I am not at liberty to say the company name, but i do directly know of one person at a director level who was fired for using AWS.
They turned on encryption for an option and did not realize the huge price difference between the encrypted and unencrypted option meant $9000 per day in additional charges. After 1 month (30 days) this came to light, and he was fired.
Yes, this happens with AWS. Controlling costs is a very important part of using any cloud, let alone AWS where the charges are... not as transparent as one would wish. :)
EDIT: btw, he was not fired for using AWS, he was fired for making unnecessary costs.
I'm sure at least a few companies have gone bankrupt or people have gotten pink-slipped for using AWS and not paying attention to auto-scaling settings...
It's scarily easy to accrue huge bills if you're not watching things closely.
They turned on encryption for an option and did not realize the huge price difference between the encrypted and unencrypted option meant $9000 per day in additional charges. After 1 month (30 days) this came to light, and he was fired.