The subjective opinion was about "following" when Amazon has had relational database services for years, and the latest engine they say was under development for 3 years, not exactly something in response to goog.

Irrespective of that you shouldn't be posting as joe public when in fact you are a Google employee playing cheerleader for Google products on threads about your competitors products. Keep it classy.

We're not talking about a relational database, we're talking about a mysql-wire-compatible database. Google BigQuery has been around for a while too.

Adding "disclaimer: googler" to every post I make on HN seems pretty obnoxious to both me and anyone reading. I just didn't feel that "neat" + a fact qualified. Clearly opinions on that differ, and I'll probably just post less in the future.

It's only necessary in cases where there is an obvious conflict of interest.

That's fair. It's certainly not my intention to astroturf.