OAKLAND, Calif. – When Jeff Barr, a prominent manager at Amazon’s cloud computing division and a great corporate blogger, celebrated his 60th birthday last year, Corey Quinn had a surprise for him: a music video showing Amazon’s business mocked.
“Jeff, can you write me a launch blog post,” sang a cartoonist Amazon manager to the tune of Billy Joel’s ‘Piano Man.’ “What we built is a mystery to me. But it’s big and customizable, and its console is a joke. But if it’s sent, I might become a director. ‘
After the release of the video, Mr. Quinn, who consults Amazon customers to help them reduce their computer bills in the cloud, is delighted with the adaptation of the technology.
“The best days start with me just knowing that my planned stunts will result in at least eight internal @awscloud meetings and a crisis response plan,” he wrote on Twitter. “Today is just such a day.”
The world of cloud computing is not known for humor or extravagant personalities. Mr. Quinn (38) is an exception: a hard-working and outspoken person who is part of a technical analyst, partly an internet troll and partly a watchdog. With a reverent style that mixes technical insight and sharp humor, he publishes a weekly newsletter with 21,000 subscribers, records four podcasts a week and makes YouTube videos full of witty jokes for cloud computing. He also maintains an extremely active Twitter feed.
Officially, Mr. Quinn calls himself a cloud economist, a name he made when he started consulting in 2016. He thought it was less depressing than a cloud accountant.
He rarely gives the opportunity to investigate, analyze, explain, mock and defend Amazon’s cloud unit – sometimes at the same time. He works with major Amazon clients such as The Washington Post, Ticketmaster and Epic Games, who seek his advice on contract negotiations or the best ways to reduce cloud computing costs.
His consulting firm, Duckbill Group, is based in San Francisco and employs 11 people and only works with Amazon Web Services customers, making his comments even more relevant to Amazon. It also gives him more room to be the scourge of the company.
“It’s a crazy relationship. When he talks, people listen there, ”says Ana Visneski, a former Amazon employee who regularly talks to Mr. Quinn was involved in the process of releasing new products. “Although some people do not care about snoring.”
Amazon Web Services, better known as AWS, is Amazon’s most profitable business, but it does not attract the same attention as the company’s retail business, although its impact may be greater. The computers in Amazon’s data centers provide large parts of the Internet, including Netflix and Disney +, while large and small businesses rely on AWS infrastructure to stay digitally connected.
“Everyone wants to talk about the other aspects of the business that are easier to turn heads,” he said. Quinn said, ‘but if we look at Amazon over the next ten years, it’s pretty clear that AWS is going to be the defining part of that narrative. ”
The growth of Amazon’s cloud business has created opportunities for Quinn to build a dedicated following. At the 2019 AWS conference in Las Vegas, several dozen attendees approached him for selfies.
Amazon did not want to comment on this article, and said Mr. Barr not made available for comment. In response to a description of Mr. Quinn as a funny person in an industry without humor, an Amazon spokesperson responded with a link to a light video for an AWS product launch and a smiley emoji.
Mr. Quinn followed a turning path to become a more influential on the cloud. In 2003, he left the University of Maine, where he studied computer science. He jumped from one dead end career to another before working for technology consulting companies and businesses. In 2015, he was working at a financial technology company when the investment company BlackRock acquired it. He left work a year later to start his own consulting business.
“I’m absolutely awful as an employee,” he said. ‘I have sharp elbows. I get bored easily and drift into other people’s jobs. ”
After years of trying to make sense of his company’s AWS account, a confusing amount of costs for services and the storage and transfer of data that can extend to more than 100 pages for heavy users, he decided that other businesses can use his expertise.
“I can describe what I do in six words: I’re repairing the horrible AWS account,” he said.
He was also betting that more companies would start using AWS and use it more frequently. He was right. Nowadays, the computer bill counts as the third largest expense for many internet software companies, leaving only pay and office space.
To promote his consulting firm, which later renamed the Duckbill Group with a fierce platypus as a mascot, Mr. Quinn launched his 2017 newsletter, “Last Week in AWS,” in 2017.
In 2018, he almost accepted a position in the AWS billing team, but the company demands that he sign a broad unconditional clause to prevent him from going to work for any Amazon competitor. In a blog post, accompanied by a photo of a man with both middle fingers, Mr. Quinn “insults” such clauses, saying the assurance that the company will not apply them is untrue.
The issue came up again last year when Amazon sued Brian Hall, a former vice president of marketing for AWS, claiming he was violating the non-compete clause when he joined Google in a similar role.
‘What’s the secret sauce he’s going to take with him? Release a bunch of stuff with terrible names, and then market it incredibly badly to infrastructure engineers? ‘ Mr. Quinn wrote at the time. Amazon agreed to settle the lawsuit a month later.
Hall said Quinn was a “very helpful lawyer” whose opinion at Amazon was important.
‘Someone like Corey helped present AWS to customers, sometimes in ways the business liked and sometimes in ways the business did not like. It made him someone to listen to, ‘said Mr. Hall said.
Like many industry analysts, Mr. Quinn also pays by the companies he criticizes. AWS sponsored his newsletter and paid for advice, but Mr. Quinn said Amazon has never tried to curb what he said. Google said it also paid him for insight.
Uninspired AWS product names are a regular target for Mr. Quinn. After Amazon released a spate of new services during a carefully planned main launch at a developer conference in December, Mr. Quinn offered his unfiltered take.
‘Look at these awful service names. “Look at their awfulness,” he said. He called up a slide with the worst offenders: Lookout for Equipment; Trainium; Glue Elastic Views; SageMaker Data Wrangler; and Amazon Outposts, the smaller ones.
Mr. Quinn recently branched out with another AWS parody music video. Instead of a birthday message for an executive, he roasted Amazon’s seemingly endless use of more computing power.
‘Do not stop releasing’, sings a sunglasses-wearing duckling to the beat of Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believin’. “‘Data centers are increasing and hiding somewhere in your city. Do not stop releasing.”
Mr. Quinn said that companies with trillion-dollar market valuations were an honest game for his needles, but that he avoided jokes at the expense of individual employees or managers. When he watched the parody video of mr. Barr makes, he checked a person near the Amazon CEO to make sure he was not crossing any lines.
Quinn said he made an exception for Larry Ellison, a co-founder of Oracle, because “no one likes him.”
An Oracle spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. Ellison’s popularity does not.