Amazon Web Services is a web platform that powers everything from Netflix to Slack to NASA. Launched in 2006 AWS is a suite of database, storage and hundreds of other services that allows anyone to scale and build an internet application without purchasing the physical hardware. As one of the pioneers of Cloud Computing Amazon Web Services has also turned into a cash machine for Amazon by generating billions of dollars in pure profit. This article features AWS CEO Andy Jassy as he talks about the early days of AWS and the debates and fears within Amazon about whether anyone would pay to use it, and why you should never be afraid of asking a dumb question.
“We believed that if we wanted to have a chance at having the leading infrastructure technology platform in this new medium, we had to be first to market. People weren’t expecting that to come from Amazon. I think most people, if it was going to come, expected it to come from old-guard, longer established technology companies.”
