Akamai thrives in the spirit of its lost founder

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2011/09/04/akamai_thrives_in_the_spirit_of_its_lost_founder/?page=full

by sdave • 15 years ago

145 8 15 years ago

boston.com

beaker2• 15 years ago

I worked at Akamai as a contractor for a few months after they first started. Danny used to come by and kick the desks of the developers I was working with to "wake them up". He was kind of like a rowdy older brother type. He seemed like a decent guy though, it was really a shock to hear he died on 9/11. I've heard some theories that one of those hijackers on that flight had a gun and I believe it, I honestly don't think they could've stopped him otherwise.

shimonamit• 15 years ago

From the article:

"The terrorists breached the cockpit somehow, and the one trained to fly a jet, Mohamed Atta, moved to take control of the plane. And it may be at that point that Lewin tried to stop the hijacking, according to the government commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks.

He had the training for it, but he never had a chance. One of the terrorists was seated behind Lewin and stabbed him, possibly in the throat. Lewin was one of the first of many to die on Sept. 11."

beaker2• 15 years ago

No one can say firsthand exactly what happened in there unfortunately, though it's entirely possible it went down like the article says.

There was a leaked FAA memo that claimed that he had been shot. Later it was claimed this was a first draft with incorrect information.

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26626

I don't think it really matters exactly what happened, I only brought it up because I wanted to point out that I felt that he was a tough and very aware individual.

Possibly relevant:

Excerpt from "Year to the Twin Towers Disaster" Yediot Ahronot, Seven Days Magazine Section 6 September 2002. Translation by IMRA:

"Danny Lewin was the first victim of the biggest attack in history that morning, in which almost 3,000 people died. An internal memorandum of the Federal Aviation Administration sets that in the course of a struggle that took place between Lewin, a graduate of Israel's elite commando unit, Sayeret Matkal , and the four hijackers who were assaulting that cockpit, Lewin was murdered by Satam Al Suqami, a 25 year old Saudi.

Some time after the attack the Lewin family in Jerusalem received a telephone call from the FBI offices in New York. On the line was the agent responsible for the investigation of the attack on Flight 11. He told Peggy and Charles Lewin that there is a high degree of certainty that their son Danny tried to prevent the hijacking. The FBI relied, among other things, on the testimony of the stewardess Amy Sweeney.

Sweeney called Michael Woodward, the flight services supervisor in Boston, from the rear of the plane: "a hijacker slit the throat of a passenger in business class and the passenger appears to me to be dead." To this day the American investigators are not convinced that Danny Lewin was murdered on the spot. An additional stewardess, Betty Ong, who succeeded in calling from a telephone by one of the passenger seats, said that the passenger who was attacked from business class seat 10B was seriously wounded.

The Lewin family, Danny' parents and brothers, have no doubt that Danny battled the hijackers. And it is for them a tremendous consolation. "I wasn't surprised to hear from the FBI that Danny fought. I was sure that this is what he would do," Yonatan, his younger brother, said. "Danny didn' t sit quietly. From what we heard from the Americans, the hijackers attacked one of the stewardesses and Danny rose to protect her and prevent them from entering the cockpit. It is a consolation to us that Danny fought. We see it as an act of heroism that a person sacrifices his life in order to save others. An act of heroism that everyone should do at such an instance and particularly suitable for Danny."

That battle in the business section ended quickly. Lewin was overcome and bled to death on the floor. Two additional flight attendants were knifed and the captain was murdered. The hijackers were already inside the cockpit. They announced to the passengers to remain quiet in their seats.

Also there is this:

But a childhood friend who served with Lewin in the Israel Defense Force says only a bullet would have stopped Lewin.

"He'd be more than a match for those skinny little (expletive)," said Brad Rephen, a New York lawyer who grew up with Lewin in Jerusalem. "With his training, he would have killed them with his bare hands."

"I can tell you, their knives would not have stopped him," he added. "He would have taken their knives or their box cutters away and used them against them."

Rephen recalls Lewin's injured hands after he returned from an Israeli anti-terrorist training course.

"They were pretty beaten up from the fighting he did," he said. "He knew how to fight with knives and take knives away from people."

He described Lewin, at about 5-11, 200 pounds, as "thick-boned." He says he witnessed him bench-press more than 300 pounds and squat close to 500 pounds.

"He was very, very strong and had a lot of meat on him," Rephen said. "They couldn't have subdued him by slashing him. The only way they could have stopped him was by shooting him."

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=13281

sambeau• 15 years ago

It's such a sad irony that the tragedy that took his own life was the biggest test and success of his technology.

rorrr• 15 years ago

That's the saddest thing, didn't know this.

runn1ng• 15 years ago

Wow. I never knew the story of Akamai.

I always knew it was in a lot of "behind the scenes" content delivery, but I always thought that the name sounds Japanese and that's where those guys are from. Guess I was wrong. Thanks.

nir• 15 years ago

I remember this story from another angle - when Reddit was a few years old you'd see stories claiming his presence, an Israel ex-commando, on the plane "proves" that Israel was behind 9/11. Nutty, but these submissions were doing pretty well, often hitting homepage (IIRC some of them were from a site called "what really happened" or similar)

For me it was an early clue on the "social news" world that's still unfolding. I believe it might turn out to resemble humanity's past in surprising ways.

littlegiantcap• 15 years ago

Reddit is a great site, but it has a serious issue with confirmation bias among its users. There's a tongue-in-cheek way the users acknowledge it by calling themselves "the hivemind" It's both good and bad though. Good, because you create an addictive experience for current users but new users can sometimes feel ostracized. Then again with 19million users, what do I know they're obviously doing something right with the community. All I know is while I may enjoy it I would never take any news I read on there as entirely factual.

Akamai thrives in the spirit of its lost founder

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