Looks like he got the idea for PowerDNS from a URL shortening service [1]. They wanted better performance for visitors from the US, and Bert just went ahead and founded a company that made DNS load balancing software. Sounds like 1999 indeed.
I got to work a lot with PowerDNS during my internship, which was at a web hosting company that wanted to implement DNSSEC. What a fantastic piece of software it has become. Thanks for your involvement Bert, and best of luck at the TIB!
[1] https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/history-of-powerdns-1999-2...