But the game isn't the performance on a machine, or even a few machines. The game are tools like Kubernetes and Apache Mesos. I have X thousand VMs spread out

But the game isn't the performance on a machine, or even a few machines. The game are tools like Kubernetes and Apache Mesos. I have X thousand VMs spread out through the world, with a few hundred per datacenter for geo-stability. If a network link fails, no biggie. Still runs. If a rack dies, still no biggie. Redundancy makes it work. Earthquake/tsunami/natural disaster ? Your stuff still runs, with a bit higher latency and slower throughput.