Well allow me to retort. I have done 2 unicorns in the last 10 years and i have 6 new projects going on. None of them would even have been possible without cloud, almost all are under 100$ a month on vercel.

Here's a new one i'd love feedback on https://github.com/webtimemachine/wtm2/

I think the same lack of discipline that causes costs to overrun in the cloud causes costs to overrun in owned hardware. The only real benefit is that you can depreciate the owned hardware for tax benefit but it won't really make owned hardware help you control costs necessarily. The costs will just surface elsewhere instead.

It’s kinda the same problem, isn’t it? If I had a million dollar budget last year and I don’t have one this year, I’ve lost status. Unless the company is flaming out and then lowering my budget is a good thing for a little bit, until it isn’t.

I’ve had maybe three bosses who gave me the recognition I felt I deserved for saving us huge amounts of time and money by chasing something down that other people couldn’t even picture in their heads.

And every single one of those went on to work for a company I absolutely despise and asked me to follow them. As you can guess I have some feelings about that.

I get kudo's for this work when the word comes down that we need to cut costs or else. That is the only time I'll attempt it. If that word hasn't been delivered then any attempt to manage cost in that way is usually met with resistance and communication about "Other priorities".

There are a few places I've worked where cost cutting was valued but they were few and far between really.