John Wynkoop, Cloud Economist & Platypus Herder at The Duckbill Group, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss why he decided to make a career move and become an AWS billing consultant. Corey and John discuss how once you’re deeply familiar with one cloud provider, those skills become transferable to other cloud providers as well. John also shares the trends he has seen post-pandemic in the world of cloud, including the increased adoption of a multi-cloud strategy and the need for costs control even for VC-funded start-ups. About JohnWith over 25 years in IT, John’s done almost every job in the industry, from running cable and answering helpdesk calls to leading engineering teams and advising the C-suite. Before joining The Duckbill Group, he worked across multiple industries including private sector, higher education, and national defense. Most recently he helped IGNW, an industry leading systems integration partner, get acquired by industry powerhouse CDW. When he’s not helping customers spend smarter on their cloud bill, you can find him enjoying time with his family in the beautiful Smoky Mountains near his home in Knoxville, TN.Links Referenced:
The Duckbill Group: https://duckbillgroup.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlwynkoop/

TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I’m Corey Quinn. And the times, they are changing. My guest today is John Wynkoop. John, how are you?John: Hey, Corey, I’m doing great. Thanks for having me.Corey: So, big changes are afoot for you. You’ve taken a new job recently. What are you doing now?John: Well [laugh], so I’m happy to say I have joined The Duckbill Group as a cloud economist. So, came out of the big company world, and have dived back in—or dove back into the startup world.Corey: It’s interesting because when we talk to those big companies, they always identify us as oh, you’re a startup, which is hilarious on some level because our AWS account hangs out in AWS’s startup group, but if you look at the spend being remarkably level from month to month to month to year to year to year, they almost certainly view us as they’re a startup, but they suck at it. They completely failed. And so, many of the email stuff that you get from them presupposes that you’re venture-backed, that you’re trying to conquer the entire world. We don’t do that here. We have this old-timey business model that our forebears would have understood of, we make more money than we spend every month and we continue that trend for a long time. So first, thanks for joining us, both on the show and at the company. We like having you around.John: Well, thanks. And yeah, I guess that’s—maybe a startup isn’t the right word to describe what we do here at The Duckbill Group, but as you said, it seems to fit into the industry classification. But that was one of the things I actually really liked about the—that was appealing about joining the team was, we do spend less than we make and we’re not after hyper-growth and we’re not trying to consume everything.Corey: So, it’s interesting when you put a job description out into the world and you see who applies—and let’s be clear, for those who are unaware, job descriptions are inherently aspirational shopping lists. If you look at a job description and you check every box on the thing and you’ve done all the things they want, the odds are terrific you’re going to be bored out of your mind when you wind up showing up to do these… whatever that job is. You should be learning stuff and growing. At least that’s always been my philosophy to it. One of the interesting things about you is