The Emperor’s New Clouds
Solutions offered by major cloud providers aren't always a good fit for startups, despite the preconceived ideas that became norm in the low-interest/easy-VC era. What's ideal for large profitable organizations might not be the best for small companies. Doing as Netflix does won't make you Netflix. A fashion victim approach to technology insources significant risk related to complexity, lock-in and cost.
the Emperor or, in Spanish, El Cloudillo, really wants to use the cloud in his startup Empire. The initial reason was that the cloud seemed to be the new black. Then it was its infinite scalability, which matched the forecast but yet to be seen expansion of the Empire. Then it was the fact that every other emperor seemed to be using it, even if their empires weren't comparable in size. The Emperor lacks granular knowledge to distinguish between different cloud offers - he can’t tell databases from filesystems - but trusts his feelings more than the well documented opinions of DHH or Andreesen Horowitz.
The Emperor operates on the powerpoint layer of things, he loves fashion and cares to be regarded as innovative. He is often advised by a number of in-house Microservants who convince him that his cloud strategy is sound. The Empire investors are meanwhile paying the bill.
