tl;dr:From the CTO at Amazon... “In the weeks that follow re:Invent, I try to make time to work through the ever-growing pile of books accumulating on my nightstand and throughout my office. It’s a losing battle. Then again, when was it ever worth doing something easy?” Werner provides a list of engineering and non-engineering content he recommends.
tl;dr:From the CTO at Amazon: (1) Generative AI becomes culturally aware with LLMs trained on culturally diverse data. This cultural fluency promises to make generative AI more accessible to users worldwide. (2) FemTech finally takes off and an abundance of data unlocks improved diagnoses and patient outcomes. (3) AI assistants redefine developer productivity turning into teachers and collaborators that provide support throughout the software development lifecycle. (4) Industry-led skills-based training programs will emerge that more closely resemble the journeys of skilled tradespeople.
tl;dr:This is why many of our most reliable systems use very simple, very dumb, very reliable constant work patterns. Just like coffee urns. These patterns have three key features. (1) They don’t scale up or slow down with load or stress. (2) They don’t have modes, which means they do the same operations in all conditions. (3) If they have any variation, it’s to do less work in times of stress so they can perform better when you need them most. There’s that anti-fragility again.
tl;dr:A repost of an article by Andy Warfield, VP of S3, reflects on the vast complexity and operational scale of Amazon's storage software system. Andy discusses the significance of recognizing and mitigating organizational scaling issues, similar to optimizing systems. He also discusses management’s approach to foster team ownership for problem-solving instead of dispensing solutions has led to more engaged and successful engineering outcomes.
tl;dr:Werner, the CTO at Amazon, explores note-taking. He values the Cornell Method for its structure and analog approach: each notebook page has 4 sections: (1) Title. (2) Notes. (3) Keywords and questions. (4) Summary. Werner discusses potential AI enhancements and believes handwritten note-taking increases comprehension and retention.
tl;dr:"I always urge builders to consider the evolution of their systems over time and make sure the foundation is such that you can change and expand them with the minimum number of dependencies." Werner discusses being less dogmatic about architecture allowing it to evolve with its needs.
tl;dr:The CTO at Amazon elaborates on the following: (1) Cloud technologies will redefine sports as we know them. (2) Simulated worlds will reinvent the way we experiment. (3) A surge of innovation in smart energy. (4) The upcoming supply chain transformation. (5) Custom silicon goes mainstream.
tl;dr:"Today, I am publishing the Distributed Computing Manifesto, a canonical document from the early days of Amazon that transformed the architecture of Amazon’s e-commerce platform. It highlights the challenges we were facing at the end of the 20th century, and hints at where we were headed."
tl;dr:Werner received a call to scale the data model that governors were using to plan their response to COVID-19. He talks through how he did so with the Amazon team.