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> I've mentioned as much to several C-suite executives and professional venture investors I know who tend to wax philosophical about "exponential growth in clou
by heisenbit 6y ago
> I've mentioned as much to several C-suite executives and professional venture investors I know who tend to wax philosophical about "exponential growth in cloud services and big data" and whatnot. Invariably, their response has been to tell me that I just don't get it, or that I make no sense. They give me puzzled looks and maybe even get a bit exasperated with me.
One word: Worldcom
I still remember coming up to 2000 sitting in a meeting room of an equipment provider I recently joined looking at projections of market growth, competitors and our own sales and profitability. Shortly afterwards that part of the business was sold, I remained with the other non internet part and we sailed through the .com crash unscathed.
A lot of what AWS offers makes no sense. A lot what some AWS customer's teams are building is overly complex and a horror show to maintain. But there is also value: Maintained images, backups, on demand resources and specialized resources. We hit one of the inflection points in Moore's Law and that drives us into horizontal scaling and specialized hardware.
Like with Worldcom and the fantastic internet growth story back then there is a kernel of truth and value. Find people that understand it and be glad others are playing around and subsidizing the investments in the core.