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The whole business model is around “Optimization through custom tools”. We can go with your idea, sure: a few months in, an Account Manager from the cloud prov

The whole business model is around “Optimization through custom tools”. We can go with your idea, sure: a few months in, an Account Manager from the cloud provider shows up and says your bill could be reduced by 50% if you just adopt some changes, using their custom, super optimized tools (“minor changes” will be the mantra). And now you have your own company looking back to you on how can they get those savings, people who don’t understand what a VM is and cannot differentiate salesforce from an elastic container, as everything is “cloud”, but heard “50% off”.

walrus01 5mo ago
Preventing this from happening requires a clued-in CTO and equivalent senior level leadership who can defend against such 'attack' methods and knows the difference between, for instance, paying a monthly recurring cost to host a Linux/KVM virtual machine and paying for some totally 'cloud' SaAs. Further, it needs people in decision making roles who understand and value the strategic differences between having an infrastructure concept that is trapped in one provider's proprietary software tooling ecosystem (aws, azure, etc), vs things built on open standards that are portable.
- palmotea 5mo ago
  > Preventing this from happening requires a clued-in CTO and equivalent senior level leadership who can defend against such 'attack' methods and knows the difference between, for instance, paying a monthly recurring cost to host a Linux/KVM virtual machine and paying for some totally 'cloud' SaAs. And the reality is eventually you'll get a clueless one, and everything will revert to the mean. And the mean is heavily influenced by marketing propaganda.
  - Muromec 5mo ago
    This is true, but making money in any business is constantly fighting against the entropy and regression to the mean. Also, maybe, just maybe it's an example of relative competitive advantage and paying more for the AWS is the right call.
- eddythompson80 5mo ago
  > Preventing this from happening requires a clued-in CTO and equivalent senior level leadership Most CTOs (and increasingly M2s and M3s) I've met are what I call "box architects". You know the ones who love drawing boxes, moving one box inside another box, drawing a line between 2 boxes or changing a unidirectional arrow into a bidirectional one, then declaring the hard part is done and now we need any random engineer to implement that or "Is there an AWS service that does that? I just don't see the value in us doing it in house". A "super optimized tools" is just a box that you swap for another box and the "minor changes" will be just a couple of arrows than need to change or another box to swap for another box. You get them to feel good about doing architect stuff plus the 10x reduction in the bill. They can always replace that box with another box later after all.
  - kriberg 5mo ago
    We call those people PowerPoint architects. They haven't coded or built anything for so long, if ever, that they wouldn't even how to, by this point. The only tool they know is PowerPoint and their slides have more boxes with words than any big box store
RobotToaster 5mo ago
Do people actually take claims like that from glorified salesmen seriously? If a car salesman told me I could save 50% of my fuel bill from driving their special car a certain way I'd laugh at them.
- piperswe 5mo ago
  They're probably not wrong, if they're talking about hypermiling a Prius
- walrus01 5mo ago
  > Do people actually take claims like that from glorified salesmen seriously? People who know the tech, no Non-technical middle management types, yes. It produces revenue when done aggressively enough, google "solarwinds sales people" for many anecdotal examples of extreme persistence. Not that I agree with it.
- SpicyLemonZest 5mo ago
  You'd be wrong to laugh at them, because different cars of the same general size can indeed vary 50% or more in fuel efficiency. It's fair to be skeptical of promises of huge savings, and question why your counterparty would benefit from giving you those savings, but sometimes there's a good reason.
  - hermanzegerman 5mo ago
    Name one example of a 2026 car with the same size, fuel type and class where the difference in mileage is >=50% I have a very hard time believing this, especially with fuel economy and emission regulations
    - SpicyLemonZest 5mo ago
      The 2026 Toyota Corolla GR has 22mpg combined, and the normal 2026 Corolla has 35mpg with gas or 50mpg with a hybrid powertrain. It is true that fuel economy regulations make it much less practical to deliver gas guzzlers out of pure laziness. (As you may know, the Corolla GR is by far the most expensive of these options, because it's designed to achieve horsepower over mileage.)

walrus01 5mo ago

Preventing this from happening requires a clued-in CTO and equivalent senior level leadership who can defend against such 'attack' methods and knows the difference between, for instance, paying a monthly recurring cost to host a Linux/KVM virtual machine and paying for some totally 'cloud' SaAs. Further, it needs people in decision making roles who understand and value the strategic differences between having an infrastructure concept that is trapped in one provider's proprietary software tooling ecosystem (aws, azure, etc), vs things built on open standards that are portable.

palmotea 5mo ago
> Preventing this from happening requires a clued-in CTO and equivalent senior level leadership who can defend against such 'attack' methods and knows the difference between, for instance, paying a monthly recurring cost to host a Linux/KVM virtual machine and paying for some totally 'cloud' SaAs. And the reality is eventually you'll get a clueless one, and everything will revert to the mean. And the mean is heavily influenced by marketing propaganda.
- Muromec 5mo ago
  This is true, but making money in any business is constantly fighting against the entropy and regression to the mean. Also, maybe, just maybe it's an example of relative competitive advantage and paying more for the AWS is the right call.
eddythompson80 5mo ago
> Preventing this from happening requires a clued-in CTO and equivalent senior level leadership Most CTOs (and increasingly M2s and M3s) I've met are what I call "box architects". You know the ones who love drawing boxes, moving one box inside another box, drawing a line between 2 boxes or changing a unidirectional arrow into a bidirectional one, then declaring the hard part is done and now we need any random engineer to implement that or "Is there an AWS service that does that? I just don't see the value in us doing it in house". A "super optimized tools" is just a box that you swap for another box and the "minor changes" will be just a couple of arrows than need to change or another box to swap for another box. You get them to feel good about doing architect stuff plus the 10x reduction in the bill. They can always replace that box with another box later after all.
- kriberg 5mo ago
  We call those people PowerPoint architects. They haven't coded or built anything for so long, if ever, that they wouldn't even how to, by this point. The only tool they know is PowerPoint and their slides have more boxes with words than any big box store

RobotToaster 5mo ago

Do people actually take claims like that from glorified salesmen seriously? If a car salesman told me I could save 50% of my fuel bill from driving their special car a certain way I'd laugh at them.

piperswe 5mo ago
They're probably not wrong, if they're talking about hypermiling a Prius
walrus01 5mo ago
> Do people actually take claims like that from glorified salesmen seriously? People who know the tech, no Non-technical middle management types, yes. It produces revenue when done aggressively enough, google "solarwinds sales people" for many anecdotal examples of extreme persistence. Not that I agree with it.
SpicyLemonZest 5mo ago
You'd be wrong to laugh at them, because different cars of the same general size can indeed vary 50% or more in fuel efficiency. It's fair to be skeptical of promises of huge savings, and question why your counterparty would benefit from giving you those savings, but sometimes there's a good reason.
- hermanzegerman 5mo ago
  Name one example of a 2026 car with the same size, fuel type and class where the difference in mileage is >=50% I have a very hard time believing this, especially with fuel economy and emission regulations
  - SpicyLemonZest 5mo ago
    The 2026 Toyota Corolla GR has 22mpg combined, and the normal 2026 Corolla has 35mpg with gas or 50mpg with a hybrid powertrain. It is true that fuel economy regulations make it much less practical to deliver gas guzzlers out of pure laziness. (As you may know, the Corolla GR is by far the most expensive of these options, because it's designed to achieve horsepower over mileage.)