[kamaal]

>>As a CTO of a number of small startups, I am still struggling to understand what exactly AWS and other cloud providers give you to justify the markup.

If you are having a company that warrants building a data center, then AWS does not add much.

Other wise you face the 'if you want to build apple pie from scratch, you need to first invent the universe' problem. Simply put you can get started right on day one, in a pay as you go model. Like you can write code, deploy and ship from the very first day, instead of having to go deep down the infrastructure rabbit hole.

Plus shutting down things is easy as well. Things don't workout? Good news! You can shut down the infrastructure that very day instead of having to worry about the capital expenditure spent to build infrastructure, and without having to worry about its use later.

Simply put, AWS is infrastructure you can hire and fire at will.