Scale By The Bay 2020: Panel: Were Microservices a Huge Mistake?

ai.bythebay.io Nov 2025, Oakland, full-stack AI conference Were microservices a huge mistake? Nick Schrock, the co-creator of GraphQL, posited that there will be a multi-billion dollar industry to clean up the mess that microservices will leave us with, and it will take years. The backlash against the microservices is real. The promise to decompose a monolith turned into a nightmare of observability, async debugging, and stretching your CAP mojo to the limits. But microservices stand tall and proud where they took hold with experienced teams. They solve the problems of those companies who could no longer maintain their monoliths. They allow remote work and create new flexibility in managing distributed teams building distributed systems. What will happen to microservices idea going forward? Our panel, with decades of wisdom between them, will find the answer together -- in a fierce debate where the truth is born! Speakers: Alexy Khrabrov Program Chair, Reactive Summit William Morgan CEO, Buoyant Pete Hunt Software Engineer, Twitter Kikia Carter Software Engineer, Lightbend Chris Richardson Founder, Eventuate Nick Schrock Founder, Elementl