10 ms·

AWS hired 66 former US gov officials since 2018; half are from Dept of Defense

126 points by fireball_blaze 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Analemma_ 5y ago
Not that any of this is incorrect, but there are two important bits of context to add here: -Not all DoD hires are for the purpose of lobbying. A lot of the time it’s just because they already have the TS/SCI clearance which is necessary for working on servers in the government-only datacenters, and hiring people who have it already is a lot easier than getting a new hire and waiting the multiple years to get clearance (seriously: it’s a pain in the ass, especially when you consider that you have to pass drug tests including THC, which is an increasingly rare thing to find among developer-types) - Amazon’s competition in this space is mainly Microsoft, who does the exact same thing. Indeed, part of the reason Amazon lost the JEDI contract is probably because Microsoft had been playing the ‘hire former Pentagon suits’ game for much longer.
- johncessna 5y ago
  JEDI going to MS is confusing until you realize that O365 was thrown into the MS offering. The US government runs on Microsoft.
  - dannyphantom 5y ago
    America runs on Dunkin' and Microsoft.
- walshemj 5y ago
  Years it should be 2-3 months - well that's what a little bird told me about the UK equivalent.
- hulitu 5y ago
  > Not that any of this is incorrect, but there are two important bits of context to add here: > -Not all DoD hires are for the purpose of lobbying. A lot of the time it’s just because they already have the TS/SCI clearance which is necessary for working on servers in the government. Of course not. Only the managers are for lobying. ( which is corruption with a differrent name). It does help to hire people which can influence the government.
meepmorp 5y ago
Change the headline to the original: The secret behind Amazon's domination in cloud computing The current one doesn't really convey what the article is about
- granzymes 5y ago
  I'd say the current title more accurately describes the article. The best title would probably be "AWS hired 66 former US gov officials since 2018, strengthening its ability to win federal contracts"
  - fireball_blaze 5y ago
    The HN title character limit is very restrictive. The title I used is the max length.
    - granzymes 5y ago
      In that case, excellent job!
- fireball_blaze 5y ago
  I disagree entirely. The title I employed is exactly what the article is about.
thrill 5y ago
AWS has 25,000 employees. How is the former legal employee of 66 of them of the slightest interest?
- arkitaip 5y ago
  The answer is in the article.
vajrabum 5y ago
I'd venture to say that aren't any significant federal government contractors that don't employ former federal workers. Like it or no this is the norm and it isn't all the revolving door. Selling to the federal government is significantly different than selling to other customers.
- seertaak 5y ago
  That's fair enough and indeed quite plausible. I guess the same kind of argument would apply to the likes of Huawei them, too?
- blacktriangle 5y ago
  A big part of this is the need for workers with security clearance to service your government contracts. Its far far easier to hire people who have clearance rather than hire somebody and then pay for them to go through the process, and the DoD has the majority of people with security clerance.
  - eschulz 5y ago
    Indeed. Take into account the security clearance matter, and the fact that these two organizations work closely together 24/7, and this just makes sense. With whom would AWS have a closer relationship than with the DoD or DHS?
  - xkjkls 5y ago
    I formerly worked in AWS on a team that had occasional minor need to deploy and make changes to the GovCloud. I was the only US Citizen on my team and was required for every single deployment.
    - arcanus 5y ago
      Did this give you incredible leverage for performance reviews, raises, etc?
      - 5y ago
dekhn 5y ago
This is exactly what I'd do if I wanted to expand my cloud defense revenue. Amazon clearly stated that's a major goal of theirs, they are in hot competition with Microsoft, and Oracle/IBM want in too (both those company have long and deep relationships with defense). Google, obviously, showed itself out the door with its public statements about Maven.
ckdarby 5y ago
"Except for Eldakdoky, all the AWS hires named in this article either declined to comment or didn’t respond to inquiries." I'll check Hazem Eldakdoky's profile in 6 months but I'll be shocked if they're still at AWS after making a statement to the press.
ltbarcly3 5y ago
They are hiring people with security clearances to work on the Govt. cloud. Unsurprisingly, many people who have a DoD security clearance work for the DoD, it's not a huge community.
JustSomeNobody 5y ago
Not uncommon. I know of companies in the transportation industry that contract through the DoD and hire ex-DoD people specifically for the DoD contracts. They know how to speak the language and get deals done. Edit: To clarify, most of these contracts, you have to bid for. But if you don't know how to speak DoD, you're going to have a much harder time.
dukeofdoom 5y ago
A friend that does inspection work at factories, told me over beers once, that many executives are former military. West Point graduates and the sort. I took it as some sort government control of industry collusion. But who knows.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  How is this surprising? Military is a breeding ground for leadership, that's like literally the whole point of going to West Point is to be a professional leader. After the armed services, corporate leadership has got to be a total breeze.
  - dukeofdoom 5y ago
    Its not surprising, just something I never thought about. It's more like when you notice the wall's of the cage you're in moment. With that said, West Point is a great school.
  - philwelch 5y ago
