Amazon is great at a lot of things, but AI and Machine Learning aren't it. From what I saw when I worked there, they don't have the talent to produce their own models (which is, I think, what we all expected to see), but the surprising thing is that they haven't partnered yet.
> From what I saw when I worked there, they don't have the talent to produce their own models (which is, I think, what we all expected to see)
The talent is repeatedly run off by managers and executives who don't know how to manage talent. At this point, I'm convinced it's actually part of the Amazon culture to not excel at AI/ML. Mediocre, or else. It's so weird (and abusive) to be around. 10/10 not a rewarding place to work.
Personally I have always felt that AWS has too much of "manager culture" or something. But them missing AI train was crazy though.
I am personally more surprised that Microsoft did not miss that train with AI and now are pretty aggressive with integration of AI everywhere. Though I wonder if Microsoft would not have missed mobile and search if Nadella was CEO after Gates. Satya is ruthless. Even despite not being first in cloud, they still are able to compete with AWS.
It is happening all over industry. Those that can't adapt will be eaten by AI.
And AI is moving way too fast and the execs who took a wait and see approach are now in panic mode. AI tooling should be a straight forward investment regardless of outcome.
> the surprising thing is that they haven't partnered yet.
Amazon has a partnership with and investment in Anthropic, but I don't consider Anthropic to much good for various technical reasons not having to do with their model. Essentially, Anthropic is user-hostile in many ways. Also, Anthropic keeps spamming me daily with pointless legal changes, sneakingly adding marketing materials into their legal emails.
