<p><em style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/53b46c07eab8eadd6f331822-886-665/talking-conversation-conference-meeting-interview-6.jpg?maxX=480" border="0" alt="talking conversation conference meeting interview" width="480" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dellphotos/11358563754/">Flickr/Dell Inc</a></span></p></div><p></p></div>Why are you leaving your current job?</em></p>
<p>This may seem like an easy interview question. You probably have 100 reasons for wanting to pursue a new role - and can easily defend each one. <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But career expert Lynn Taylor says your response to this query can be an absolute deal breaker.</span></p>
<p>"This question, or any variation of it, is extremely challenging because it naturally puts you on the defensive," says Taylor, author of <span>"</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tame-Your-Terrible-Office-Tyrant/dp/0470457643/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1248579303&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank">Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant: How to Manage Childish Boss Behavior and Thrive in Your Job</a>.<span>"</span> "It's one of the most difficult and critical queries you can possibly be asked during the interview process because it reveals so much about you."</p>
<p>It's also a tricky question because a terse or canned response will likely leave the interviewer waiting for some elaboration. "If you refuse to explain further, that in itself will be a red flag," Taylor explains.</p>
<p>She says this query may open up a can of worms. "It can easily take you down a slippery path of describing a difficult work environment or boss, demanding workload, dull assignments, or other, similar frustrations." And while any of those reasons may be a factor for you, they won't help your cause. "You'll need to take a diplomatic, professional, and forward looking approach," she says.</p>
<p>Here's what hiring managers want to hear when they ask this question:</p>
<p><strong>If you get along well with others</strong></p>
<p>Employers want to be sure that you're not leaving because you have difficulty working as part of a team, or can't take directions, Taylor says. "They will glean this from your answer if you say anything negative about the personality of your boss or coworkers, even if true."</p>
<p>It's understood that common etiquette is not to burn bridges or disparage your employer. "Your new boss wants to be assured that you'll be easy to get along with, upbeat, and motivational around coworkers."</p>
<p><strong>Whether you're aware of which atmospheres you thrive in</strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>
<p>"You would be better served to describe the atmosphere in which you would thrive most, and explain that you think your current employer doesn't necessarily provide that type of environment," Taylor says. For example, you can say: "I am looking for a challenging environment where my skills could be put to the best use, and where there's a strong team approach. I feel I have a lot to contribute that could be better tapped."</p>
<p><strong>If you're high or low maintenance</strong></p>
<p>Most managers are looking to minimize any corporate drama, so if you can explain how you've been a self-starter and seek an innovative environment where you can deliver significant results, you'll likely enhance your chances, she says. "If you're leaving your job because of 'a lack of visibility by your boss,' for example, many will assume that you require a lot of recognition or management time."<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>
<p>Like most tricky interview questions, it's how professional you are in your response that carries the most weight. "It may be true that you feel unnoticed in your current position, but a more positive alternative is to explain that you're looking for an opportunity where you can make a difference, working alongside a dedicated team with common goals."<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>
<p><strong>Whether you speak poorly of your employer</strong></p>
<p>Remember you're talking to one employer about another employer. While they may be sympathetic to your needs, they're always aware of the probable management perspective. "If you blame your current employer for your dissatisfaction, it'll send up a red flag, as the hiring manager will assume you wouldn't be discreet about them, either," Taylor says.</p>
<p><strong>How excited you are to work for<em> them</em></strong><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </strong></p>
<p>No manager wants you to drone on about why you're leaving your job. Have a thoughtful, concise answer, but don't ramble. "The interviewer is hoping that you're looking to the future...and to a future with them," she says. "They are hoping that you can outline and help them envision a mutually beneficial partnership; so focus on tomorrow, not yesterday."</p>
<p><strong>Whether you want to advance your career</strong></p>
<p>Most employers admire those who want to get ahead, particularly if their resumes show a consistent pattern of growth. "Interviewers most sympathetic to job seekers who want to make more of a contribution; help build departments or companies; and take on more responsibility," Taylor explains. It can be a double-edged sword to suggest that you're looking for a "new" challenge, unless you explain that you want "more" of a challenge. Otherwise, it could be taken that you easily get bored.</p>
<p><strong>If you have the requisite skills</strong></p>
<p>Hiring managers want be assured that you have the skills to perform well on the job. "They want to feel that you're moving forward, versus having been in over your head and now trying to recoup your losses," says Taylor. One of their deepest fears is that you're about to be terminated.<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="background-color: #ffffff;">They can't easily check on your performance since you're still employed, so their best strategy is to ascertain how you view the work itself, she says. "If the job you're applying for is similar to your current or previous jobs, and you intimate that the challenges or volume of work were unanticipated, it may be assumed that you lacked determination or a strong work ethic."</span></p>
