Werner

Education is not one-size-fits-all for the latest CTO Fellows Today, I’m honored to introduce you to the latest cohort of Now Go Build CTO Fellows. Individuals from around the world with diverse backgrounds (engineering, the humanities, business, healthcare, ent...

The latest Now Go Build CTO Fellowship cohort is reimagining education from the ground up. They're not accepting "we can't do that." They're asking, "why haven't we tried this?" Meet the Fellows: www.allthingsdistributed.com/2026/01/educ...

A little bit uncomfortable Fear is actually a pretty good signal that you are pushing into the unknown, that real growth doesn’t happen without a bit of that associated discomfort, and that it’s worth becoming aware when it hap...

As we head into the new year, I want to share an article by
Andy Warfield called "A little bit uncomfortable". It touches on a topic we don't talk about nearly enough--vulnerability and the relationship between fear and growth.
allthingsdistributed.com/2025/12/a-little-bit-uncomfortable.html

Tech predictions for 2026 and beyond We’ve caught glimpses of a future that values autonomy, empathy, and individual expertise. Where interdisciplinary cooperation influences discovery and creation at an unrelenting pace. In the coming y...

AI in the human loop, not the other way around. This shift will transform how we combat loneliness, deliver
care, build systems, and educate ourselves in an era of rapid change.

Read my tech predictions for 2026 on All Things Distributed: www.allthingsdistributed.com/2025/11/tech...
Now, go build!

What is USSD (and who cares)? While many of us chase the latest tech trends, innovative builders in Sub-Saharan Africa are leveraging a nearly 30-year-old messaging protocol to process hundreds of billions in transactions annually...

The best technology blends into the background of everyday life. www.allthingsdistributed.com/2025/10/what...

Frugal engineering for ocean conservation: My journey with The Ocean Cleanup When 16-year-old Boyan Slat encountered more plastic bags than fish in Greek waters, he asked a simple question that would change everything:

In the latest Frugal Architect podcast we talk with @boyanslat.bsky.social about @theoceancleanup.bsky.social’s mission to remove 90% of ocean plastic by 2040. When you're climbing the right hill, solutions get simpler over time. thefrugalarchitect.com/architects/b...

Why AI for good depends on good data New technologies are helping vulnerable communities produce maps that integrate topographical, infrastructural, seasonal, and real-time data — an essential tool for many humanitarian endeavors.

No data, no AI, no progress. My @AmazonScience article explores how multi-layered mapping + petabyte-scale cloud infrastructure helps save lives in time of crisis. Building AI without addressing the fundamental data divide means solving the wrong problems. amazon.science/blog/why-ai-...

Development gets better with Age This new five-part mini-series follows technology leaders from social impact organizations solving humanity's hardest problems - from crisis zones to community centers. Watch how they use drones to ma...

Development gets better with Age
www.allthingsdistributed.com/2025/10/bett...

Measuring the effectiveness of software development tools and practices New cost-to-serve-software metric that accounts for the full software development lifecycle helps determine which software development innovations provide quantifiable value.

As developers, we want to create and find new solutions—not port Java 11 apps to 17. Here is a real opportunity with AI tools. First understand your problem, THEN consider solutions. Our data shows that teams using this approach cut costs 15.9% YoY. www.amazon.science/blog/measuri...

My dad taught me the difference between cheap and frugal...It made me a better engineer Growing up tracking every mile per gallon in his father's worn notebook, Craig learned early that frugality means making smart tradeoffs. Today, he applies those same principles as Zillow's Chief Clou...

Cheap ≠ frugal. This is a lesson Zillow’s Craig Link learned from his dad. Packing lunch, limiting stops on road trips, and on the latest episode of The Frugal Architect, we talk about how these early lessons in frugality made him a better engineer. www.thefrugalarchitect.com/architects/c...

Our final episode of the latest Now Go Build series features Fellows building solutions WITH their communities, not just FOR them. It’s a strong reminder that tech works best when paired with local wisdom. Watch every episode of the series on ATD: www.allthingsdistributed.com/2025/07/buil...

Enough food is produced to feed everyone in the world, yet 40% gets wasted in the US alone. Technology can help. The latest episode of Now Go Build features CTO Fellows tackling food security head-on, both globally and locally.

Watch it here: www.allthingsdistributed.com/2025/07/buil...

Removing friction from Amazon SageMaker AI development Building with Amazon SageMaker AI should be about innovation, not wrestling with development environments or building bespoke observability systems. Here's how we're removing roadblocks so builders ca...

Eight years after launching SageMaker AI, our mission remains the same: put machine learning in the hands of every builder, regardless of skill level.

Our latest updates tackle real builder pain points.

Read more on All Things Distributed: www.allthingsdistributed.com/2025/08/remo...

Behind every humanitarian crisis are people making decisions with incomplete data. It's a challenge I've seen time and again in my travels.

What if we could change that? #NowGoBuild

www.allthingsdistributed.com/2025/07/buil...

Always ask why: A journey from sports tech to food waste From a traffic spike that crashed their system during the 2018 World Cup to serving millions of users in 19 countries, Morten and Robert share how questioning everything, embracing incremental progres...

Morten Keldebaek and Robert Christiansen "always ask why". Why keep all data hot? Why make every component global? Why chase shiny tech? This engineering philosophy has helped Too Good To Go achieve its mission of keeping fresh food out of the dump. www.thefrugalarchitect.com/architects/m...

Whether climate resilience, disaster recovery, or food security -- access to good data can be the difference between life and death. I’m launching a new 5-part miniseries that focuses on the builders working every day to solve these hard human problems. www.allthingsdistributed.com/2025/07/buil...

Just make it scale: An Aurora DSQL story AWS Senior Principal Engineers, Niko Matsakis and Marc Bowes, take us inside Aurora DSQL's development: scaling write operations without two-phase commit, overcoming garbage collection hurdles, and em...

