The Google search engine isn’t software that runs on a single machine. Serving millions upon millions of people around the globe, it’s software that runs on thousands of machines spread across multiple computer data centers. Google runs this entire service like a biological system, as a vast collection of self-contained pieces that work in concert. It can readily spread those cells of code across all those machines, and when machines break—as they inevitably do—it can move code to new machines and keep the whole alive.
Now, Adam Jacob wants to bring this notion to every other business on earth. Jacob is a bearded former comic-book-store clerk who, in the grand tradition of Alan Kay, views technology like a philosopher.
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