[SpikeGronim]

I am an ex-AWS employee. I can verify that AWS was founded as a new line of business using new servers purchased for AWS. The idea that AWS was started using Amazon's spare capacity is widely repeated but false. Amazon is definitely leveraging their expertise and not their physical machines. Source: I've seen the original pitch deck for Amazon S3.

[cperciva]

AWS may not have used Amazon's spare hardware, but it certainly used Amazon's spare code.