    > After the armed services, corporate leadership has got to be a total breeze. “Total breeze” is probably an overstatement given the culture differences between the military and civilian worlds, but otherwise I agree.
    - xkjkls 5y ago
      Yeah, its probably harder to get people to follow direction when they can't be court-marshalled if they don't.
  - citiguy 5y ago
    My ex-military officer friends tell me the corporate world is considerably harder than the military. Maybe it also depends on where you work / what you do.
    - mojomark 5y ago
us0r 5y ago
"In FY 2019 there was a 4.2% increase in the number of security clearances, for a total number of 4.2 million individuals with eligibility to access classified information."[0] This "they need people with clearences" talk is laughable. This is purely lobbying which every government contractor does. They also scooped up 4 former state CIOs. They are playing the game and quite well. This does need to be cleaned up. A company recently won a $500 million DOD contract and months later the women on the government side is now the company CEO. [0] https://news.clearancejobs.com/2021/02/09/how-many-people-have-a-security-clearance/ https://news.clearancejobs.com/2021/02/09/how-many-people-ha...
- imwillofficial 5y ago
  That 4.2 million people included all the military and civilian contractors, unable to be hired because they are fulfilling their roles. Additionally that 4.2 million includes all clearance levels. The higher the clearance, the more the available talent pool SHARPLY declines. I have first hand info, AWS is DESPERATE for cleared individuals for various contracts. Unfortunately the recruiting has not synchronized their offers with this need, so you get a lot of low balling offers that most cleared people laugh at.
jollybean 5y ago
66 former government officials is a very small number.
- fireball_blaze 5y ago
  Curious -- based on what? Compared to other cloud providers? Compared to the normal # of gov officials at Seattle-based tech companies like Microsoft? As a % of overall work force?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jollybean 5y ago
    The US government is the largest employer in the US, and Amazon is one of the largest private employer. Literally millions in the former, 100's of thousands in the later. There will be considerable crossover.
- 0xbadcafebee 5y ago
  Seriously. Something like 5 million people work for the USG.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
geodel 5y ago
This would make sense. Unlike Google where a woke employee might start gas-lighting coworker if they worked for DoD or berating Google if it tries to work with DoD. Amazon seems to have better handle on situation.
- throwaway9980 5y ago
  I recall Bezos making some public statements a couple years ago pushing back on internal objections to working with DoD. Something to the effect of “I understand the concern, but if you think the US doesn’t need a strong military, you’re mistaken, and if you think the US is generally a bad actor, you’re mistaken.”
  - geodel 5y ago
    Good. He seems like man of convictions.
mc32 5y ago
Two words: project JEDI.
canadianfella 5y ago
So?
LatteLazy 5y ago
That seems like an absurdly small number...
austincheney 5y ago
One thing to consider is that a federal security clearance is expensive. It makes a huge amount of sense to hire people who already have a clearance paid for by a federal employer. That saves $50-$80 thousand per headcount. A high quantity headcount of clearance holders also bolsters a contractor’s position in contract negotiation. Every defense contractor does this. It’s stupid not to. My current employer isn’t even a defense contractor (as far as I know) and still hires thousands and thousands of veterans.
- yangwuzrite 5y ago
  This isn't even remotely true. The costs of a security clearance investigation are borne by the sponsoring agency, not the contracting firm. The problem is that it's difficult to justify taking an uncleared person and submitting them for a clearance. You have to have a billet where someone isn't needed to hit the ground running, you have to be willing to take the risk to hire them with the possibility you may have to fire them within 12-18 months if they don't pass the investigation, and the program and/or contracting officer they're assigned to has to be willing to sign off on it (many contracts are written such that pre-cleared individuals are required to staff it).
- mojomark 5y ago
  > That saves $50-$80 thousand per headcount. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be rude, but this is a wildly innacurate claim. Citations are requested on HN posts to avoid misinformation (though apparently nobody adheres to or enforces this rule anymore). It only costs employers a few hundred to a few thousand dollars to obtain and maintain a US security clearance for employees [1]. It's not really a hurdle when hiring new talent without a clearance. In general, we hire military veterans not because of their clearance, but because of their tendency (not always, but in general) to possess high integrity, strong leadership skills, loyalty, niche skillsets, and strong work ethic. 1. https://www.taonline.com/security-clearances/hiring-cleared-people https://www.taonline.com/security-clearances/hiring-cleared-...
  - austincheney 5y ago
    According to your link the cost for a TS is $3000-$15000. That is just the expense directly to OPM (office of personnel management). The hired employee cannot perform the work they are hired to perform until that clearance is granted which can take as little as 3 months. A TS investigation will generally run from 6-18 months. Mine took closer to 18 months and I am a boring nobody with no foreign connections. Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior advisor also took about 18 months for a clearance. TS alone does not grant access. It is a classification umbrella allowing access to compartments, the most common being SCI. These also take time, money, and administration.
anti-nazi 5y ago
the mergers of state and capital is not socialism, as was the case with the third reich

