With the popularity of Amazon as a business, I thought I knew what to expect once we walked through the door. However, what I got was not the original “Amazon” company. We visited Amazon web services, a firm working under amazon that provides data services for companies of all sizes. The presentation was engaging and very technical, which at times was difficult to understand. One area of the presentation that stuck out at me was when our guides described the tech support side of the company. Specifically, an Amazon Web Services technician could be on the phone with a fortune 500 company one hour, and then the next hour be on the phone with a 17-year-old kid in his room trying to get a startup to work properly. The diversity of Amazon Web Services’ client base is incredible; however, it is entirely overshadowed by the number of clients they have. During the presentation, we were shown with 3-4 slides containing well over 100 logos ranging from Dunkin Donuts to Netflix to Air Bnb. The presenters mentioned how these were only a few of the brands that they were allowed to tell us about. Some of the clients include the New York, London, Paris, and Hong-Kong stock exchanges. It’s said that if Amazon ever collapse or goes down, 33% of the internet will go down with it.
The reason I found this statistic fascinating was due to the potential political implications of the situation. Amazon did not break the law to acquire the clients and size they now have. However, often times, governments do not like a single entity having so much power and influence. It will be interesting to see if governments take steps to break up Amazon due to the amount of control they have regarding data and capital.
