From CEO to Visionary: How Kurt Mackey Bet Fly.io on AI Agents and Disposable Computers

Kurt Mackey built Fly.io around two ideas: keeping applications close to users for speed and making cloud tooling feel simple while still delivering AWS-level power. After strong quarters and what the company described as its best financial months, a pointed comment from Theo Browne—who praised Fly.io in a 2026 hosting ranking but said he least expected it to survive—shook Mackey. He responded with a candid blog post that helped unlock a major funding round, a renewed focus on “Sprites,” and a CEO change. Scott Johnston, former Docker chief, took over as Mackey stepped aside. The article says Fly.io is shifting toward computers designed for AI agents, including Sprites with 100GB durable storage and metered billing that pauses when idle, plus upgrades like faster checkpoint/restore and secure connectors for calling external APIs.