[vincentmarle]

> In case anyone doesn't know this, for just about any venture-backed company that has gone through YC or another incubator or raised from an early-stage VC, you can pretty much automatically get $100k of credits from Google or AWS.

This seems very backward, because you also don’t really need those credits anymore at that point.

[ksec]

The whole point is to get you hooked in the first place.

Scenario

1. You succeed, your startup is now worth something ( big or small ), you will be dealing with scaling issues, people issues, marketing issues, profits issues or gazillion of other small things, the last thing you want is switching your infrastructure provide.

2. You failed, or burn through those cash, but not to worry, since your are backed by incubator or early stage VC, the likely hood of you getting another round of funding is high. And those will be used on AWS anyway.

There are very little downside to AWS but lots of upside.

[chickenpotpie]

$100k is another employee for free. That's a significant sum for an early stage startup.

[icheishvili]

Why should startups backed by powerful institutional capital get more credits from AWS than ones that are bootstrapped and hurting for cash much more?

[avianlyric]

Because they’re more likely to succeed and spend real cash with AWS later.

Amazon’s a business, not a charity.

[harryh]

AWS credits aren't charity. They're an investment by Amazon that they hope will lead to future AWS revenue.