On another occasion, Lewin called Linux, which made servers in North Carolina, to say Akamai needed around 1,000 servers in four weeks. The company said such a large order wasn’t possible; they needed more time. Instead of pleading with them, Lewin sent them an e-mail to confirm a deadline of four weeks. That night, he went to the hardware store and bought tool kits, flew to North Carolina with some of his best engineers, and showed up to work at Linux the next morning. A baffled employee said, “Sir, who are you here to see?” Lewin replied: “I’m not here to see anyone; I’m here to build servers.” Within four weeks, he’d helped Linux construct more than 1,000 new servers.
Linux. Right.
I think I read somewhere that he was actually the first person to die on flight 11.