The thing is, it's not really hard. Quantum computing is hard. Managing IT infrastructure as a value-added component of the business that evolves continuously vs. a cost-center to be bought and forgot is actually not that hard. The only thing hard about that is culture shift.

It's all about leadership. The dearth of skilled leadership is the issue. I'd wager this is how some FAANG companies are managing this. They're hiring people that know what they're doing. One doesn't need to design and build their own servers and network hardware to do well at the scale of folks like Dropbox or Lyft.

Cloud adoption is all about making the issue someone else's problem, which is only kicking the can down the road. Eventually, every company that does a thing will realize that their survival is contingent upon becoming a software company that does that thing.

As for the OpEx vs. CapEx argument, that's a non-starter.

If you have $100m OpEx per annum, it'll cost you maybe a point or two to convert that to $300m CapEx.

But what if you had 8m per month?

Respectfully, having read your other comments: I'll answer that question if you demonstrate to me an understanding of the difference between $300M/3 years capex and $8M/month/3 years opex.

If you do that, though, my answer will be "right, so we're done here."

I'm mostly just having a laugh so I won't be able to explain the difference. If the money works in ways a lay man is familiar I'd expect I would be able to afford the necessary man power and equipment so far under 8m per month after equipment purchase that I don't really need to know the details of the finance opex/Capex difference. I really appreciate you taking the time to bring up your good points.

"If the money works in ways a lay man is familiar"

Considering how most layman are completely wrong in their understanding of finance, I'd say that isn't a good endorsement...

I think you're underestimating how much it costs to do what Lyft does. There's a list elsewhere in this thread.