<p>Think of your looming departure as something that developed into a mismatch. "It was likely a great job for a period of time, until certain events occurred or didn't occur," she says. The more you take the high road, the more professional you will appear to your prospective new boss. In addition, if all you have to say is negative comments, it raises questions about your own judgment: why have you stayed at the company for as long as you did?<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>
<p>Hiring managers are often looking for a reason not to hire you, since they're typically bombarded with resumes. You don't want to help make the process of elimination easy - so think about being on the other side of the desk. "Would you hire you, based on your response to this question?" Taylor asks. "Make sure you help guide your interviewer into thinking about your next big contribution, which should be to them," she concludes. </p>

Here's What Hiring Managers Really Want To Know When They Ask Why You're Leaving Your Current Job

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<img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/53f6286c6bb3f7f72af34f7a-538-403/defy-ventures.png" border="0" alt="defy ventures"><p class="source"><span>Defy Ventures/Screenshot</span></p>
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<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>Up eight flights of stairs in New York's Flatiron District, the golden late afternoon sunlight is streaming in through the windows. Defy Ventures' CEO and founder Catherine Hoke is speaking to 25&#xa0;</span></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">men and women, all dressed in formal attire.</span></p>
<p>&#xa0;</p>
<p><span>But what makes Defy Ventures unique isn't just that it's helping aspiring business owners. It's that these business owners are all ex-convicts and individuals with criminal histories. Some dabbled in drug dealing. Others have DUIs. A couple have done time for violent offenses.&#xa0;</span></p>
<p>&#xa0;</p>
<p><span>But none of that matters - not to Hoke, and not to the executives who have started trickling into the meeting space, owned by Softbank Capital.</span></p>
<p>&#xa0;</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Hoke's voice echoes through the room.&#xa0;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span>"If we don't act super welcoming to our executives - a lot of them are dragged here by their friends and are like, 'what's this thing with people with criminal histories?' And my guess is that you guys are a little bit scared of the executives, and they're a little bit scared of you, so if you don't break the ice fast, what happens is it ends up looking like a junior high dance," Hoke says. "And we don't want that."</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>The executives Hoke is referring to are CEOs, lawyers, entrepreneurs, life coaches, and consultants. There's about 50 of them - a hefty turnout - scheduled to come to Defy Ventures' "Executive Evening" tonight. These executives are going to mentor the 25 men and women who have come to learn how to start their own businesses, offering resume critiques and entrepreneurial advice.</span></span></p>
<p>Of course, these aren't your typical mentorees.</p>
<p><span>Hoke thinks ex-convicts can be perfect entrepreneurs - they have the skills from running illegal businesses and natural leadership qualities - but they're often overlooked for typical careers because of their criminal records.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div>
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<img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/53f6275069bedd1a0af34f85-3264-2448/photo%201-45.jpg" border="0" alt="defy ventures" style="color: #000000;"><p class="source"><span>Maya Kosoff</span></p>
<p class="caption">Defy Ventures CEO and founder Catherine Hoke speaks to her group of entrepreneurs-in-training.</p>
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<p></p>
</div></div>Hoke tells the EITs-entrepreneurs-in-training, the Defy-given name for those 25 male and female ex-cons - that they're going to bear hug each other tonight. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"It's 2014, so we're going to give 14 big bear hugs," she says.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>A year after release from prison, up to 60% of formerly incarcerated people don't have jobs, and over two-thirds of the&#xa0;650,000 people who are annually released from prison&#xa0;will be rearrested&#xa0;</span><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hr1593/text">within 3 years</a><span>. Such staggering numbers helped lead Hoke, who founded the&#xa0;</span><a href="http://www.pep.org/">Prison Entrepreneurship Program</a><span>, to establish Defy Ventures in October 2010. The program has produced dozens of successful alumni who now own their own businesses.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Hoke walks the aspiring entrepreneurs through the basic etiquette of networking small talk, which they'll also do with the executive guests.&#xa0;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">By now, many of the night's scheduled executives have arrived. Hoke lifts the floodgates. Everyone stands up, and CEOs and EITs start hugging it out.</span></p>
<p class="embed-spacer"><span>Prior to this evening, the EITs had taken a series of online courses taught by Hoke and entrepreneurial figures like venture capitalist Tim Draper, New York Stock Exchange CEO Duncan Niederauer, and marketing guru Seth Godin.&#xa0;</span><span>And Defy Ventures has proven itself successful - so much so that it's expanding its program to the west coast. Its graduates have success stories, too:&#xa0;</span><a href="http://defyventures.org/what-we-do/meet-our-graduates/">they have their own businesses</a><span>, and some - like Jose Vasquez, <span>Defy's program manager and a graduate of the first Defy Ventures class -&#xa0;</span>even come back to help with new classes of Defy EITs.</span></p>
<p>Defy provides intensive business training similar to an MBA program. And not unlike an advanced degree program, not just anyone can get into the program. From <a href="http://defyventures.org/take-action/become-a-student/">Defy's enrollment website</a>, here's the criteria for Defy Ventures applicants:</p>
