The email arrived in my inbox on a Friday afternoon, just as I was getting ready to leave the office. The subject line read: "Invitation to speak at InfraCon 2026."
I opened it. InfraCon was the largest data infrastructure conference on the West Coast. I had attended twice as an anonymous engineer, sitting in the back rows, taking notes. I had never been invited to speak.
The email was from the program committee. They wanted me to give a talk titled "Resilience in Practice: Building Systems That Survive Their Own Success." They had read about my work. They had heard about the Tianqiong case. They wanted me to tell the story.
I sat at my desk and read the email twice. Then I called David into my office.
"How would you feel about running things for a few days next month?" I asked.
"Depe
