Mike Julian
@mikejulian.com
š¤ 959
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Cofounder/CEO at DuckbillHQ.com. @mike_julian on Twitter
pinned post!
Consulting 101: My top 10 lessons in getting paid to give advice. š§µ
about 1 year ago
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Last day at re:Invent! I'm at booth #1217 through this afternoon if you want to connect.
20 days ago
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Dealing with complex cloud contracts? I'm at #1217 demoing Skyway. Let's talk.
#reInvent
#AWSreInvent
21 days ago
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Remember this night? Atomic Liquors, a packed patio, and re:Invent finally feeling alive again in 2022. Weāre running it back on Wednesday. Join us if youāre in town! RSVP:
luma.com/5naymwo1
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21 days ago
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Tomorrow night we're hosting a casual gathering during re:Invent with friends from RedMonk and Heavybit. If you've been meaning to RSVP, now's the time. RSVP:
luma.com/5naymwo1
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Last Week in AWS/Duckbill x RedMonk x Heavybit at re:Invent 2025 Ā· Luma
Need to escape the madness on the strip at re:Invent? Join Duckbill, RedMonk, and Heavybit at Atomic Liquors in downtown Vegas. The best party at re:Invent,ā¦
https://luma.com/5naymwo1
22 days ago
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Before re:Invent's keynote: breakfast with @QuinnyPig, @mike_julian, @jpatanooga, and fellow cloud practitioners. Mon Ami Gabi, Tuesday, December 2. No sales pitch. Just fuel and conversation. RSVP:
luma.com/npyv1y2k
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AWS re:Invent Pre-Keynote Breakfast Ā· Luma
No Sales. Just Baguettes, My Cloud, and Mes Amis. Join Corey Quinn (Co-Founder, Duckbill Group), Mike Julian (Co-Founder, Duckbill Group) and Josh Pattersonā¦
https://luma.com/npyv1y2k
23 days ago
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If your re:Invent week isn't complete without witnessing Corey Quinn interact with actual humans, this is your moment. Wednesday at 7pm. Corey will be... well, Corey. You can decide whether that's the reason you're attending or the challenge you're embracing. RSVP:
luma.com/5naymwo1
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Last Week in AWS/Duckbill x RedMonk x Heavybit at re:Invent 2025 Ā· Luma
Need to escape the madness on the strip at re:Invent? Join Duckbill, RedMonk, and Heavybit at Atomic Liquors in downtown Vegas. The best party at re:Invent,ā¦
https://luma.com/5naymwo1
28 days ago
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Missed your AWS spend commitment? Don't panic. AWS has a neat trick with a hidden "available balance" that lets you kick that shortfall down the road, as long as you keep signing new deals. Learn how to play their game.
#finops
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29 days ago
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Keynote preparation: breakfast at Mon Ami Gabi. Real food, strong coffee, honest conversation about enterprise cloud realities. Join us Tuesday, December 2 before the announcements begin. RSVP:
luma.com/npyv1y2k
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AWS re:Invent Pre-Keynote Breakfast Ā· Luma
No Sales. Just Baguettes, My Cloud, and Mes Amis. Join Corey Quinn (Co-Founder, Duckbill Group), Mike Julian (Co-Founder, Duckbill Group) and Josh Pattersonā¦
https://luma.com/npyv1y2k
29 days ago
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We're teaming up with RedMonk and Heavybit to host a relaxed off-the-clock gathering during re:Invent. No demos, no presentationsājust a chance to connect with people who shape this industry. Whether you're new to the scene or a long-timer, we'd love to see you there. RSVP:
luma.com/5naymwo1
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Last Week in AWS/Duckbill x RedMonk x Heavybit at re:Invent 2025 Ā· Luma
Need to escape the madness on the strip at re:Invent? Join Duckbill, RedMonk, and Heavybit at Atomic Liquors in downtown Vegas. The best party at re:Invent,ā¦
https://luma.com/5naymwo1
29 days ago
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Trying to negotiate with AWS when your spend is shrinking? You have the negotiating leverage of a wet napkin. The only winning move is not to play. Let your contract expire, slash your costs, and then come back to the table from a position of power.
#finops
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about 1 month ago
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Is your entire FinOps "team" just one person who looks perpetually haunted? The centralized vs. decentralized debate is a trap. The real answer is a hybrid "Cost Champions" modelālike little sleeper agents of fiscal responsibility embedded in your teams.
#finops
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about 1 month ago
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Pre-keynote breakfast at Mon Ami Gabi with @QuinnyPig, @mike_julian, @jpatanooga, and practitioners who know the first question about any new service is always about cost. Tuesday, December 2. Complimentary. Straightforward. RSVP:
luma.com/npyv1y2k
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AWS re:Invent Pre-Keynote Breakfast Ā· Luma
No Sales. Just Baguettes, My Cloud, and Mes Amis. Join Corey Quinn (Co-Founder, Duckbill Group), Mike Julian (Co-Founder, Duckbill Group) and Josh Pattersonā¦
https://luma.com/npyv1y2k
about 1 month ago
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Started planning re:Invent? Good. Now plan your exit strategy from the Venetian. We're throwing "the best party at re:Invent" with RedMonk and Heavybit. Wed, Dec 3 @ 7pm at Atomic Liquors. Selfie with Corey or avoid him entirely? Both valid. RSVP:
luma.com/5naymwo1
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Last Week in AWS/Duckbill x RedMonk x Heavybit at re:Invent 2025 Ā· Luma
Need to escape the madness on the strip at re:Invent? Join Duckbill, RedMonk, and Heavybit at Atomic Liquors in downtown Vegas. The best party at re:Invent,ā¦
https://luma.com/5naymwo1
about 1 month ago
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The day has come where we get to announce what we've been working on for the past year š
www.duckbillhq.com/blog/skyway-...