<ul class="body-list">
<li>Formerly incarcerated with felony histories ("tougher" criminal backgrounds don't scare us; we prefer a history of leadership in gangs and drug rings)</li>
<li>Ambitious and hungry for legal success</li>
<li>Committed to their personal transformation and a crime-free life</li>
<li>Exceptionally hardworking</li>
<li>Entrepreneurial and willing to "get it done" no matter the obstacles</li>
<li>100% drug free</li>
<li>Available to attend four months of training on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and all day on Saturdays</li>
</ul>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Jose Vasquez interviews the new applicants. To show they're serious, applicants also put down a deposit, pass a drug test, and survive a three-week entrepreneurship "Tryout Boot Camp." </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div>
<div class="image">
<img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/53f62750ecad04d16cf34f7d-3264-2448/photo%202-46.jpg" border="0" alt="defy ventures" style="color: #000000;"><p class="source"><span>Maya Kosoff</span></p>
<p class="caption">Executives and EITs mingle in a speed dating-like activity.</p>
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<p class="embed-spacer"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Tonight's event is one of the final steps in the boot camp, followed by a Mocktail Competition later this week where the EITs show off their business acumen by competing to produce, price, and serve refreshing nonalcoholic drinks to executives.&#xa0;</span></p>
<p class="embed-spacer"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">At the end of the boot camp,&#xa0;applicants get interviewed by Defy graduate panels, staff, and executives.&#xa0;</span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Pending successful interviews, the EITs will get accepted into Defy Ventures' Entrepreneurship Fellowship. The EITs get thrown into the MBA-like program, making business plans and competing in business plan competitions in front of a panel of executives from Fortune 500 companies, VCs, and others. After graduating (there's a cap-and-gown ceremony), EITs have access to additional coaching and resources to help them build their own businesses.</span></p>
<p class="embed-spacer">Tonight, however, the EITs all line up along one side of a piece of duct tape on the hardwood floor, and the guests line up alongside the other. It's a game called "step to the line," and it quickly reveals how much the EITs have in common with some of the executives. It's not meant to evoke pity or shame, but rather to show much the EITs have overcome.&#xa0;</p>
<p class="embed-spacer">Hoke reads out a statement, and if it's true, both parties step toward the center, closing the gap between the EITs and the executives. "I like hip-hop music." "I like the Yankees." "I'm over the age of 25." Most everyone on both sides steps to the line for these. But then Hoke starts asking the harder questions.&#xa0;</p>
<p class="embed-spacer">"I heard gunshots in my neighborhood growing up." "I was born to a teenage mother." "I've abused drugs or alcohol for at least one year of my life." "I've been arrested." "I was convicted of a felony." More EITs than executives are stepping toward the line now, but there's a smattering of executives who are, too. "We share a lot of things in common," one EIT says at the end of the activity. "The difference is that we got caught, and you didn't," another adds.</p>
<p class="embed-spacer">The executives and EITs then introduce themselves through a speed dating-like event. The executives introduce themselves one by one, explaining why they'd be the best mentor. They'll round out the night by reviewing and critiquing the resumes and basic business plans the EITs have prepared. And Hoke has some specific rules for the executives, and they apply more broadly to the Defy Ventures program as a whole.</p>
<p><span><span>"Executives, you might hear from some of our EITs some very difficult circumstances. Maybe he's done 18 years in prison. Maybe he's unemployed. Please do not feel sorry for them," Hoke says. "I hate pity. It doesn't help anybody. Pity keeps people poor. Empathy and compassion are cool, though. I want you to treat them with respect like you would any other entrepreneur. If they need a kick in the teeth, give it to them."</span></span></p>

How One Nonprofit Is Transforming Ex-Convicts And Former Drug Dealers Into Entrepreneurs

<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54f63636ecad04167538ff4c-954-715/andy-jassy-amazon-11.jpg" border="0" alt="Andy Jassy, Amazon"><p class="source"><span>Amazon</span></p><p class="caption">Andy Jassy</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>A recent </span><a href="https://medium.com/@furrier/original-content-the-story-of-aws-and-andy-jassys-trillion-dollar-baby-4e8a35fd7ed">interview</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> with Amazon Web Services' chieftain Andy Jassy repeatedly touts the "trillion dollar opportunity" associated with the inexorable transition of enterprise IT to the cloud. Perhaps because his interlocutor was so busy inserting himself into the interview, Jassy isn't actually quoted uttering the T-word (although he does manage to land "TAM"). But he certainly isn't refuting the notion there are thirteen orders of magnitude associated with the Enterprise Cloud Jackpot (and I use Jackpot in a thoroughly </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00INIXKV2/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B00INIXKV2&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=platformonomi-20&amp;linkId=OCYC4L3RL5GOIRL7">non-Gibsonian</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> way, though legacy vendors may see it apocalyptically). As the cloud computing leader today, AWS is in the pole position for this tectonic shift. The question is whether being part of Amazon going forward is on balance more help or hindrance to AWS winning their fair share of the Jackpot.