Bacterial genomes are fascinating things. The first genomes, painfully and expensively achieved, allowed us to see the 'parts list' for a bacterium for the first time. These lists were hugely valuable, identifying key aspects of biology and metabolism, hinting at evolutionary pathways and enabling the genome-wide experimental approaches that are the foundation for a lot of modern microbiology. In addition, they often uncovered aspects of biology that we hadn't expected, demonstrating one of the most important outcomes of genomics – its ability to allow us to explore novelty and generate hypotheses. The advent of high-throughput genomes, and the ability to generate hundreds or thousands of genomes, has allowed us to study pathogen emergence, transmission and evolution in almost real time, generating further novel insights and providing the opportunity to use genomics in clinical interventions. In twenty years bacterial genomics has evolved from a hugely expensive 'big-science' project for the few, to a routine clinical intervention and ubiquitous research support tool for everyone. In this lecture I will discuss examples of how sequence-gazing has enhanced our understanding of bacterial pathogens of humans and animals.