Some interesting tidbits I read:

* AWS grew 78% from t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶v̶i̶o̶u̶s̶ ̶q̶u̶a̶r̶t̶e̶r̶ the year-ago quarter!

* GE moving workload to AWS, downsizing from 34 data centers to 4.

I think you misread the AWS growth paragraph, it is 78% year over year:

"Amazon reported net AWS sales of $2.085 billion, up from $1.169 billion in the same quarter a year earlier. That’s a 78% jump in net sales for the company’s AWS business, which it started breaking out earlier this year. It’s even a big quarter-over-quarter jump: Amazon $1.82 billion in net sales for AWS in the previous quarter. It’s reporting $5.5 billion in AWS net sales for the first nine months of the year, compared to $3.2 billion in the first nine months of the year prior."

You got that first one wrong, the 78% figure was yearly growth. AWS grew roughly 14% quarter-over-quarter:

"Amazon reported net AWS sales of $2.085 billion, up from $1.169 billion in the same quarter a year earlier. That’s a 78% jump in net sales for the company’s AWS business, which it started breaking out earlier this year. It’s even a big quarter-over-quarter jump: Amazon $1.82 billion in net sales for AWS in the previous quarter."

AMZN stock has almost doubled since January this year... that's insane

Might actually be worth enduring the inhospitable work culture for returns of this magnitude on RSUs.

Why not just buy AMZN and not work there?

I quit a few months ago.

Sigh. :/

edit:

on the other hand with stock increases they won't give any raises. So guess it depends if you want a big chunk of money every so often or more money every payday.

The issue is the RSUs are super backloaded.

From what I know talking to AMZN engineers, they still vest over 4 years, but you do not get a big chunk of it until year 3.

Probably still worthwhile when the $200k initial grant turns out to be worth 2-3X more after 4 years.

edit: typo

They do 20% over the first 2 years then 80% over the last 2.

Turns into a pretty big win for them. They get to keep a lot of stock from people who quit after a couple years, plus they can justify not giving you raises after year 2 because hey you are making enough already (with stock they already allocated to give you).

$200k ? My recruiter has screwed me then.

Last I saw (a long time ago, stock was <$100/share), the grants were $50K/4years ($2.5k/$7.5k/$20k/$20k)

I think that's still the target.

Is it that bad?

Put money in on Monday so pretty pleased with this. I was hoping for $600. After market today trading $620-630.

nice to see them crush earnings for the past 2 quarters after all the super smart analysts were doubting if they could make any money for the year before that...