Friday the 13th Saved Its Worst for 4 p.m.: The FAA Has Stopped Every Departure in the Country
Friday the 13th spent its morning on Claude login failures and a second day of Microsoft 365 trouble. Around 4 p.m. ET it got much worse: the FAA halted departures at every US airport, citing communication problems across multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers. These are the regional facilities that guide planes at cruising altitude. It's the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023, and 4,042 flights were already airborne and headed for US airports. Officials are calling it an apparent "telecommunication outage" and say there's no sign of an attack. Bloomberg reports the FBI is examining a possible bad software update. No end time has been announced.
Friday the 13th Saved Its Worst for 4 p.m.: The FAA Has Stopped Every Departure in the Country
Friday the 13th spent its morning on Claude login failures and a second day of Microsoft 365 trouble. Around 4 p.m. ET it got much worse: the FAA halted departures at every US airport, citing communication problems across multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers. These are the regional facilities that guide planes at cruising altitude. It's the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023, and 4,042 flights were already airborne and headed for US airports. Officials are calling it an apparent "telecommunication outage" and say there's no sign of an attack. Bloomberg reports the FBI is examining a possible bad software update. No end time has been announced.
Follow the money: AI's big Friday
Happy Friday the 13th. I hope Wednesday's Veterans Day bought you a quiet morning, because the rest of the week moved fast. Here's some background before we talk money:
- Payment tokens are older than the AI boom. When Apple Pay launched in 2014, it replaced your real card number with a stand-in tied to your device. If that stand-in leaks, the thief gets nothing useful.
- IPO roadshows used to be actual road trips. Executives flew from city to city to pitch fund managers in hotel ballrooms. Now it's mostly video calls, and sometimes a livestream with a bank CEO.
- Nvidia started at a Denny's. Three engineers founded it over a meal in San Jose in 1993, and for 33 years it had the same CEO.
Grab a coffee. And if you're planning a Friday afternoon deploy on the 13th, give that some thought first.
Happy Friday the 13th. I hope Wednesday's Veterans Day bought you a quiet morning, because the rest of the week moved fast. Here's some background before we talk money:
- Payment tokens are older than the AI boom. When Apple Pay launched in 2014, it replaced your real card number with a stand-in tied to your device. If that stand-in leaks, the thief gets nothing useful.
- IPO roadshows used to be actual road trips. Executives flew from city to city to pitch fund managers in hotel ballrooms. Now it's mostly video calls, and sometimes a livestream with a bank CEO.
- Nvidia started at a Denny's. Three engineers founded it over a meal in San Jose in 1993, and for 33 years it had the same CEO.
Grab a coffee. And if you're planning a Friday afternoon deploy on the 13th, give that some thought first.
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