Well, yeah. The whole idea that you can somehow "save" on ops by doing X is just accruing technical debt, moving the point at which you will need ops into the future and also thus making it far more expensive when that time comes. It will be a fire that maybe only expensive outside (ops) consultants can put out. Imagine that: A fire that no one at the startup can put out. That's a lottery I don't want to play. If that doesn't scare people out of this kind of "we don't need ops anymore!" hooey, I feel like they deserve whatever comes their way down the line.