From Project Management to Data Compression Innovator with Yann Collet

Host here. Here is my summary:

Yann Collet was bored and working as a project manager. So he started working on a game for his old HP 48 graphing calculator.

Eventually, this hobby led him to revolutionize the field of data compression, releasing LZ4, ZStandard, and Finite State Entropy coders.

His code ended up everywhere: in games, databases, file systems, and the Linux Kernel because Yann built the world's fastest compression algorithms.

And he got started just making a fun game for a graphing calculator he'd had since high school.

I consider myself very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with Yann. He is amazingly humble for someone who has made something so impactful. One thing also that sometimes gets lost is wins as substantial as Zstandard not only save the big tech companies money but also reduce energy costs overall as well as local costs such as bandwidth on mobile devices (which affects individuals as much as it does companies).

Just finished listening and greatly enjoyed it. Very inspiring story.