News and notes from around the interweb:

• Max Levchin, co-founder of Paypal and current CEO of Affirm, tells the story of how he once lost access to the entire Paypal database and almost destroyed the company.

  The key in question decrypts PayPal’s master payment credential table – also known as the giant store of credit card and bank account numbers. Without access to payment credentials, PayPal doesn’t really have a business per se, seeing how we are supposed to facilitate payments, and that’s really hard to do if we no longer have access to the 100+ million credit card numbers our users added over the last year of insane growth.

  This is the story of a catastrophic software bug I briefly introduced into the PayPal codebase that almost cost us the company (or so it seemed, in the moment.) I’ve told this story a handful of times, always swearing the listeners to secrecy, and surprisingly it does not appear to have ever been written down before. 20+ years since the incident, it now appears instructive and a little funny, rather than merely extremely embarrassing.

• How and Why Hotels Design Their Signature Scent (WaPo) I remain especially partial to Westin lobby white tea.

  There’s a special moment following a trip — it could be days later, even months or years — when an aroma wafts through the air that suddenly transports you back to your destination, like the warm coconut smell of an Caribbean resort or light lavender scent of luxury spa day.

  The nostalgia inspired by a smell is hopefully a pleasant experience, but for hotels using signature scents, it’s also happening by design. By tapping into the power of scent, hotels can set the mood, create memories and stay top of guests’ minds when they leave.

• Double GHA Discovery Dollars through September 30

• Iraqi Airways auctioning off Saddam Hussein’s Boeing 747s

• What’s the plan for the San Antonio airport?

• How Russia is evading sanctions to keep $10 billion worth of seized Boeing and Airbus planes flying