Build your own Virtual machine
-just only 250 lines of C code
-really great guide
-great for understanding low level concepts
-it's kind of detailed guide
-with very lucid diagrams and code explanation
-github repo is also present
Tiktok's Monolith paper is a must read.
It shows that you don't need a social graph to make an addictive product if you nail real-time recommendations that update AS each user scrolls.
Very few great applied CS papers exist and even fewer that made a 1B+ user product!
Watch Nadella describe SaaS apps as nothing more than a CRUD database with some business logic, but once the business logic moves to AI agents, SaaS is over: