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It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

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Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#31

Post by koheripbal »

partiallypro wrote: post #2

My take on this whole thing, is the Amazon basically wrote the entire scope...so they just thought they were going to win because only they would meet it (this was a bit of a scandal just a few months back.) They bid high, and then they lost. Now they are mad that their lobbying wasn't a 100% success, so they are suing. It's all so very Amazon.

Amazon has put a LOT of money into DC. From setting up an HQ2 in DC to Bezos personally purchasing the largest mansion in the city to host event for political power brokers.

It should be no surprise that he's pissed that that amount of investment isn't starting to pay dividends.

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#32

Post by alasdair_ »

sterlind wrote: post #12
partiallypro wrote: post #2

My take on this whole thing, is the Amazon basically wrote the entire scope...so they just thought they were going to win because only they would meet it (this was a bit of a scandal just a few months back.) They bid high, and then they lost. Now they are mad that their lobbying wasn't a 100% success, so they are suing. It's all so very Amazon.

I work for MS but don't know anything about the bidding process. I was a little surprised we won, but now it makes sense. I feel like even if they can't get the DoD to let them re-bid now that they have proprietary information on us and our bid, they'll tie us up in court as long as they can to keep us from successfully delivering. They want to maintain the head start they made with GovCloud as long as possible and k…

I agree, it’s terribly unfair when companies use their dominant market position to crowd out would-be entrants.

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#33

Post by partiallypro »

caseysoftware wrote: post #29
partiallypro wrote: post #2

My take on this whole thing, is the Amazon basically wrote the entire scope...so they just thought they were going to win because only they would meet it (this was a bit of a scandal just a few months back.) They bid high, and then they lost. Now they are mad that their lobbying wasn't a 100% success, so they are suing. It's all so very Amazon.

More precisely, it looks like Amazon hired the DOD guy who helped write the scope. Being involved in those pre-RFP discussions, understanding the reasoning, and secondary undocumented concerns would be immensely valuable.

And Bezos sits on the Pentagon defense innovation advisory board. Eric Schmidt is the chairman, but he's no longer with Google, and GCS is probably too young for the Pentagon for this sort of use case.

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#34

Post by mullingitover »

Command+F 'Trump' -> 0 results

They seem to be ignoring the massive elephant in the room, where there was political intrigue and a personal vendetta interfering in what's supposed to be an apolitical process[1].

> "I'm getting tremendous complaints about the contract with the Pentagon and with Amazon; they're saying it wasn't competitively bid," Trump told reporters on July 18. "I will be asking them to take a look at it very closely to see what's going on because I have had very few things where there's been such complaining."

The fact that DoD officials were gagged from providing truthful testimony should automatically result in the results being thrown out. They wouldn't be gagged if they were going to say something helpful to Microsoft.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2019/08/01/747374991/pentagon-pauses-10-...

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#35

Post by thaumasiotes »

roel_v wrote: post #20
thaumasiotes wrote: post #13

> there is a very specific issue before the court at the moment. It may seem arcane and procedural, but the back-and-forth arguments between Amazon and the government raise a key question of principle and fairness that should matter to us all. Namely, should a company—like Amazon—that bid high and lost, now get a do-over, especially now—as the IG’s report makes clear—Amazon received additional proprietary information…

Of course you can construct an argument for anything if you can just make up things. The fact here is that there is only one reality: your option 1. Those are the rules for any closed bid procurement processes. Who is going to bid for anything if they know they will be in a race to the bottom even after spending all their time on the initial bid?

People who expect to be able to turn a profit at their quoted price will bid. Just like everything else. Who's supposedly benefiting from these rules? Why would we be interested in following them?

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#36

Post by caseysoftware »

ceejayoz wrote: post #26
caseysoftware wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quote past the first paragraph of the story: > the IG said "we believe the evidence we received showed that the DoD personnel who evaluated proposals and made the source-selection awarding Microsoft the JEDI Cloud contract were not pressured about their decision on the award of the contract by any DoD leaders more senior to them, who may have communicated with the White House." As with most articles, the juicy, sal…

"The evidence we received" is fairly meaningless when coupled with "we weren't allowed to obtain the evidence we wanted ".

I've lived through an IG investigation. You generally only want to respond in writing so you give a correct and complete answer instead of misspeaking and having it used against you, your project, or agency later on.

It doesn't hold the legal consequences of screwing up an FBI interview but can be devastating professionally.

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#37

Post by thaumasiotes »

partiallypro wrote: post #21
thaumasiotes wrote: post #13

> there is a very specific issue before the court at the moment. It may seem arcane and procedural, but the back-and-forth arguments between Amazon and the government raise a key question of principle and fairness that should matter to us all. Namely, should a company—like Amazon—that bid high and lost, now get a do-over, especially now—as the IG’s report makes clear—Amazon received additional proprietary information…

Isn't the point though that Amazon knew about Microsoft's bid and other proprietary elements and STILL bid high (while Microsoft was blind to Amazon's?) They already had the advantage of information. #2 has already effectively happened.

> #2 has already effectively happened.

What? #2 is a process, not a point event.

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#38

Post by TomMckenny »

DoD officials are barred from answering questions about White House influence on the decision owing to its assertion of "presidential communications privilege"[1]. This is, quite simply, a confession.

Nothing is solved by believing that the administration is somehow different than the dozen or so near identical leaders in other countries: that somehow this one uniquely is not pressuring companies hostile to it (in spite of the fact it has already publicly done so[2][3]).

And while a deferential Amazon might be bad, it's really something you'd want to nip in the bud before Google or Facebook become too terrified of the white house.

[1]https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/pentagon-amazon-tru...

[2]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/07/06/w...

[3]https://www.wsj.com/articles/snag-in-media-merger-stirs-tens...

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#39

Post by GCSAQCMIYI »

koheripbal wrote: post #31
partiallypro wrote: post #2

My take on this whole thing, is the Amazon basically wrote the entire scope...so they just thought they were going to win because only they would meet it (this was a bit of a scandal just a few months back.) They bid high, and then they lost. Now they are mad that their lobbying wasn't a 100% success, so they are suing. It's all so very Amazon.

Amazon has put a LOT of money into DC. From setting up an HQ2 in DC to Bezos personally purchasing the largest mansion in the city to host event for political power brokers. It should be no surprise that he's pissed that that amount of investment isn't starting to pay dividends.

Not to mention the newspaper.

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#40

Post by arkitaip »

koheripbal wrote: post #31
partiallypro wrote: post #2

My take on this whole thing, is the Amazon basically wrote the entire scope...so they just thought they were going to win because only they would meet it (this was a bit of a scandal just a few months back.) They bid high, and then they lost. Now they are mad that their lobbying wasn't a 100% success, so they are suing. It's all so very Amazon.

Amazon has put a LOT of money into DC. From setting up an HQ2 in DC to Bezos personally purchasing the largest mansion in the city to host event for political power brokers. It should be no surprise that he's pissed that that amount of investment isn't starting to pay dividends.

He's like a mob boss who buys off politicians until he realizes they are useless because they are part of a system that wants to fight him.
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