</span></p><p>Amazon obviously was able to conceive, nurture and build a heretical idea into AWS today. It is inconceivable any traditional IT vendor could have done this and hard to imagine other candidates with comparable wherewithal and "willingness to be misunderstood". But we're past the point of being misunderstood. Pretty much everyone now accepts that vast chunks of IT are shifting to the cloud (with the notable exception, admittedly, of legions of enterprise IT people clinging to their servers in a desperate bid to preserve the status quo). Even the <a href="http://www.platformonomics.com/2013/03/ibm-how-much-longer-do-the-good-times-last/">biggest technology dinosaurs</a> now recognize that the incoming cloud meteor is a potential extinction event.</p><p>AWS continues to innovate and execute well. Their near and medium-term success is not in doubt. But being part of Amazon raises questions about their ability to fully capture the big prize. Can they achieve generational dominance a la IBM or Microsoft in their primes? Will they be one major player among several? Or does their early lead whither away? Being part of Amazon brings benefits, but also significant baggage, specifically difficulty concentrating, having sufficient cash to compete and adverse cultural factors.</p><h2><span>Concentration</span></h2><p>Big as it is in its own right, AWS is a relatively small part of Amazon and gets lumped into their glamorous "Other" segment, which did $5.6B in 2014 (about 6% of Amazon's overall $89B in revenue). Notably, "Other" was the fastest growing segment at 42% vs. 20% for the company overall. The Amazon-branded credit card gets cited as another occupant of "Other", but our grasp of the AWS business remains tenuous.</p><p>Beyond the trillion dollar Enterprise Cloud Jackpot, Amazon's core e-commerce business still has tremendous upside. E-commerce in the US last year <a href="http://www.geekwire.com/2015/cha-ching-u-s-e-commerce-sales-surpass-300b-for-the-first-time-in-2014/">was over $300 billion and but only 6.5% of overall retail sales</a>. Amazon takes an expansive view of the ecommerce business, investing in drone and local delivery, a broad line of consumer hardware for direct distribution of digital goods, <a href="http://www.geekwire.com/2015/inside-amazons-heavy-duty-fulfillment-center-robots-humans-form-perfect-symbiosis/">a robot army</a> and private label brands for everything from diapers to TV shows.</p><p>In contrast to Apple who says "no" by default, when confronted by new opportunities Amazon seemingly leaps up on the table and screams "Yes! Yes! Yes!" Their bonfire of initiatives has resulted in some notable and expensive misfires of late, including the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tablet-sales-and-market-share-kindle-struggling-2015-2">disappearing Kindle Fire</a>, the <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/3039887/under-fire">disastrous Fire Phone</a> and the under-heralded <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/01/21/amazon-is-pulling-its-private-label-diapers-to-tweak-the-design/">Fire Diaper blowout</a> And the jury is still out on <a href="http://www.cnet.com/products/amazon-fire-tv/">Fire TV</a>, the not-exactly-setting-the-world-on-fire<a href="http://www.cnet.com/products/amazon-echo-review/">Echo Fire</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-High-Castle/dp/B00RSGFRY8">The Man on Fire in the High Castle</a>, <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/workmail/">WorkMail Fire</a>, and "hair on fire" <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/17/amazon-prime-now-one-hour-delivery-goes-live-across-manhattan/">one hour delivery</a> amongst other efforts. And, for completeness, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-data-center-fire-2015-1">this</a> is an AWS Fire.</p><p>It can be argued the company has poor impulse control, is fighting too many battles on too many fronts and must allocate cash, talent and attention across a very wide range. Amazon's historical "willingness to be misunderstood" and success in defying past criticism (to which I hereby add my name to a long list) don't do anything to suggest new restraint is imminent. This scattershot approach may make sense before product-market fit, but AWS is beyond that point. Many of these other activities are a distraction given AWS is chasing a plausibly trillion dollar market.</p><h2><span>Cash</span></h2><p>Cloud computing is not for the light of wallet, requiring many billions of dollars to build cavernous data centers scattered around the planet, stuffed with millions of servers. GigaOm<a href="http://gigaom.com/2015/02/04/google-had-its-biggest-quarter-ever-for-data-center-spending-again/">breaks down last year's capex spending</a> by the big players:</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><a href="http://www.platformonomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/image.png"><img src="http://www.platformonomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/clip_image004.png" border="0" alt="clip_image004" title="clip_image004" width="852" height="475" /></a></div></div></p><p>Now these numbers aren't pure apples to apples comparisons. Amazon's capex also goes to erect even more <a href="http://www.geekwire.com/2015/inside-amazons-heavy-duty-fulfillment-center-robots-humans-form-perfect-symbiosis/">cavernous e-commerce distribution centers</a> with <a href="http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&amp;p=irol-newsArticle&amp;ID=2011894">"more than 15,000 robots in 10 fulfillment centers across the U.S."</a> Google and Microsoft both spend big on search infrastructure, and Google's numbers include YouTube, flotillas of <a href="http://motortrivia.com/2014/innovation-01/104/google-self-driving-cars-2014-02.jpg">automotive</a>, <a href="http://media.nbclosangeles.com/images/652*367/02-03-2014-google-barge.jpg">sea-going</a>, <a href="http://www.dragonblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/google-loon.jpg">aerial</a> and<a href="http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/10/google-acquires-skybox-imaging-satellites/">space-faring</a> vehicles, and based on the sheer magnitude, maybe the odd <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/3029138/world-changing-ideas/google-x-confirms-the-rumors-it-really-did-try-to-design-a-space-elevat">space elevator</a>.