After 20 years, and 3283 posts adding up to 1,577,106 words I am wrapping up my time as the lead blogger on the AWS News Blog.

It has been a privilege to be able to “live in the future” and to get to learn and write about so many of our innovations over the last two decades: message queuing, storage, on-demand computing, serverless, and quantum computing to name just a few and to leave many others out. It has also been a privilege to be able to meet and to hear from so many of you that have faithfully read and (hopefully) learned from my content over the years. I treasure those interactions and your kind words, and I keep both in mind when I write.

Next for Jeff
I began my career as a builder. Over the years I have written tens of thousands of lines of assembly code (6502, Z80, and 68000), Visual Basic, and PHP, along with hundreds of thousands of lines of C. However, over the years I’ve progressively spent less time building and more time talking about building. As each new service and feature whizzed past my eyes I would reminiscence about days and decades past, when I could actually use these goodies to create something cool. I went from being a developer who could market, to a marketer who used to be able to develop. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I like to build. The medium could be code, 3D printing, LEGO bricks, electronics components, or even cardboard –creating and innovating is what motivates and sustains me.

With that as my driving force, my goal for the next step of my career at AWS is to invest more time focused on learning and using fewer things, building cool stuff, and creating fresh, developer-focused content as I do so. I’m still working to figure out the form that this will take, so stay tuned. I am also going to continue to make my weekly appearances at AWS OnAir (our Friday Twitch show), and I will continue to speak at AWS community events around the globe.

Next for the Blog
As for the AWS News Blog, it has long been backed by an awesome team, both visible and invisible. Here we are at the recent AWS re:Invent celebration of the blog’s 20th anniversary (photo courtesy of Liz Fuentes with edits by Channy Yun to add those who were otherwise occupied):

During the celebration I told the team that I look forward to celebrating the 30 year anniversary with them at re:Invent 2034.

Going forward, the team will continue to grow and the goal remains the same: to provide our customers with carefully chosen, high-quality information about the latest and most meaningful AWS launches. The blog is in great hands and this team will continue to keep you informed even as the AWS pace of innovation continues to accelerate.

Thanks Again
Once again I need to thank all of you for the very kind words and gestures over the years. Once in your life, if you work hard and get really lucky, you get a unique opportunity to do something that really and truly matters to people. And I have been lucky.

— Jeff;