How About Tomorrow? Sam Lambert Returns: Building Great Things by Playing the Long Game
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Mar 17, 2025 Sam Lambert, a tech leader at PlanetScale, returns to share insights on the launch of PlanetScale Metal. He dives into building software, comparing it to creating an airline, and the need to look beyond averages in development. Lambert discusses the challenges of working with Amazon and candidly reflects on ending the free tier at PlanetScale. He also advises younger developers to focus on quality over hype, emphasizing the importance of playing the long game in a fast-paced industry. Tune in for a mix of tech wisdom and engaging anecdotes!
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Customer-Centric Launch
- PlanetScale launched Metal differently, prioritizing existing customers.
- They delayed public beta to ensure customer success, resulting in organic inbound interest and migrations from Aurora.
P99 Trumps Averages
- P99 latency is more critical than averages for user experience.
- Consistently low P99 is key for perceived reliability, as tail latencies disproportionately impact user satisfaction.
PlanetScale Metal's Sweet Spot
- PlanetScale Metal uses instant storage but avoids EBS limitations by retaining redundancy and compute mobility.
- This offers a sweet spot for serious workloads in AWS by eliminating the EBS performance penalty while maintaining flexibility.