The Architects

Boyan Slat Founder and CEO, 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: "Why can't we just clean this up?" From €200 in pocket money to removing over 90 million pounds of ocean plastic, Boyan's journey shows how constraints-driven thinking and frugal innovation can tackle the world's most impossible challenges by "focusing, failing, and forbearing."

13 MIN READ

Craig Link Chief Cloud Architect, Zillow

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 Cloud Architect, proving that some of our most powerful engineering tools come from unexpected places.

18 MIN READ

Morten Keldebaek & Robert Christiansen CTO & VP Engineering, Too Good To Go

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 progress, and choosing proven technology have built a culture of pragmatic (and frugal) engineering at Too Good To Go—and kept millions of meals out of the trash.

15 MIN READ

Tom Leaman VP of Site Reliability Engineering, 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, made cost visible across engineering, and turned lessons from scaling missteps into a culture of discipline and resilience—so that when the world pressed play, things just worked.

21 MIN READ

John Mills & David Merritt CEO & CTO, Watch Duty

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 focus is on outcomes, choosing boring technology and simple solutions isn't just pragmatic—it's what enables you to scale with confidence when lives depend on your system.

18 MIN READ

Mike Norton VP of Cloud Technologies, PBS

From constant firefighting in their tech operations, PBS faced the challenge of delivering cost-effective services while staying true to their mission. Mike shares how they shifted to fireproofing their systems, re-architecting for resilience, and cultivating a culture of frugality to better serve viewers like you.

17 MIN READ