Werner Vogels is the Chief Technology Officer at Amazon. He has significantly influenced the company’s technology strategy for over 20 years. Before joining Amazon in 2004, Werner was a research scientist at Cornell University, focusing on distributed systems and scalability, which later impacted AWS’s design. He holds a PhD in computer science and has published many papers on the reliability and performance of large-scale systems.
In his role as CTO, Werner has been key in leading Amazon’s shift from an online retailer to a global cloud infrastructure leader. He played a major role in Amazon’s cloud computing strategy, setting a new standard for infrastructure delivery. He advocates for a practical, customer-focused technology approach and promotes concepts like “you build it, you run it,” “APIs are forever,” and Frugal Architecting, which focuses on cost-effective, sustainable software design.
In this episode, Kevin Ball talks with Werner in a comprehensive discussion. They explore Amazon’s early years, the origin of AWS, the Frugal Architect principles, aligning costs to business, collaborations between engineering and business, technical debt, and more.