Mark Zuckerberg builds Facebook from his dorm room and becomes a billionaire. It’s a typical American success story, right? Yes and no. Bear with me.
I had the pleasure of being invited to Copenhagen last Thursday to participate in the Nordic Digital Forum. Attending the forum was a collection of approximately one hundred entrepreneurs, technologists and policymakers invited to the Danish capital to brainstorm for one day on how the Nordic countries can work together to create fertile ground for tech companies to grow and prosper.
Among the speakers were Claus Meyer, co-founder of the world’s greatest restaurant, Noma (who is incredibly passionate about bread) and Thomas Madsen-Mygdal, founder of Podio (acquired by Citrix).
Madsen-Mygdal had a funny take on Facebook. From a business perspective it might be the typical American success story, but from a technological perspective it’s all about the Nordics.
Let’s look at the Facebook technology stack:
- Operating system: Linux. Built by a crazy guy from Finland.
- Database technology: MySql. Built by crazy people from Sweden.
- Programming language: PHP. Built by a relatively sane person from Denmark.
Zuckerberg was able to build Facebook from his dorm room because he had access to a lot of heavy duty technology that didn’t cost him a dime to use. This technology was built by folks in the Nordics. Except they give it away as open source. The moral of the story is that the Nordics punch above their weight when it comes to contributions to technology. How about that for patting each other on the back?
Some of my takeaways from the conference were that the Nordics are passionate about healthcare and equality, topics I’ve never heard mentioned much in conferences like London’s Digital Shoreditch or elsewhere. The role of government was also discussed. Helga Waage voiced the opinion of many (including mine) nicely in one of the panels:
The relation between digital start ups and government is like curling – the government is the broom.
Finally, the Danes didn’t just contribute to Facebook’s technology stack, they’re also a world class culinary destination. And the food at the conference was no exception. Whether it was the humble sandwiches for lunch, the brownies served with the coffee or the three course meal in the evening, everything on offer solidified my opinion of the Danes as the greatest foodies on the planet.
Thanks for having me, everyone. The Nordic Digital Forum was well worth attending.