{"id":20926,"date":"2022-12-05T08:11:59","date_gmt":"2022-12-05T08:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/05\/coding-error-created-a-billion-dollar-company-by-accident-the-register\/"},"modified":"2022-12-05T08:11:59","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T08:11:59","slug":"coding-error-created-a-billion-dollar-company-by-accident-the-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/05\/coding-error-created-a-billion-dollar-company-by-accident-the-register\/","title":{"rendered":"Coding error created a billion-dollar company by accident \u2022 The Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

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who, me?<\/span> Ah, dear readers, welcome once again to Who, Me? in which Reg<\/em> readers confess the times their reach exceeded their grasp, technology-wise-speaking.<\/p>\n

This time meet “Francis” who was a bright young thing working on contract as a programmer to a largish organisation that was in the process of upgrading certain systems. Despite his youth, Francis had built something of a reputation for himself as someone who could “pull a rabbit out of a hat” when needed. As such, he found himself quite central to the upgrade project.<\/p>\n

One of the core parts of the upgrade \u2013 the “crown jewel” as Francis put it \u2013 was migrating the accounts to the new system. This involved a script that ran the past eight years worth of nightly transaction files on the new system until they caught up to the present.<\/p>\n

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