The genesis of Anna Lytical

Anna Lytical with a Google Chrome-inspired eye. Anna Lytical

"A few years ago, I was feeling kind of lost in New York City, a city I'd grown up in and, at one point, felt so connected to," Jacobson said in an interview with Business Insider. "One way I'd felt connected to New York was through performances."

Around the same time, he began re-watching "RuPaul's Drag Race" and consequently attending drag shows in the city.

"There's something about it that really drew me in," Jacobson said. "I saw a place where I'd get to have a queer, LGBT audience, and get to do whatever I wanted."

And so Anna Lytical was conceived.

Anna Lytical appeared in around 10 performances, first doing traditional drag acts, à la lip sync, but then beginning to mix in skills Jacobson acquired through his day job as an engineer.

On Halloween at one of Anna Lytical's haunts, Pieces gay bar in Greenwich Village, Anna Lytical did a performance mashing up "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and the song "Blue" by Marina and the Diamonds. Anna Lytical made a blue dress with an explosive baking soda and vinegar mix that would inflate the outfit when she removed her belt, just like the Willy Wonka character of Violet Beauregarde, who physically swells into a giant blueberry when she eats a three-course dinner chewing gum with a blueberry pie dessert.

Anna Lytical eventually went on hiatus, as Jacobson found drag competitions to be physically taxing — before even hitting the stage, it takes two hours for Anna Lytical to do makeup, hair, and clothes — but work soon sparked an idea for Anna Lytical's next venture.

"I work in developer relations at Google, so it's our job to explain to other engineers how to use our tech, and that inspired me a little," Jacobson explained. "People on my team make videos to show how to use the Google Cloud products, so (I thought) maybe there's something here to do with my drag."

Enter Anna Lytical, the queen of code.