Yes there is a lurking iceberg of things that aren't in the public eye like Facebook or Google, and that's where the really intense and interesting stuff is happening. I wonder what the guys at Visa make of all the hype around these websites, when they were doing these volumes all along...
At said 60k pages/sec job, you know who we looked up to for databases? Starbucks. Walmart. McDonalds. 'Cos we'd seen what they do, and anyone who thinks Twitter is impressive, well it'd blow their minds.