Re:Uber lays off 435 people
by dmix on Tuesday September 10, 2019 @07:44PM
(#20935114)
What does AWS have to do with an internal chat application? Is Uber going to roll out another Slack clone because they thought of something marginally better?
This where understanding business matters. AWS makes sense as a business and it benefits mostly from economies of scale which is something unique that a massive company like Amazon can provide the service which few other companies could.
NIH stuff is also rarely externalized outside of the business. Even as open source. Which as the OP pointed out needs proper investment of human capital. Not some side project of a bored engineer or two.
Most innovation happens outside of mega companies by small teams for a good reason. Even the Skunkworks type approach is only useful for certain types of work like Googles X projects. Some B2B SaaS programs roll out of parent organiations but typically they are started by teams who quit the bigger company to solve the problem they had.
This where understanding business matters. AWS makes sense as a business and it benefits mostly from economies of scale which is something unique that a massive company like Amazon can provide the service which few other companies could.
NIH stuff is also rarely externalized outside of the business. Even as open source. Which as the OP pointed out needs proper investment of human capital. Not some side project of a bored engineer or two.
Most innovation happens outside of mega companies by small teams for a good reason. Even the Skunkworks type approach is only useful for certain types of work like Googles X projects. Some B2B SaaS programs roll out of parent organiations but typically they are started by teams who quit the bigger company to solve the problem they had.