</p><p>For comparison (and in lieu of a much-delayed "So You Want to be a Cloud Wanna-be" post with etiquette and strategy tips for cloud also-rans), here are similar period capex numbers for some of the <a href="http://www.platformonomics.com/2015/01/a-dispatch-from-cloud-city-2014-retrospective/">cloud wanna-bes</a> and their growth (or lack thereof) over the preceding year as they try to play catch-up:</p><table style="width: 916px; height: 242px;" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" width="159"> </td><td valign="top" width="243"><p align="center"><span>CAPEX (TTM)</span></p></td><td valign="top" width="283"><p align="center"><span>Growth over 2013</span></p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="159"><p>HP</p></td><td valign="top" width="243"><p>$956M</p></td><td valign="top" width="283"><p>+4%</p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="159"><p>IBM</p></td><td valign="top" width="243"><p>$3,779M</p></td><td valign="top" width="283"><p>0%</p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="159"><p>Oracle</p></td><td valign="top" width="243"><p>$727M</p></td><td valign="top" width="283"><p>26%</p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="159"><p>Rackspace</p></td><td valign="top" width="243"><p>$430M</p></td><td valign="top" width="283"><p>-5%</p></td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="159"><p>VMware</p></td><td valign="top" width="243"><p>$352M</p></td><td valign="top" width="283"><p>2%</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p>(These are the budgets from which <a href="http://www.platformonomics.com/2014/01/small-blue-and-the-bonsai-datacenter/">bonsai datacenters</a> are built).</p><p>Meanwhile, returning from Lilliput, Amazon has the shortest stack at the grown-up table, with $17.4 billion in liquid assets to Google's $64.4 billion and Microsoft's $90.2 billion. Google in particular intends to push Amazon to the wall financially, though it was Bill Gates who said, "Never get into a price war with someone who has more money than you." Amazon has notably lost its prior enthusiasm for price cuts and obliquely grouses about networking costs where Google and Microsoft have a huge advantage in terms of facilities.</p><p>It has always been a bit of a mystery how Amazon could serve more cloud computing customers, spend less than Google or Microsoft and support aggressive build-outs of both datacenters and distribution centers. The assumption was search required significantly more infrastructure and/or Amazon was just somehow more efficient. But we've <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/02/04/amazon-just-admitted-that-its-losing-billions.aspx">recently learned</a> that Amazon has used capital leases to keep billions in capital spending off their cash flow statement. So their capital spending is closer to double what has been reported. This means their free cash flow, the metric they have relentlessly told investors is the key lens onto the company, is actually negative and declining in recent years (remember this: we'll revisit it below when we talk about employee recruiting and retention).</p><p>It is an easy quip as a low margin retailer to say "your margin is my opportunity" but you still have to pay for your datacenters. Every dollar spent on half-baked consumer hardware (or worse,<a href="http://recode.net/2014/12/02/more-amazon-fire-phones-are-coming-jeff-bezos-says/">doubling down</a> on a failed consumer hardware brand) or random TV shows, or giant distribution centers and bright yellow robots to support the core e-commerce business, is a dollar that isn't going to AWS. And Amazon must continue to invest significantly in its core e-commerce business, whether defined narrowly or broadly.</p><h2><span>Culture</span></h2><p>It is an open secret, at least in Seattle and amongst top tier technology firms, that <a href="http://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Amazon-com-EI_IE6036.11,21.htm">not many people enjoy working at Amazon</a>. Many companies have come north to open offices (e.g. DropBox, Facebook, Palantir, Salesforce, Twitter) and usually say they are there to lure talent from Microsoft. Yet with the notable exception of recent SoCal immigrants Oculus and<a href="http://www.geekwire.com/2015/spacexs-new-seattle-area-office-redmond-elon-musk-visit-region-week/">SpaceX</a> who are on Microsoft's side of the lake, most choose to locate their offices a stone's throw from Amazon's campus.</p><p>Amazon relies heavily on its stock for both recruiting and retention. They pay below market salaries, offer signing bonuses that pay out over the first two years and after that rely on stock to both carry the compensation load and overcome the drawbacks of the work environment. Independent of stock performance, you see a lot of Amazon resumes on the street as soon as the signing bonuses are paid out.</p><p>Amazon's stock price obviously reflects perceptions of the company broadly. It has been run as a profitless machine yet been richly valued for most of its history. Skepticism has emerged over the last year or two about whether the company will ever get out of "investment mode" and focus on financial returns. Amazon <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-aws-move-disclosure-suggest-amazon-yielding-more-to-wall-street-2015-1">turned in a strong Q4</a> including an unexpected profit (they have conditioned Wall Street well…) which popped the stock by over 25%, but it still trades below its all-time high even as the rest of the market hits record highs.</p><p>Amazon has guided investors to <a href="https://hbr.org/2014/10/at-amazon-its-all-about-cash-flow/">focus on its free cash flow as opposed to profits</a>. Yet they felt the need to more explicitly call out the significant use of capital leases in their most recent earning call, which had heretofore been buried and largely ignored amongst the footnotes. The free cash flow picture looks very different, in both magnitude and trend, when these leases are considered:</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/12/22/amazoncom-inc-is-losing-more-money-than-you-think.aspx"><img src="http://www.platformonomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/clip_image006.jpg" border="0" alt="clip_image006" title="clip_image006" width="829" height="464" /></a></div></div></p><p>And note this debt is being incurred today at unprecedentedly low interest rates, a phenomenon that is unlikely to continue much longer.