The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 12 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Shadbolt: One-million-qubit quantum computer will outperform all global conventional compute
“A single million qubit quantum computer would outperform The net total of conventional computing on the entire planet. So you take all of the supercomputers on the planet, you take every AWS system, every Azure system, you add them all together, and we trash t…”
Liang: SambaNova will not build proprietary cloud to compete with AWS
“Many of the chip companies have chosen to go build their own cloud. They compete with the AWSs of the world. We have chosen not to do that. What we decided that, you know, we want to do is focus our energy on creating technology that we can ship.”
Tandon: AWS could never have succeeded through product-led growth alone
“There's no version of the world where AWS could have been a PLG cell. It needed to, it really needed that enterprise motion where Theresa and Jassy and Garmin and the team at the top came in and sat down with these government officials And pitch them on the vi…”
Cloud giants must host foundation models even if they become low-margin commodities
“Microsoft doesn't care if the margins and foundation models are 80% or 30%. They can't lose that layer, right? Even if it's a commodity, it needs to be a commodity on Azure. Same thing with Amazon. Needs to be a commodity on AWS.”
Four-person AWS team beat IBM and Microsoft for landmark CIA contract
“We, I had a team of four people, that was it, and we did one outside contractor that helped us, And other teams, IBM, Microsoft, others that bidded, had these huge teams bidding this thing, and they kept saying, you guys can't win it.”
Early AWS account executives only earned commissions after customers consumed cloud services
“They had to have a spirit of more consultative account management and sales. They had to delight the customer. They had to love that customer's Mission and had to go in because they wouldn't get anything on top of their salary until the customer started using …”
Teresa Carlson grew AWS public sector revenue to $10B in ten years
“We got started, my business, we build it from about zero to ten billion in the federal side or the government side globally in 10 years, so that went really fast.”
NASA moved Mars rover data to AWS after mission outlasted initial forecasts
“The Mars rover is a really good one. NASA came to us and said, look, we, there's a Mars rover up here, and we thought it would only rove for four months. It's still roving, like, eight months later, and they're like, it's using all our data and storage up, or,…”
AWS public sector started with two people and zero revenue in 2010
“When we started, we really literally had to start from scratch. I had two people, no revenue. There was no way for government to even buy cloud. There was no contracting mechanism. So I would say we really did create the industry for cloud computing at AWS for…”
Carlson: Amazon retail operated on 1.2% to 1.5% margins circa 2010
“And in retail, the margins are very lean. You know, I think somewhere, I don't know what it is today, but back then, like, 1.2 to 1.5% You don't have a lot of margins”
AWS scaled from 23 annual launches to 2,800 new services and features
“In cloud computing, we were launching so many services that one, we had to keep all our people fresh and trained because we went from like the first year I was there launching 23 new services to last year, I want to say it was like 2800 new services and featur…”
Agrawal: Cloud Computing Generates $400B in Apps but Only $50B in Semis
“In the cloud super cycle, you know, you have about. Four hundred billion dollars of revenue that is being earned by the applications. Let's call it the layer one. You've got about two hundred billion spent on infrastructure. This is AWS and GCP and Azure, et c…”