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Not that any of this is incorrect, but there are two important bits of context to add here: -Not all DoD hires are for the purpose of lobbying. A lot of the time it’s just because they already have the TS/SCI clearance which is necessary for working on servers in the government-only datacenters, and hiring people who have it already is a lot easier than getting a new hire and waiting the multiple years to get clearance (seriously: it’s a pain in the ass, especially when you consider that you have to pass drug tests including THC, which is an increasingly rare thing to find among developer-types) - Amazon’s competition in this space is mainly Microsoft, who does the exact same thing. Indeed, part of the reason Amazon lost the JEDI contract is probably because Microsoft had been playing the ‘hire former Pentagon suits’ game for much longer.

johncessna 5y ago
JEDI going to MS is confusing until you realize that O365 was thrown into the MS offering. The US government runs on Microsoft.
- dannyphantom 5y ago
  America runs on Dunkin' and Microsoft.
walshemj 5y ago
Years it should be 2-3 months - well that's what a little bird told me about the UK equivalent.
hulitu 5y ago
> Not that any of this is incorrect, but there are two important bits of context to add here: > -Not all DoD hires are for the purpose of lobbying. A lot of the time it’s just because they already have the TS/SCI clearance which is necessary for working on servers in the government. Of course not. Only the managers are for lobying. ( which is corruption with a differrent name). It does help to hire people which can influence the government.

meepmorp 5y ago

Change the headline to the original: The secret behind Amazon's domination in cloud computing The current one doesn't really convey what the article is about

granzymes 5y ago
I'd say the current title more accurately describes the article. The best title would probably be "AWS hired 66 former US gov officials since 2018, strengthening its ability to win federal contracts"
- fireball_blaze 5y ago
  The HN title character limit is very restrictive. The title I used is the max length.
  - granzymes 5y ago
    In that case, excellent job!
fireball_blaze 5y ago
I disagree entirely. The title I employed is exactly what the article is about.

