Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and a shareholder of Amazon, recently issued a letter sharing insights into what can be expected from AWS in 2021. Jassy compared the current economic period to those of 2008-2009 and 2001, noting that each time the company had successfully managed to “re-evaluate” its operations and sub-divisions, with customer relationships as a constant.
Amazon is optimistic about its growth in 2021, having seen revenues increase from $245 billion pre-pandemic to an expected $434 billion in 2022. Jassy believes that the key to the company’s success lies in their strong customer relationships. He explained how AWS cloud customers can use the scalability and elasticity of the company’s services without burdensome investments and depreciating assets. Despite the pandemic, customer uptake of AWS’ services remains high, with teams focusing on helping customers weather the ongoing storm.
The company has also seen major successes through their in-house silicon production, with their Graviton, Inferentia and Trainium CPU processors now in their third, second and final generations respectively. Customers can also benefit from Amazon’s pre-existing foundations models (FMs) of generative AI training through EC2 instances. Finally, the company’s Kuiper low-Earth orbit satellite system is expected to launch prototype satellites later in 2021, while the commercial version of the technology will become available in 2024.
Amazon believes that a focus on customer relationships, scalability and elasticity, and in-house silicon production are integral to the company’s success. In the face of the economic changes presented by the pandemic, Andy Jassy and Amazon have hope that their strong customer relationships coupled with their advances in technology will aid them in becoming a “sustainable, long-lasting, growing company”. This vision has not been without cost: earlier this year, Amazon announced over 27,000 layoffs. Even so, their focus on customer relationships means that Amazon’s continued success is highly probable.