</p><p>AWS is growing fast and needs to continue to hire rapidly as it chases the Jackpot. Dependence on Amazon's stock, and the company's ability to sell Wall Street on anything-but-profit metrics, adds risk to their ability to recruit and retain. AWS also needs to build a culture that can meet enterprise customer expectations and that culture surely looks different than today's Amazon.</p><p>For example, Amazon's secrecy fetish and chronic inability to put numbers on the y-axis of charts is inconsistent with need to provide long-term roadmaps for customers contemplating taking enormous dependencies on AWS. The secretive culture alienates a whole range of useful hires for AWS. Further, Amazon the retailer gets <a href="http://www.platformonomics.com/2011/08/amazon-retailer-or-platform-company/">confused</a> about what it means to be a platform company. AWS has generally done a decent job walking this fine line (and platforms and their ecosystems are never static, which is a topic for another day) but a deft touch in nurturing the ecosystem is critical to AWS's future success.</p><h2><span>Set the Cloud Free</span></h2><p>On balance, I think AWS would be better positioned to realize the opportunities in front of it as an independent company, away from the vanities and vicissitudes of Amazon.</p><p>A full spinout of AWS from Amazon or even a partial IPO a la VMware would establish a focused entity that can single-mindedly pursue the Jackpot, with its own culture and compensation model. Amazon can stake the new company and the transparency associated with being a pure play chasing a $1 trillion TAM should give it the opportunity to raise all the money it needs to compete, especially while growth is still in the mid double digits. More distance from Amazon would also help AWS land more customers. Many large retailers <a href="https://gigaom.com/2015/03/01/for-retailers-the-buy-or-build-cloud-decision-looms-large/">consider AWS verboten</a> and as Amazon's sprawl continues, that competitive dynamic could impact AWS's ability to sell to media, consumer products and other industries.</p><p>A spinout of AWS may already be in progress. Amazon<a href="http://gigaom.com/2015/01/29/surprise-amazon-cloud-shows-growth-in-q4/">announced it will start disclosing AWS numbers</a> this year, which could be a first step. These numbers will be scrutinized every which way and will be fascinating to see. We could learn that it is AWS's capex specifically that is being capitalized and thus intended to be portable. Rumors also suggest AWS gets far less attention from the chief product designer and octopus taster at Amazon.</p><p>Will AWS still be part of Amazon in two years?</p><p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="http://www.platformonomics.com/" target="_blank">Platformonomics</a>. Copyright 2015. Charles Fitzgerald is a Seattle area angel investor and cloud watcher.<strong>  </strong>Read more posts from Charles at <a href="http://www.platformonomics.com/" target="_blank">Platformonomics</a>. Follow Charles on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/charlesfitz" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.</em></p><p class="tagline">Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/inventor-auto-tune-music-kanye-west-t-pain-andy-hildebrand-2015-2">Here's the unlikely story of how auto-tune was created</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="hvOGE1czq9Y2lLOX0M4NZLaRu-dBP8ZI" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'hvOGE1czq9Y2lLOX0M4NZLaRu-dBP8ZI',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

It is time for Amazon Web Services to get out of Amazon

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/53343ec4ecad045c3eb634fa-1200-600/sdvsdfv44exposure_300.jpg" border="0" alt="michael woodford olympus" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Exposure-Inside-Olympus-Scandal-Whistleblower/dp/1591845750">"Exposure: Inside the Olympus Scandal"</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p><em>Months after becoming Olympus' first non-Japanese president, British executive Michael Woodford called for an investigation into fraud allegations. Woodford's actions led to his own ouster, followed by the eventual exposure of a $1.7 billion fraud and the arrest of the company chairman and other individuals with ties to the scandal. Woodford recounts his experiences in "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Exposure/dp/0241963613/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;sr=&amp;qid=">Exposure: Inside the Olympus Scandal: How I Went from CEO to Whistleblower</a>," now out in paperback. His account of his climactic showdown with the board is excerpted below:<br /></em></p>
<p>As I entered the Monolith building I glanced at my phone: it was 8.41, Friday, 14 October. I entered the lift in silence, a deference to the etiquette in Japan, where everyone seems to keep fixed, unreadable expressions in such situations. I wondered if my Japanese colleagues around me knew what was about to happen. I got out on the fifteenth floor, walked the twenty or so yards to the electronically controlled double doors into the executive suite. Normally I would enter the secretaries' office by the reception desk and say: 'Ohayou gozaimasu' (good morning), and then, having exhausted my Japanese repertoire, would in English ask the four secretaries who shared the office how they were and spend a few minutes talking and joking. That day I went straight to my own office.</p>
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<p>There was a knock at the door and Michiko entered. She had clearly been crying. I could see in her eyes that those wretched men had told her what was going to happen and no doubt had forbidden her from saying anything to me. In that moment I felt such warmth for her, remembering all the funny times we had together. We had laughed a lot when we had gone out shopping to buy my tailor- made shirts (which were necessary to accommodate my long limbs), my fancy Porsche-designed electronic pepper and salt grinders and my beloved Nespresso coffee machine. Every morning before I arrived she would go down to the building's subterranean shopping arcade and in Cafe´ Croissant buy me my favourite egg croissant for breakfast. She knew how to look after me - a useless gaijin who didn't speak Japanese - and had made my time in Tokyo go smoothly. She loyally watched my back, and now she couldn't stop her own colleagues from stabbing me right between the shoulder blades. But she was completely professional. She didn't say a word.</p>
