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Amazon Will Spend Nearly a Year of AWS Revenue on AI Investments

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Re: Amazon Will Spend Nearly a Year of AWS Revenue on AI Investments

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the BigTech companies are forcing RTO. Hybrid work is just as bad RTO. Either way I can’t make an above local market wage and live in a low cost of living area. Anytime any company reaches out to me and if I ask is it fully remote and they say “no” the conversation ends. I almost ended my initial conversation with AWS in 2020 when they reached out to me about an SDE position that would require an eventual relo…

Hybrid work is just as bad if you live well outside of a commuting distance. If you live within a commuting distance, it is somewhat acceptable if it's about two days a week with a decent salary. Good remote jobs are very difficult to get as they are very competitive, so hybrid jobs fill that void for those who can commute. 5x/wk RTO is nothing but a means of growth control and cheap layoffs.

That’s very true. When I was looking for my jobs in 2023 and again last year, it’s a shit show out there trying to find remote software development jobs if even all you are looking for are regularly old enterprise CRUD jobs. That was my “Plan B” both times.

I was lucky that even before COVID around 2017 my goal was to work in strategic cloud consulting focusing on app development (ie not staff aug) because that was the only way I could see making above local market wages without having to commute and even back then most of those jobs were remote with travel.

But then again, if you don’t have to worry about moving somewhere with a “good school system” because you have kids, why not move somewhere closer to the job?

Re: Amazon Will Spend Nearly a Year of AWS Revenue on AI Investments

#52
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard arguments that you should buy NVDA as a hedge for losing your job to AI. Not sure what to make of it.

If AI actually starts replacing jobs, society is going to collapse/restructure to the point that risk management no longer applies.

> If AI actually starts replacing jobs, society is going to collapse/restructure to the point that risk management no longer applies.

Once more, with feeling: automation has continued to replace jobs. That's why you aren't currently toiling in a field to eke out a meagre subsistence living. If AI starts to replace jobs (a statement made true if a single job is replaced by AI) then likely the good or service that fronts that job will become slightly cheaper, or the same.

Re: Amazon Will Spend Nearly a Year of AWS Revenue on AI Investments

#53
To everyone going for the shovel metaphor: Samuel Brannan cornered the entire shovel supply of San Francisco before running down the street shouting "Gold! Gold on the American River!". He'd have gone broke if he had just done a big capex to offer Shovels as a Service. He still died without enough money to pay for his own funeral.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Brannan

Re: Amazon Will Spend Nearly a Year of AWS Revenue on AI Investments

#54
post #22
post #6

This seems like a fine decision by Amazon? If there is a ton of demand for shovels it seems fine to make more shovel factories?

There is a redflag here. Their CapEx is growing faster than revenue. And there is no apparent direct correlation between AWS growth, percentage wise, and CapEx surge...Using CapEx makes profits look higher today...

What’s the alternative? Not have the capacity when needed?

Re: Amazon Will Spend Nearly a Year of AWS Revenue on AI Investments

#55

I left AWS Professional Services in 2023. Being in ProServe, I interacted with a lot of different service teams (teams that work on various AWS services) and I got a first hand view of their messaging and strategy. Internally, Amazon/AWS has always been a shitty company for employees. But they always were somewhat innovative and long term focused. I saw things going down hill by the end of 2022. They are definitely a…

I’ve heard most of the AWS services that are actually profitable are the old ones, and that all the new ones barely make money. Is that true?

Re: Amazon Will Spend Nearly a Year of AWS Revenue on AI Investments

#56
post #22
post #6

This seems like a fine decision by Amazon? If there is a ton of demand for shovels it seems fine to make more shovel factories?

There is a redflag here. Their CapEx is growing faster than revenue. And there is no apparent direct correlation between AWS growth, percentage wise, and CapEx surge...Using CapEx makes profits look higher today...

If this is a good decision or not all depends on what the ROI ends up being.

Re: Amazon Will Spend Nearly a Year of AWS Revenue on AI Investments

#57
post #2

Financially liquid companies locked into feeding AWS (with their 50%-ish profit margin) should buy Nvidia/TSMC/ASML/(AMD) stock to get some of their money back? Totally not a bubble.

AWS has a lot lower margins that most enterprise IT companies.

Re: Amazon Will Spend Nearly a Year of AWS Revenue on AI Investments

#58
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If AI actually starts replacing jobs, society is going to collapse/restructure to the point that risk management no longer applies.

> If AI actually starts replacing jobs, society is going to collapse/restructure to the point that risk management no longer applies. Once more, with feeling: automation has continued to replace jobs. That's why you aren't currently toiling in a field to eke out a meagre subsistence living. If AI starts to replace jobs (a statement made true if a single job is replaced by AI) then likely the good or service that fron…

What if AI can replace 100% of jobs that don't require manual labor?

Re: Amazon Will Spend Nearly a Year of AWS Revenue on AI Investments

#59
post #22
post #6

This seems like a fine decision by Amazon? If there is a ton of demand for shovels it seems fine to make more shovel factories?

There is a redflag here. Their CapEx is growing faster than revenue. And there is no apparent direct correlation between AWS growth, percentage wise, and CapEx surge...Using CapEx makes profits look higher today...

They are paying an opportunity cost to have access to future growth.

Re: Amazon Will Spend Nearly a Year of AWS Revenue on AI Investments

#60
post #22
post #6

This seems like a fine decision by Amazon? If there is a ton of demand for shovels it seems fine to make more shovel factories?

There is a redflag here. Their CapEx is growing faster than revenue. And there is no apparent direct correlation between AWS growth, percentage wise, and CapEx surge...Using CapEx makes profits look higher today...

Did we read a different article? It seems like the claim is that it pays for itself in under 2 years.

> For AI servers and the datacenters that wrap around them, as we have shown here, for every $1 you spend for an AI cluster and its datacenter (including its power and cooling), you get 87.8 cents back every year that you rent that AI cluster out to customers, assuming a reasonable mix of on-demand and reserved instance hours and a $9.40 per GPU-hour rate. In 410 days, you get your bait back on the entire AI datacenter investment if you rent all the GPUs out. The model we created (riffing on an Nvidia model) shows that for the three years after that, the 87.8 cents per year goes right into your pocket.

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