In a new guest post from #AWS Sr. Principal Engineers @nikomatsakis.com and Mark Bowes take us inside Aurora DSQL's development from scaling write operations without two-phase commit, to overcoming garbage collection hurdles, and embracing Rust. www.allthingsdistributed.com/2025/05/just...

Keeping the Stories Flowing at Warner Bros. Discovery With just nine months to launch Max and no room for downtime, Warner Bros. Discovery had to make every architectural decision count. This story follows how they built observability into their systems,...

How do you scale globally while keeping costs in check? Tom Leaman shows how standardization, self-service tooling, and smart automation helped them do just that at Warner Bros. Discovery. Read (or listen) to the latest from The Frugal Architect here: thefrugalarchitect.com/architects/t...

In the works – AWS South America (Chile) Region | Amazon Web Services AWS announces plans to launch a new AWS Region in Chile by the end of 2026 with three Availability Zones, marking the third AWS Region in Latin American alongside existing Regions in São Paulo and Mex...

Announcing plans for the new #AWS South America (Chile) Region! Local innovators like @GrupoCetep are already using #AWS and GenAI to expand mental healthcare access. Excited to see what the next generation of builders will create in the region. aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/co...

Power is the lifeblood of a modern digital world, and while most of us see… | Kevin Miller | 14 comments Power is the lifeblood of a modern digital world, and while most of us see power infrastructure at work on a daily basis, it's so ubiquitous that it can be invisible. Just to open a messaging app ...

There is no compression algorithm for experience. During the power outage in Spain and Portugal, the local AWS datacentres kept humming thanks to careful planning and preparation.
Remember: Everything fails, all the time, so plan for failure and nothing fails.
www.linkedin.com/posts/kevinm...

2025 NFL Draft IQ | Powered by Amazon QuickSight Explore Draft IQ, an interactive, data-driven dashboard from Next Gen Stats that predicts all 32 team big boards ahead of the 2025 NFL Draft.

It is a pity I don't really track much of the NFL any more, because this is quite cool: 2025 NFL Draft IQ Live Draft Board - Inside an NFL Draft War Room powered by #AWS www.nfl.com/draft/iq/

Alexa+ gets us a step closer to ambient interfaces The vision was to build the Star Trek computer. 10 years ago that was an ambitious goal. We’ve come a long way since then - from basic voice commands to much more conversational interfaces with Alexa+...

Interfaces should adapt to humans, not the other way around. The AI-native SDKs for #Alexa+ remove NLU complexity so builders can focus on innovation, not invocation patterns. www.allthingsdistributed.com/2025/04/alex...

GitHub - awslabs/mcp: AWS MCP Servers — specialized MCP servers that bring AWS best practices directly to your development workflow AWS MCP Servers — specialized MCP servers that bring AWS best practices directly to your development workflow - awslabs/mcp

A collection of open source #AWS MCP servers is available at #awslabs github.com/awslabs/mcp

Remember that no matter how secure your platform is… (and congrats to @meredithmeredith.bsky.social & @signal.org for providing a service that obviously meets the most secure communication requirements)

Born from fire and frustration: Watch Duty keeps the tech simple Watch Duty's mission to deliver real-time emergency information works backward from a simple truth: during a disaster, people need clear, reliable updates to make life-critical decisions. When your fo...

The new Frugal Architect podcast features @watchduty.org. A tech-first non-profit that proves you just need the right tools to achieve your mission. From a handful of volunteers to millions of users across 22 states, their choices speak volumes. www.thefrugalarchitect.com/architects/j...

In S3 simplicity is table stakes From simple object storage to sophisticated table management, builders have always shaped S3's evolution. Andy Warfield discusses why making complex systems simple remains our north star at AWS.

On #PiDay (Amazon S3's 19th birthday), Andy Warfield takes us through S3's evolution from simple object store to sophisticated data platform. A fascinating look at how customer feedback shapes our services and how we maintain simplicity at massive scale. www.allthingsdistributed.com/2025/03/in-s...

New year, new Heroes – March 2025 | Amazon Web Services As we dive into 2025, we’re thrilled to announce our latest group of AWS Heroes! These exceptional individuals have demonstrated outstanding expertise and innovation, and are committed to sharing know...

Welcome to the new #AWS Heroes! aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/ne...

Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton are the recipients of the 2024 ACM A.M. Turing Award for developing the conceptual and algorithmic foundations of reinforcement learning. Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton as the recipients of the 2024 ACM A.M. Turing Award for developing the conceptual and algorithmic foundations of reinforcement learning. In a series of papers beginning...

Congrats to Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton for receiving the 2024 @TheOfficialACM Turing Award. They introduced the main ideas, constructed the mathematical foundations, and developed the algorithms for reinforcement learning. awards.acm.org/about/2024-t...

Curious about quantum computing Diving into Quantum computing with Prof. John Preskill in this new video series for those Curious about new technologies

If you're just starting your quantum journey or need a refresher, I encourage you to watch my discussion with Dr. John Preskill, Amazon Scholar and Caltech Professor, where we explore quantum computing's current state and future potential.
www.allthingsdistributed.com/2022/02/curi...

Amazon Web Services announces new quantum computing chip New 'Ocelot' chip uses scalable architecture for reducing error correction by up to 90% and accelerating the development of real-world quantum computing applications.

Many breakthroughs start with a prototype. Today we’re announcing Ocelot, AWS’s first quantum chip that shows significant improvement in error correction, reducing implementation costs by 90%. This is an important step toward practical quantum computing. www.aboutamazon.com/news/aws/qua...

A fantastic article by @harper.lol on his LLM supported developer workflow. It shows why humans are still important in programming...