Beyond Open Source

Adrian Cockcroft, Vice President, Cloud Architecture Strategy, Amazon Web Services

- Michael Low

What are you bringing to AWS from your past experiences at Netflix and Battery Ventures?

Before joining AWS in last October, I was with Netflix a little over three years ago, and spent most part of almost three years at Battery Ventures, a tech-focused investment firm where open source became table stakes and economically competitive. With open source, you can get great customer adoption for free, and then figure out a way to build a business model out of it. Getting this balance right is one of the big challenges, particularly in the enterprise IT space.

The experience I bring to AWS is a combination of what Netflix is doing, which is building a platform and going through the process of open sourcing it, plus the experience I gained from the VC (venture capital) world, from a wide range of startups to the challenges they have in monetizing open source.

We also brought in Zaheda Bhorat as AWS’ Head of Open Source Strategy, who brings with her 15 years of experience in the field. Between us, we covered many different aspects of open source problems that we’re trying to solve.

Tell us more about your role as VP of Cloud Architecture Strategy.