Your distinction of revenue vs cost-saving doesn't translate neatly, in my opinion, into reality. In reality, you have a lot of different functions that transl

Your distinction of revenue vs cost-saving doesn't translate neatly, in my opinion, into reality. In reality, you have a lot of different functions that translate into revenue: product tries to determine what you ought to build that will increase revenue; marketing will bring potential revenue to your doors; sales turns potential revenue into real revenue; application/service engineers do the monkey-wrenching to turn the additional-revenue-producing feature into reality. Is any one person in any of these functions fully responsible for the revenue increase? Clearly no. So how can you, in one of those roles, claim full credit for the additional revenue? It sounds like hubris to me. Companies are a team effort. Cost reduction is a culture, though. It's when startups, when contemplating a new feature, ask the people involved, "how much will this cost us?" instead of ignoring that question entirely. It's when someone makes sure that billing alerts are set up correctly so that people are aware of the costs of what they're running. It's when the CTO asks questions like "can you run that on spot instances?" because he knows it will bring huge average savings. Revenue increases aren't a "culture" in the same way; desiring additional revenue is the default state of things and can rest as an unspoken assumption.