI Research lab, PyTorch was designed to be more flexible and intuitive for developers than its predecessor frameworks like TensorFlow. Its dynamic c...

Global Crossing was born in the late 1990s internet frenzy, fueled by deregulation and an insatiable demand for bandwidth. Founded by Gary Winnick, a former junk bond trader with ties to Michael Milken, the company aimed to build the digital backbone of the global internet through undersea fiber optic cables. It operated as a 'carrier’s carrier,' selling massive data capacity to telecom giants rather than consumers. With th...

Next.js has become a cornerstone of modern web development, seamlessly blending performance, SEO optimization, and developer experience. Initially created as a solution for React's limitations in server-side rendering and static generation, it enables websites to load faster by pre-rendering content on the server rather than leaving everything to the client's browser. This approach not only enhances user experience but also...

In 1999, amid the feverish dot-com boom, a fugitive con artist named David Kim Stanley reinvented himself as Michael Fenne, the charismatic CEO of Pixelon — a company that promised to revolutionize internet video streaming. Armed with charm, deception, and a fabricated identity, Stanley raised over $30 million from investors who believed his vision of 'TV-quality' streaming, despite the technological limitations of dial-up ...

This episode explores the remarkable story behind Visual Studio Code (VS Code), a tool that has quietly revolutionized software development. Developed by Microsoft and released in 2015, VS Code defied expectations by becoming a free, open-source, cross-platform code editor beloved by millions of developers worldwide. Initially met with skepticism due to Microsoft's history as a closed-software giant, the product marked a strate...

In the mid-1990s, two Cornell students, Stephan Paternot and Todd Krizelman, stumbled upon a basic chatroom and envisioned a revolutionary online community. With just $15,000, they launched TheGlobe.com in 1995—a platform where users could create personal homepages, join interest-based groups, and publish content. This early form of social networking quickly gained traction, attracting over 44,000 visits within its first month. As ...

This episode delves into the unsung hero of modern web development—Express.js. As a foundational framework for Node.js, Express.js plays a critical role in powering millions of websites and applications, handling everything from user authentication to real-time data updates. Despite its ubiquity, most users remain unaware of its existence. The podcast explores how Express.js functions as a streamlined traffic controller and modular...