> On the cloud it takes five seconds to get a new machine I can ssh into and I don't have to ask anyone for the budget.
This isn't exactly realistic, not for too long anyway.
Once your cloud bill climbs into the millions, expect to see just as much scrutiny on what's costing so much and what can be cut and can you really justify the new thing you want to spin up (as there should be).
Having been through many growing startups, I'd say the freewheeling days of spin up whatever you want only last to about 50K to 100K/month AWS billings.
This isn't exactly realistic, not for too long anyway.
Once your cloud bill climbs into the millions, expect to see just as much scrutiny on what's costing so much and what can be cut and can you really justify the new thing you want to spin up (as there should be).
Having been through many growing startups, I'd say the freewheeling days of spin up whatever you want only last to about 50K to 100K/month AWS billings.