Exemplars are revolutionizing distributed tracing in the observability landscape by optimizing costs and enhancing performance, similar to the disruptions caused by Prometheus and Grafana Loki in metrics and logging, respectively. Exemplars function by linking significant metrics and logs to traces via an ID, offering a streamlined path for analyzing interesting traces without the need to search through extensive data. Grafana Tempo, an open-source distributed tracing backend by Grafana Labs, capitalizes on this innovation, allowing for seamless integration of metrics, logs, and traces at a massive scale without sampling. This holistic approach, supported by the OpenMetrics specification, leverages existing indexes to save on costs and time, transforming how traces are stored and retrieved. This advancement reflects years of vision and preparation in observability, with Grafana Labs playing a pivotal role in its development.