AWS CEO to Step Down

https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/leadership-update-aws-adam-selipsky-matt-garman

by jmsflknr • 2 years ago

65 31 2 years ago

aboutamazon.com

sudhirj• 2 years ago

Matt says there will naturally be changes, which is usually CEO-speak for layoffs.

I don't think anyone is happy that AWS is missing the bus on AI.

andremedeiros• 2 years ago

Amazon is great at a lot of things, but AI and Machine Learning aren't it. From what I saw when I worked there, they don't have the talent to produce their own models (which is, I think, what we all expected to see), but the surprising thing is that they haven't partnered yet.

OutOfHere• 2 years ago

the surprising thing is that they haven't partnered yet.

Amazon has a partnership with and investment in Anthropic, but I don't consider Anthropic to much good for various technical reasons not having to do with their model. Essentially, Anthropic is user-hostile in many ways. Also, Anthropic keeps spamming me daily with pointless legal changes, sneakingly adding marketing materials into their legal emails.

brevitea• 2 years ago

From what I saw when I worked there, they don't have the talent to produce their own models (which is, I think, what we all expected to see)

The talent is repeatedly run off by managers and executives who don't know how to manage talent. At this point, I'm convinced it's actually part of the Amazon culture to not excel at AI/ML. Mediocre, or else. It's so weird (and abusive) to be around. 10/10 not a rewarding place to work.

giantg2• 2 years ago

Are they missing the bus on AI?

Hasn't Meta committed to becoming an AI leader and releasing their models for free? Users will need to run those models somewhere.

zoover20202• 2 years ago

They were later to the game but with Claude (anthropic) it does seem they were able to catch IP. I use Claude every day and prefer it over OpenAI's model

belter5• 2 years ago

All these Sales people are extremely dangerous for AWS.

Adam Selipsky -> Was an Harvard MBA

Andy Jassy -> Joined as Marketing manager as Harvard MBA

Matt Garman -> Was first product manager of EC2 but also a business MBA

Jeff Bezos for all his slightly goofy style, graduated from Princeton with degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In the meanwhile people like James Hamilton, Werner Vogels, or others that could look like their heirs are very, very invisible.

My prediction is that Jeff Bezos will be back within 2 to 3 years if not sooner.

amzn-throw• 2 years ago

Andy Jassy was the first product manager on AWS, and while there is lore debates whether he "came up" with the idea of AWS (probably not), he's been on it from the beginning and through every single product.

I don't know much about Selipsky or Garman, but Jassy absolutely was/is technical enough to get to AWS to where it was today (or know when not to get in the way of those more technical than him).

Watch any of his interviews from before he was Amazon CEO. The man knew his shit.

awill• 2 years ago

Is this a joke? James and Werner are both in IC roles. You can't go from IC to managing tens of thousands of people.

znpy2• 2 years ago

Sundar Pichai is an mba graduate as well.

I wonder when we can start drawing the conclusions we already have in our minds.

znpy2• 2 years ago

My prediction is that Jeff Bezos will be back within 2 to 3 years if not sooner.

Who knows? We’ve all been hoping to see Sergey Brinn and Larry Page to come back to google for like ten years now?

I’m not sure I would hold my breath

tadeegan• 2 years ago

Great to read these two C levels jerking each other off. Amazon culture makes me want to puke

jameshart• 2 years ago

The autoscaling group will automatically schedule a new CEO to replace this one. No action is required on your part.

jimt1234• 2 years ago

ICE: Insufficient CEO Error

hughesjj3• 2 years ago

Luckily Amazon keeps a few reserved instances in at least three availability zones for spares.

flakiness2• 2 years ago

Wasn't aware that both old and new execs have Sales / Marketing background vs. Product / Engineering.

This is a stereotype bad signal but AWS has demonstrated otherwise (besides missing the AI boat, whose endgame is not clear yet.)

captainoats• 2 years ago

Garman was one of the first PMs at AWS. He was sent over to lead Sales/Marketing relatively recently to get demand side experience presumably in preparation to take over as CEO.

flakiness2• 2 years ago

Wasn't aware of that either. Thanks for the tip!

gumby• 2 years ago

John Chambers at Cisco was a notable exception.

But he was notable not just for the company performance but because he was an exception.

flybarrel• 2 years ago

Not sure what you are talking about. Garman was in product since joined AWS till 2020, then to Sales / marketing.

adrianco• 2 years ago

Not a big surprise. Garman has been working up to this for a while. It will be interesting to see how the VPs reshuffle and whether anyone else who thought they might get the CEO job leaves in a huff…

hughesjj3• 2 years ago

I still miss cbell

ilrwbwrkhv• 2 years ago

All sales guys running a technical division. End in sight?

AWS CEO to Step Down

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