Mux's journey from its origins as Zencoder highlights the transformative impact of cloud-based video encoding and the evolving landscape of video technology. Founded by the same team behind Zencoder, an early innovator in cloud encoding, Mux reflects a decade of lessons learned from both successes and failures in the industry. Zencoder, acquired by Brightcove, disrupted traditional encoding with its cost-efficient API, but faced competition from Amazon's Elastic Transcoder, which ultimately couldn't match Zencoder's market momentum. The narrative emphasizes that the future of video encoding is moving towards integration with audience-specific data and just-in-time (JIT) encoding, which offer significant cost savings and improved quality of experience by encoding only what is watched and adapting to audience needs. This shift challenges standalone encoding APIs, which lack the means to fully leverage audience data or implement JIT encoding effectively. As the market evolves, integrated platforms like Mux are positioned to lead by offering advanced solutions that traditional services may struggle to provide.