<p>I wanted to say goodbye to her properly but subsequently found out she had been instructed to go across the road to wait in the Keio Plaza Hotel, until I had left the building. They didn't want her to bump into me when I came out of my last board meeting as president.</p>
<p>The meeting was scheduled for nine o'clock, and in a culture where nobody is late for anything, ever, the boardroom was full at the appointed hour. The roll call that day was thirteen board members, two translators, four attending auditors and one secretariat member. But somebody was conspicuously absent. Having called this extraordinary meeting, Kikukawa was late. Late? How could he be late?</p>
<p>At 9.02 I looked to my right and caught Hisashi Mori's eye. His gaze, as ever, offered nothing. I made an exaggerated play of checking my watch and raising my eyebrows. He leaned slightly towards me and, in a feeble attempt to humour me, asked about my visit to Tohoku the preceding day.</p>
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<p>'Michael, how was it? You must have been affected?' With my mind fresh from the scenes of devastation I had witnessed the day before, I felt an overwhelming revulsion that he would use this of all subjects to try and distract me. A low-level fury rose from my stomach. In a raised voice, and deliberately omitting the honorific 'san', I replied: 'Mori, stop playing games. Just get on with it.' Realizing that I knew my fate, Mori shrugged nervously and scuttled off to find his master.</p>
<p>Kikukawa eventually arrived, with Mori dutifully in his wake. It was 9.07. Kikukawa waddled in like a duck, wearing a shiny blue suit. He nodded at those present, and anxiously, perhaps even a touch excitedly, fiddled with his tie. I immediately recognized the tie. It was one of the three he had recently bought from the Im- perial Hotel boutique, at a price of $500 each, about which he had later boasted. A little puffed-up duck in a five-hundred-buck tie. He didn't go to his normal chair, immediately to my right, but stood at the podium as if he were to give a routine PowerPoint presentation on the last quarter's financial results.</p>
<p>He cleared his throat. 'Today's board meeting to discuss concerns relating to M&amp;A activity has been cancelled.' (I was listening in my earpiece to the translation.) 'There is instead to be a new agenda: firstly the dismissal of Mr Woodford as president, CEO and repre- sentative director.'</p>
<p>I waited for a ripple of murmured astonishment, perhaps even dissent. Everyone stayed silent.</p>
<p>Kikukawa put the motion, as company law directed, to a vote, and almost before he had finished speaking, all fifteen members simultaneously raised their hands in approval. I was reminded of young children in a classroom who know the answer to a simple question, all stretching their arms up, desperate for the teacher to call on them. There was to be no discussion, no debate, just acquiescence.</p>
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<p>Kikukawa was now talking again. 'Mr Woodford,' he said, looking into the middle distance, 'is not permitted to make any comments here, because he has a vested interest in the outcome.' Oddly, I had an overwhelming desire to laugh. I was in a room full of people - of colleagues, some of whom I had known for over thirty years - who were now operating beyond all the recognizable codes of conduct, not just in Japan but anywhere in the business world.</p>
<p>I stared at Kikukawa: at the cut of his expensive suit, at the precision of the knot in that silk tie, at the curt, pinched smile that played beneath his nose, and the reflection of the overhead lighting on the lenses of his glasses. He struck me as a ludicrous figure, and so delusional. He resembled little more than the captain of a sink- ing ship who believed that by throwing out the deadweight, his vessel would suddenly right itself and resume its calm drift into the horizon.</p>
<p>He read out a second motion: 'Mr Woodford is stripped of all his directorships of Olympus's subsidiary companies, including Olym- pus Corporation of the Americas and Olympus Europa Holding GmbH' (the American and European organizations at both of which I was CEO and chairman of the board). Tellingly, he went on to announce, 'Hisashi Mori will replace Mr Woodford in these roles.' Mori, I thought. The Emperor's trusted sidekick, a bureaucrat, a creature of the corridors - he knows nothing about the real business of customers and products.</p>
<p>It was no comfort to know that I was making history, for the forced removal of a company president is almost unheard of in Japan. No one is let go unless they are guilty of major malfeasance such as when, in 1997, the chairman of Japan's then largest bank, Dai-Ichi Kangyo, was convicted of lending billions of yen to members of organized crime groups.</p>
<p>So why were Kikukawa and his board cronies acting this irrationally? They knew waves of publicity would be generated by my dismissal, but they were obviously scared of something far worse.</p>
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<p>But now they were going to hold a press conference to announce their bizarre decision to the world.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/533449dd6bb3f73c5412cef3-1200-2000/exposure_300.jpg" border="0" alt="exposure: inside the olympus scandal" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Exposure/dp/0241963613/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;sr=&amp;qid=">"Exposure: Inside the Olympus Scandal"</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div>I checked my watch; it was 9.15 a.m. Just eight minutes had elapsed. An eight-minute corporate execution. I was now officially the ex-president. I remained a director, albeit one without portfolio, thanks to a quirk in Japanese corporate law whereby, if you don't resign, only the shareholders can remove your directorship.</p>
