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> They also don’t have solid recognized leaders or talent in the space and it shows. AWS was built by exceptional technical leaders like James Hamilton, Werner
by belter 1y ago
> They also don’t have solid recognized leaders or talent in the space and it shows.
AWS was built by exceptional technical leaders like James Hamilton, Werner Vogels, and Tim Bray and I would include Bezos also, who people seem to forget has a Computer Science degree. But the company has consistently underpaid developers, while relying heavily on H-1B workers, and treating technical talent as poorly as Amazon treats delivery drivers.
When skilled engineers can get better opportunities elsewhere, they leave. AWS below market compensation, has driven away the technical expertise needed for innovation.
AWS has shifted from technical leadership to MBA driven management, and lately aggressively hiring senior middle management from Oracle. The combination of technical talent exodus, cultural deterioration and MBA style management made AWS poorly positioned for the AI era, where technical excellence and innovation speed are everything.
During major technological shifts like AI, you need a engineering first culture and inhouse technical skills. AWS has neither.
- belter 1y agoSome down votes on this one, maybe from the Amazon crew, that it's a fact that by far they have the best Cloud and also: - Amazon is consistently the top user of the H-1B visa program: "Which companies secured the most H-1B visas in 2024?" - https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/which-companies-secured-the-most-h-1b-visas-in-2024-heres-a-list-101743134698060.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/which-comp... - They pay below market rate so they can't have the same hiring power: "AWS Compensation Explained" - https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/aws-compensation-explained/ https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/aws-compensation-explaine... "The AWS goal is to pay you roughly 50% to 65% of what “the market” will pay you, based upon a variety of sources plus some work with Excel." - And everybody has seen their disaster execution on AI for the last four years. "Amazon CEO Andy Jassy unleashed a meticulous 8-minute defense of AWS’ standing in the AI arms race amid investor stock freakout" - https://fortune.com/2025/07/31/amazon-aws-ai-andy-jassy-earnings-defense/ https://fortune.com/2025/07/31/amazon-aws-ai-andy-jassy-earn...