diff --git a/util/backoff.go b/util/backoff.go
index 1b126fbee4..944b572805 100644
--- a/util/backoff.go
+++ b/util/backoff.go
@@ -9,6 +9,15 @@ import (
 	"time"
 )
 
+func init() {
+	// NOTE(sr): We don't need good random numbers here; it's used for jittering
+	// the backup timing a bit. But anyways, let's make it random enough; without
+	// a call to rand.Seed() we'd get the same stream of numbers for each program
+	// run. (Or not, if some other packages happens to seed the global randomness
+	// source.)
+	rand.Seed(time.Now().UnixNano())
+}
+
 // DefaultBackoff returns a delay with an exponential backoff based on the
 // number of retries.
 func DefaultBackoff(base, max float64, retries int) time.Duration {