Your fear is not invalid. That said, one can make the argument that speed of innovation trumps everything, and partnering with the best innovator is the most im

Your fear is not invalid. That said, one can make the argument that speed of innovation trumps everything, and partnering with the best innovator is the most important thing when innovating yourself. This is akin to not wanting to ever date for fear of eventual breakup... Some folks discuss this more elegantly - http://www.cloudtp.com/2016/01/21/dont-let-vendor-lock-in-fears-devalue-your-cloud-initiative/ http://www.cloudtp.com/2016/01/21/dont-let-vendor-lock-in-fe... You make a good point on No-Ops vs Ops. I think it's a gradient. I also think that Snapchat is on the far far left (on No-Ops edge) against virtually any other large-scale technology company in the world, Google included (singe Google is Snapchat's Ops largely), largely because of the nature of Google AppEngine.