4 ms·

In the long run, we're all dead. How do you make an impact given finite time and resources? Vendor lock in is already far down the list of existential risks to

by gfodor 9y ago

In the long run, we're all dead. How do you make an impact given finite time and resources? Vendor lock in is already far down the list of existential risks to tech ventures. Long term risk due to adoption of AWS specifically is even farther given their track record so far. What you're talking about here is survivorship bias -- yes, indeed you will find people paying big sums to migrate off of AWS for whatever reason. But they're still around! Unless of course you assume using AWS (or any vendor for that matter) provides no competitive advantage whatsoever, even in the short term. The specific category of risk you are talking about here are tech ventures that fail because of a specific sequence of events: - They choose AWS - They, miraculously, create a successful business on AWS - Some existential risk emerges due to their use of AWS - They either fail or cannot afford to move off of AWS - This singular decision causes their business to fail catastrophically - And, they would have been successful had they not chosen AWS in the first place This is a very specific path to failure and is highly unlikely relative to the more common cases of "they never found product-market fit" or "they had a toxic culture" or "they decided to build everything themselves and ran out of runway."

toomuchtodo 9y ago
> In the long run, we're all dead. How do you make an impact given finite time and resources? Vendor lock in is already far down the list of existential risks to tech ventures. Long term risk due to adoption of AWS specifically is even farther given their track record so far. I work for a ~billion dollar organization in risk management. If developers can't certify to our team that you can pull your app off of $cloud_provider and have it running on prem or in another cloud provider in a few weeks, it doesn't go to a cloud provider. We'll assist with their IaaS/PaaS tooling selection, infrastructure orchestration, container lifecycle process, and other ancillary needs to ensure this requirement can be met. The issue isn't survivorship bias, it's risk management, business continuity, and cost management. It's entirely possible your organization doesn't place a high dollar value on these risks, but that's a business decision each organization needs to make for itself as a whole, and its products and services individually.
- gfodor 9y ago
  We're talking about different things, I'm talking about initial adoption of AWS for new, speculative ventures, it sounds like you are talking about transitioning to AWS from an already existing going concern. I agree with you on the latter case that the risk profile of a transition towards introducing AWS is totally different. Typically posts here that warn against adopting vendors due to lock-in concerns are targeted towards people asking about the risks for their new project.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    We are in agreement then. Text comms are nuanced!
  - jacobsenscott 9y ago
    I don't understand why anyone would start a company if they don't believe it will last at least 10 years. You should always be thinking about vendor lock in. And in the first 5 to 10 years you don't need AWS complexity. Keep your options open because in 5 to 10 years the landscape will be totally different.
    - scarface74 9y ago
      What is there not to understand? A) I start a company, get some investors and sell the company to a larger company that has the resources to either keep maintaining it or change out the infrastructure (Instagram). Result: I profit B) I start a company, gain product market-fit, become successful and I have the resources to gradually move my infrastructure when the need arises: Result - profit. C) I worry about "vendor lock-in" from day one, spend a lot of time and resources on my own infrastructure and run out of money and never survive long enough for A or B. I know which one I'm going to choose. And as far as not "needing the complexity", the entire purpose of going to AWS is to avoid the complexity and up front cost of providing your own infrastructure. The HN darling Dropbox started out on AWS because it was faster and then when they grew they built there own infrastructure. Netflix built their own infrastructure and decided that infrastructure wasn't their core competency and went entirely to AWS. There is no one size fits all.
dsp1234 9y ago
Is this the modern day equivalent of "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"?

by gfodor 9y ago

toomuchtodo 9y ago

> In the long run, we're all dead. How do you make an impact given finite time and resources? Vendor lock in is already far down the list of existential risks to tech ventures. Long term risk due to adoption of AWS specifically is even farther given their track record so far. I work for a ~billion dollar organization in risk management. If developers can't certify to our team that you can pull your app off of $cloud_provider and have it running on prem or in another cloud provider in a few weeks, it doesn't go to a cloud provider. We'll assist with their IaaS/PaaS tooling selection, infrastructure orchestration, container lifecycle process, and other ancillary needs to ensure this requirement can be met. The issue isn't survivorship bias, it's risk management, business continuity, and cost management. It's entirely possible your organization doesn't place a high dollar value on these risks, but that's a business decision each organization needs to make for itself as a whole, and its products and services individually.

gfodor 9y ago
We're talking about different things, I'm talking about initial adoption of AWS for new, speculative ventures, it sounds like you are talking about transitioning to AWS from an already existing going concern. I agree with you on the latter case that the risk profile of a transition towards introducing AWS is totally different. Typically posts here that warn against adopting vendors due to lock-in concerns are targeted towards people asking about the risks for their new project.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  We are in agreement then. Text comms are nuanced!
- jacobsenscott 9y ago
  I don't understand why anyone would start a company if they don't believe it will last at least 10 years. You should always be thinking about vendor lock in. And in the first 5 to 10 years you don't need AWS complexity. Keep your options open because in 5 to 10 years the landscape will be totally different.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    What is there not to understand? A) I start a company, get some investors and sell the company to a larger company that has the resources to either keep maintaining it or change out the infrastructure (Instagram). Result: I profit B) I start a company, gain product market-fit, become successful and I have the resources to gradually move my infrastructure when the need arises: Result - profit. C) I worry about "vendor lock-in" from day one, spend a lot of time and resources on my own infrastructure and run out of money and never survive long enough for A or B. I know which one I'm going to choose. And as far as not "needing the complexity", the entire purpose of going to AWS is to avoid the complexity and up front cost of providing your own infrastructure. The HN darling Dropbox started out on AWS because it was faster and then when they grew they built there own infrastructure. Netflix built their own infrastructure and decided that infrastructure wasn't their core competency and went entirely to AWS. There is no one size fits all.

dsp1234 9y ago

Is this the modern day equivalent of "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"?