<p>I rose quietly, left the room and, deliberately holding my head high, walked back to my office. I immediately opened the safe in the corner of the room, retrieved my bank book, about £1,000 worth of yen and, most importantly, my Japanese name stamp. If massive fraud had been taking place, the very last thing I wanted was these people getting hold of my name stamp. The red Japanese characters it leaves on a page are legally as good as my signature and are crucial for endorsing all official documents in Japan. Made out of wood and beautifully painted, the stamp was the size and width of my index finger. I kept it in a small leather box with a red ink pad. Using it always reminded me of my childhood Post Office set, but it was no plaything.</p>
<p>The only thing on my mind was to escape as quickly as possible. I just couldn't understand why the board members were acting in this way. They had seemed scared, but of what? I was confused and disorientated. My thoughts turned again to the second Facta article, and its suggestion of connections to organized crime, to the Yakuza. I was both frightened and angry.</p>
<p>Somebody entered my office, and I turned to see Hironobu Kawamata, who in effect fulfilled the role of Olympus's chief financial officer. He was accompanied by the recently appointed head of the secretarial division, a quiet and unassuming man who had clearly been 'volunteered' to make this encounter two against one. He remained silent during the exchange that followed. Kawamata was smiling broadly enough to reveal his teeth. Japanese people often smile or laugh when nervous, but this was not the case. There was too much relish in his expression.</p>
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<p>'Michael, there are a few points I need to go through with you,' he said, as if what had just taken place in the boardroom was routine. 'Firstly, I want your two phones.' His manner was so rough that I became angry again. I looked him in the eye and, passing him the Samsung Galaxy, which I had used most frequently in Japan, said, 'You can have this one.' I could not help but add, 'I've already wiped it.' My other phone - an iPhone - had been issued to me by the British subsidiary.</p>
<p>I held it up. 'I'll keep this one because my wife will be worried if she can't make contact with me.' I walked towards him and with my face just a few inches from his I said, 'Or are you going to take it off me? Are you a policeman?' He buckled slightly, which pumped me up all the more. I wanted to shout, <em>Who the f--- do you think you are?</em> My fingers curled, I clenched my hands at my sides.</p>
<p>Kawamata took a step back, relocated his resolve and demanded my two Sony Vaio laptops. It was my turn to smile. I told him, 'I know your games and they have already been sent back securely to London. I'll drop them off at KeyMed [Olympus's UK headquarters] once they've been wiped of all data.' Numerous colleagues from around the world had assisted or written to me, expressing in the most explicit language their contempt for the Olympus board's behaviour, so my overwhelming priority was to protect them. Next, Kawamata demanded that I relinquish my company-issued credit card. I passed it to him with no comment.</p>
<p>'Your apartment,' he said, moving through his to-do list, 'you have to vacate it by the end of the weekend.' This I found extraordinary: I paid more than half of the rent personally. I stayed calm, telling him that I would pack a bag and return the keys in due course. Lastly, he said, 'And by the way, when you go to the airport, you are not allowed to use Nick. You can take the airport bus.'</p>
<p>His smile had returned. Over my many years visiting Japan, I had never seen or heard of anything like this. This aggressive rudeness was all so very atypical, simply not the way business was carried out here. My efforts to highlight wrongdoings had brought out a bullying mob mentality in my colleagues.</p>
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<p>My hands turned cold. I wanted to get out.</p>
<p>Kawamata did not accompany me the fifteen floors down to the ground floor, and for that I was grateful. I breathed heavily through my nose as the lift descended, my hands like ice, a cold sweat breaking out across my forehead and the back of my neck. Once at the foyer I strode briskly from the lift across the gleaming marble floor and out into an unseasonably warm and sunny Tokyo morning. Rush hour was over, so I had no trouble hailing a taxi. It was a relief to be inside, amid the curious frilly white doilies that cover the seats, and being driven away. I gave the driver a laminated card with my address in Shibuya, his hands white-gloved and resting at a calm ten to two on the steering wheel, and resisted the urge to ask him to drive quickly.</p>
<p>We arrived at Grosvenor Place and there were two men in suits loitering downstairs in the foyer. They looked hefty and officious. One of them gave me a sidelong glance. Did they have all their fingers? I went upstairs.</p>
<p>My apartment, technically no longer mine, was silent. I went straight to the bedroom and packed my bags, pulling clothes from drawers and cupboards, taking photos of my wife and children and stuffing them into a case, my ears alert to any sounds outside the window or the front door. I crossed the floor to the kitchen, sud- denly feeling thirsty; I drank deep from the tap. Zipping up my bags, I hesitated by the front door. I took a very careful look through the fisheye lens spy hole which revealed an empty corridor. I opened the door, stepped out, and allowed it to close quietly behind me.</p>
<p>Back downstairs, the two suspicious men still loitered. I passed the reception desk where the three uniformed ladies bowed, not knowing it would be the last time they would see me. Out on the street and hurrying along the pavement, I was soon sweating as I lugged my large silver suitcase in one hand and my black leather briefcase in the other.</p>
<p><em>Reprinted from<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Exposure-Inside-Olympus-Scandal-Whistleblower/dp/1591845750"> EXPOSURE: Inside the Olympus Scandal: How I Went from CEO to Whistleblower</a> by Michael Woodford with permission of Portfolio, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC. Copyright (c) Michael Woodford, 2012.</em></p>
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