Akamai Technologies, Inc.

 Akamai Technologies, Inc. is an American delivery company that provides content delivery network^[3] (CDN), cybersecurity, DDoS mitigation, and cloud services.^[4][5] Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it operates a worldwide network of servers whose capacity it rents to customers running websites and other web services, with the goal of providing end users with greater speed and availability via Akamai-owned servers located closer to them.

History[edit]

The company was named after akamai, which means 'clever,' or more colloquially, 'cool' in Hawaiian. Co-founder Daniel M. Lewin found the term in an Hawaiian-English dictionary after a colleague's suggestion.^[6]

Akamai Technologies entered the 1998 MIT $50K competition with a business proposition based on their research on consistent hashing,^[7] and was selected as one of the finalists.^[8] By August 1998, they had developed a working prototype, and with the help of Jonathan Seelig and Randall Kaplan, they took steps to incorporate the company.^[9] Akamai Technologies was incorporated on August 20, 1998.^[10]

In late 1998 and early 1999, a group of business professionals and scientists joined the founding team—most notably, Paul Sagan, former president of New Media for Time Inc., and George Conrades, former chairman and chief executive officer of BBN Corp. and senior vice president of US operations for IBM. Conrades became chief executive officer of Akamai in April 1999.^[11][12][13] The company launched its commercial service in April 1999 and was listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market from October 29, 1999.^[14]

On July 1, 2001, Akamai was added to the Russell 3000 Index and Russell 2000 Index.^[15]

On September 11, 2001, co-founder Daniel M. Lewin died in the September 11 attacks at the age of 31 when he was stabbed by one of the hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center. He was seated closest to the hijackers and may have tried to stop them.^[16]

In 2005, Paul Sagan was named chief executive officer of Akamai, taking over from Conrades. Sagan worked to differentiate Akamai from its competitors by expanding its breadth of services.^[13] Under his leadership, it grew to $1.37 billion in revenue.^[17]

In July 2007, Akamai was added to the S&P 500 Index.^[18]

In 2013, co-founder Tom Leighton was elected chief executive officer, replacing Sagan.^[19]

On February 9, 2021, Akamai announced it would reorganize into two internal groups, Security Technology and Edge Technology. It also re-established the role of chief technology officer, and named Robert Blumofe to that role.^[20] Long-time chief security officer (CSO) Andy Ellis announced he would leave in March 2021.^[21]

Akamai's headquarters are in Kendall Square. It started in Technology Square and later expanded to multiple buildings in Cambridge Center. It consolidated its offices in a purpose-built building at 145 Broadway in December 2019.^[22]