Three years after returning to Amazon Web Services to lead the cloud giant through one of the most challenging and prosperous periods in its history, Adam Selipsky fielded questions this week about his tenure as AWS CEO, the state of competition in the cloud, and what’s next for himself and the company.
In an interview with GeekWire at Amazon’s re:Invent building in Seattle, in his final days as the tech giant’s top cloud executive, Selipsky took issue with the popular narrative that AWS under his leadership was caught off-guard by the rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence.
“I think that story has much more sizzle and will likely generate more clicks than looking back at what actually happened in the history of generative AI,” Selipsky said, referring generally to what he characterized as the misperception that Amazon has been behind in the generative AI boom.
In one recent story about the AWS leadership transition, CNBC quoted D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria saying that AWS was “caught flat-footed” by generative AI, suggesting that Selipsky’s exit was part of “a price to pay.”
The Information reported last year on an earlier delay in the AWS Bedrock AI platform, and missed AI investments.
Demand for generative AI has emerged as one of the most promising areas of growth for major cloud providers, as businesses increasingly seek to train, deploy and run advanced AI models as part of their tech infrastructure.
But as Selipsky pointed out, Amazon and other companies have been deeply immersed in AI and machine learning for many years. That goes back to long before OpenAI released ChatGPT in late 2022, sparking the generative AI boom.
“I think our differentiated focus on security, on operational excellence, on taking the long-term view with customers, continues to set us apart,” Selipsky said this week. “And I think if we do our jobs, and we listen to customers carefully and innovate, that generative AI will be one of the biggest opportunities that AWS has ever seen.”
While cautioning that AWS still needs to earn its success in this new era of the cloud — it’s “not our birthright,” as he put it — Selipsky said the company’s work with customers over many years to bring their data into the cloud puts AWS in a position of unique strength. He said this “enables our customers to move really quickly and effectively with generative AI in a way that I don’t think any other competitor can easily duplicate.”
If the company keeps innovating and executing as it has been, he said, it has “a great chance to be just as much of a leader in generative AI as we’ve been in the cloud space for all of these years.”
AWS momentum and milestones
Throughout the interview, when pressed on issues related to AI, competition with rivals such as Microsoft and Google, and his impending departure, Selipsky offered a historical perspective befitting someone who was there in the early days.
“There are always new developments,” Selipsky said. “First, there was big data, and then there was IoT, and then mobile, and edge computing, and now there’s generative AI, which for sure is a transformative set of technologies that will have far-reaching consequences.”
Selipsky joined AWS in 2005, a year before it started generating revenue with the launch of its first production service, Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service). He worked steps away from Andy Jassy — the longtime cloud chief who succeeded Jeff Bezos as Amazon CEO — for more than a decade before leaving to lead Tableau Software.
At that point, in 2016, the annual revenue run rate for AWS was $13 billion. When Selipsky rejoined AWS as its CEO in early 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, the run rate was $54 billion. As he ends his AWS career today, the run rate stands at $100 billion. In its most recent quarter, AWS revenue growth accelerated to 17% year-over-year, while generating more than 60% of Amazon’s total profits.
That momentum, he said, is one of the reasons it makes sense to leave now.
Amazon announced Selipsky’s departure on May 13, naming as his successor Matt Garman, the AWS senior vice president of sales and marketing.
In a memo to employees, Jassy said Selipsky had agreed from the start that he’d likely serve as AWS CEO for a few years, focusing in part on “helping prepare the next generation of leadership.”
In his own message at the time, Selipsky said he was leaving with “truly mixed emotions.” Asked to elaborate this week, he spoke with pride about the work AWS does for customers, and expressed excitement about what’s ahead for its business and technology. He said it will be difficult to leave the AWS team, particularly given the many friendships he has developed at the company.
‘Energized by all the possibilities’
Reflecting on his tenure as AWS CEO, Selipsky spoke about the company’s work to help customers optimize costs amid economic turmoil; its progress in shifting previously “immovable workloads” to the cloud; and its extraordinary efforts to help Ukraine preserve its data and technology infrastructure; among other highlights.
Selipsky, now 57, said rejoining AWS as its CEO three years ago was “an incredible opportunity, and one that I was really excited about, too excited to pass up, and really, it’s been amazing. It’s been a real privilege.”
However, he said, “I suspected that there would be one more meaningful leadership experience that I would want at some point outside of Amazon, just given the significant number of years that I’ve spent here and my natural curiosity about different experiences. And I’m really energized by all the possibilities of what lies out there ahead for me.”
Selipsky said he’s “looking forward to decompressing a little bit, having a chance to think in an unhurried and unconstrained way about what I want that next adventure to be. There will be one, so stay tuned, but I honestly and very intentionally have no plan at this point about what that might look like.”
Amazon continues to lead the cloud market with 31% market share, according to Synergy Research Group, but Microsoft and Google have been closing the gap, with 25% and 11% market share, respectively.
Selipsky expressed confidence in Garman’s ability to lead AWS in its next phase.
“I feel really good that I’m handing AWS off in great shape. I’m really confident in Matt’s abilities, and Matt’s readiness to take over,” he said. “One of the most important jobs of a leader is to prepare the next set of leaders to lead, and that’s what we’ve done.”