thrill 5y ago

AWS has 25,000 employees. How is the former legal employee of 66 of them of the slightest interest?

arkitaip 5y ago
The answer is in the article.

vajrabum 5y ago

I'd venture to say that aren't any significant federal government contractors that don't employ former federal workers. Like it or no this is the norm and it isn't all the revolving door. Selling to the federal government is significantly different than selling to other customers.

seertaak 5y ago
That's fair enough and indeed quite plausible. I guess the same kind of argument would apply to the likes of Huawei them, too?
blacktriangle 5y ago
A big part of this is the need for workers with security clearance to service your government contracts. Its far far easier to hire people who have clearance rather than hire somebody and then pay for them to go through the process, and the DoD has the majority of people with security clerance.
- eschulz 5y ago
  Indeed. Take into account the security clearance matter, and the fact that these two organizations work closely together 24/7, and this just makes sense. With whom would AWS have a closer relationship than with the DoD or DHS?
- xkjkls 5y ago
  I formerly worked in AWS on a team that had occasional minor need to deploy and make changes to the GovCloud. I was the only US Citizen on my team and was required for every single deployment.
  - arcanus 5y ago
    Did this give you incredible leverage for performance reviews, raises, etc?
    - 5y ago

dekhn 5y ago

This is exactly what I'd do if I wanted to expand my cloud defense revenue. Amazon clearly stated that's a major goal of theirs, they are in hot competition with Microsoft, and Oracle/IBM want in too (both those company have long and deep relationships with defense). Google, obviously, showed itself out the door with its public statements about Maven.

ckdarby 5y ago

"Except for Eldakdoky, all the AWS hires named in this article either declined to comment or didn’t respond to inquiries." I'll check Hazem Eldakdoky's profile in 6 months but I'll be shocked if they're still at AWS after making a statement to the press.

ltbarcly3 5y ago

They are hiring people with security clearances to work on the Govt. cloud. Unsurprisingly, many people who have a DoD security clearance work for the DoD, it's not a huge community.

JustSomeNobody 5y ago

Not uncommon. I know of companies in the transportation industry that contract through the DoD and hire ex-DoD people specifically for the DoD contracts. They know how to speak the language and get deals done. Edit: To clarify, most of these contracts, you have to bid for. But if you don't know how to speak DoD, you're going to have a much harder time.

dukeofdoom 5y ago

A friend that does inspection work at factories, told me over beers once, that many executives are former military. West Point graduates and the sort. I took it as some sort government control of industry collusion. But who knows.

thehappypm 5y ago
How is this surprising? Military is a breeding ground for leadership, that's like literally the whole point of going to West Point is to be a professional leader. After the armed services, corporate leadership has got to be a total breeze.
- dukeofdoom 5y ago
  Its not surprising, just something I never thought about. It's more like when you notice the wall's of the cage you're in moment. With that said, West Point is a great school.
- philwelch 5y ago
  > After the armed services, corporate leadership has got to be a total breeze. “Total breeze” is probably an overstatement given the culture differences between the military and civilian worlds, but otherwise I agree.
  - xkjkls 5y ago
    Yeah, its probably harder to get people to follow direction when they can't be court-marshalled if they don't.
- citiguy 5y ago
  My ex-military officer friends tell me the corporate world is considerably harder than the military. Maybe it also depends on where you work / what you do.
  - mojomark 5y ago

us0r 5y ago

"In FY 2019 there was a 4.2% increase in the number of security clearances, for a total number of 4.2 million individuals with eligibility to access classified information."[0] This "they need people with clearences" talk is laughable. This is purely lobbying which every government contractor does. They also scooped up 4 former state CIOs. They are playing the game and quite well. This does need to be cleaned up. A company recently won a $500 million DOD contract and months later the women on the government side is now the company CEO. [0] https://news.clearancejobs.com/2021/02/09/how-many-people-have-a-security-clearance/ https://news.clearancejobs.com/2021/02/09/how-many-people-ha...

imwillofficial 5y ago
That 4.2 million people included all the military and civilian contractors, unable to be hired because they are fulfilling their roles. Additionally that 4.2 million includes all clearance levels. The higher the clearance, the more the available talent pool SHARPLY declines. I have first hand info, AWS is DESPERATE for cleared individuals for various contracts. Unfortunately the recruiting has not synchronized their offers with this need, so you get a lot of low balling offers that most cleared people laugh at.

jollybean 5y ago

66 former government officials is a very small number.

fireball_blaze 5y ago
Curious -- based on what? Compared to other cloud providers? Compared to the normal # of gov officials at Seattle-based tech companies like Microsoft? As a % of overall work force?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jollybean 5y ago
  The US government is the largest employer in the US, and Amazon is one of the largest private employer. Literally millions in the former, 100's of thousands in the later. There will be considerable crossover.
0xbadcafebee 5y ago
Seriously. Something like 5 million people work for the USG.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

geodel 5y ago

This would make sense. Unlike Google where a woke employee might start gas-lighting coworker if they worked for DoD or berating Google if it tries to work with DoD. Amazon seems to have better handle on situation.

throwaway9980 5y ago
I recall Bezos making some public statements a couple years ago pushing back on internal objections to working with DoD. Something to the effect of “I understand the concern, but if you think the US doesn’t need a strong military, you’re mistaken, and if you think the US is generally a bad actor, you’re mistaken.”
- geodel 5y ago
  Good. He seems like man of convictions.

mc32 5y ago

Two words: project JEDI.

canadianfella 5y ago

So?

LatteLazy 5y ago

That seems like an absurdly small number...

austincheney 5y ago

One thing to consider is that a federal security clearance is expensive. It makes a huge amount of sense to hire people who already have a clearance paid for by a federal employer. That saves $50-$80 thousand per headcount. A high quantity headcount of clearance holders also bolsters a contractor’s position in contract negotiation. Every defense contractor does this. It’s stupid not to. My current employer isn’t even a defense contractor (as far as I know) and still hires thousands and thousands of veterans.

yangwuzrite 5y ago
This isn't even remotely true. The costs of a security clearance investigation are borne by the sponsoring agency, not the contracting firm. The problem is that it's difficult to justify taking an uncleared person and submitting them for a clearance. You have to have a billet where someone isn't needed to hit the ground running, you have to be willing to take the risk to hire them with the possibility you may have to fire them within 12-18 months if they don't pass the investigation, and the program and/or contracting officer they're assigned to has to be willing to sign off on it (many contracts are written such that pre-cleared individuals are required to staff it).
mojomark 5y ago
> That saves $50-$80 thousand per headcount. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be rude, but this is a wildly innacurate claim. Citations are requested on HN posts to avoid misinformation (though apparently nobody adheres to or enforces this rule anymore). It only costs employers a few hundred to a few thousand dollars to obtain and maintain a US security clearance for employees [1]. It's not really a hurdle when hiring new talent without a clearance. In general, we hire military veterans not because of their clearance, but because of their tendency (not always, but in general) to possess high integrity, strong leadership skills, loyalty, niche skillsets, and strong work ethic. 1. https://www.taonline.com/security-clearances/hiring-cleared-people https://www.taonline.com/security-clearances/hiring-cleared-...
- austincheney 5y ago
  According to your link the cost for a TS is $3000-$15000. That is just the expense directly to OPM (office of personnel management). The hired employee cannot perform the work they are hired to perform until that clearance is granted which can take as little as 3 months. A TS investigation will generally run from 6-18 months. Mine took closer to 18 months and I am a boring nobody with no foreign connections. Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior advisor also took about 18 months for a clearance. TS alone does not grant access. It is a classification umbrella allowing access to compartments, the most common being SCI. These also take time, money, and administration.

anti-nazi 5y ago

the mergers of state and capital is not socialism, as was the case with the third reich