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Skyway: Cloud cost management for the 9-figure club
Introducing Skyway: contract management for enterprise cloud spend. Built by the team overseeing tens-of-billions in enterprise cloud spend.
https://www.duckbillhq.com/blog/skyway-cloud-cost-management-for-the-9-figure-club/
about 1 month ago
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Want to start a FinOps program? The secret first step: do almost nothing. Just measure everything and show people the numbers. Let the gentle, persistent shame of a public dashboard work its magic. You'll be amazed how quickly costs go down.
#finops
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2 months ago
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So you want to know how your cloud spend stacks up against the competition? Great. Do you also want to be profoundly mediocre? Chasing benchmarks strips away everything unique about your business. Compete with the only company that matters: yourself, last month.
#finops
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2 months ago
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Should you use an AWS reseller? For the most part, no. But there are exactly three situations where they aren't a complete waste of time. If you're just buying AWS from them and getting nothing else, you've just added a uselessāand expensiveāmiddleman.
#finops
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2 months ago
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The first San Francisco
#FinOps
meetup is *tonight* at 5:30! Come hang out!
lu.ma/v75d6o5e
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San Francisco FinOps Meetup: Cloud Cost Insights & Networking Ā· Luma
Join fellow FinOps pros, finance, engineers, and enthusiasts for an evening of insights and conversation in the heart of San Francisco. 5:30 PM ā Doors open &ā¦
https://lu.ma/v75d6o5e
4 months ago
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If you're in San Francisco on Tuesday, we're hosting the first ever San Francisco FinOps Meetup in FiDi! Join us!
lu.ma/v75d6o5e
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San Francisco FinOps Meetup: Cloud Cost Insights & Networking Ā· Luma
Join fellow FinOps pros, finance, engineers, and enthusiasts for an evening of insights and conversation in the heart of San Francisco. 5:30 PM ā Doors open &ā¦
https://lu.ma/v75d6o5e
4 months ago
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add a skeleton here at some point
4 months ago
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I know I'm supposed to be in Vegas for re:Invent but, uhh, the Excel World Championship Finals are in Vegas at the same time š¤
4 months ago
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A whole lot of SaaS products have been touting their cost optimization capabilities since ZIRP ended. I think "can manage its own costs" is tablestakes for most SaaS products now to such a degree that it's not even worth mentioning in the core features--it's just _expected_.
4 months ago
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Just realized every major Vegas strip hotel is now unionized. Venetian unionized last August. I wonder how long before "Relocate re:Invent" made it to someone's agenda--minutes? hours? š
5 months ago
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Amazon acquiring Bee is a pretty strong admission that they can't make Alexa work.
www.linkedin.com/posts/activi...
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Bee is joining Amazon and we couldnāt be more excited! | Maria de Lourdes Zollo
Bee is joining Amazon and we couldnāt be more excited! When we started Bee, we imagined a world where AI is truly personal, where your life is understood and enhanced by technology that learns with ...
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7353453923795378176-Kf8L/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAACTy6oBdeEEm229Y6me5HmxP1-IY-twCuc
5 months ago
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Just doin some wild shit in studio with
@quinnypig.com
today š¤
5 months ago
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reposted by
Mike Julian
Scott Piper
5 months ago
Now that AWS fixed the free tier, I think the next biggest technical absurdity, in terms of a thing that seems like a decision made outside of technical considerations, is how you can't move an S3 bucket between accounts.
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"Being a founder is, well, it actually sucks. It's oddly like being repeatedly punched in the face." 𤣠too real
add a skeleton here at some point
5 months ago
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reposted by
Mike Julian
Charity Majors
6 months ago
New post up, with a bunch of thoughts on what drives me personally, and my own 40-year career (h/t
@lethain.com
). I have a pretty unusual life story. But one of the reasons I love the tech industry so much is how common unusual stories like mine have historically been.
charity.wtf/2025/07/09/t...
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Thoughts on Motivation and My 40-Year Career
Iāve never published an essay quite like this. Iāve written about my life before, reams of stuff actually, because thatās how I process what I think, but never for public consumption. Iāve been pusā¦
https://charity.wtf/2025/07/09/thoughts-on-motivation-and-my-40-year-career/
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In before an Amazon exec realizes a product team made something unique and interesting and ruins it by bringing it back into the fold a la Lightsail.
add a skeleton here at some point
5 months ago
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The problem I have with modern observability tools is that I feel like an idiot trying to figure out how to use them.
6 months ago
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reposted by
Mike Julian
Seb in the cloud āļø
6 months ago
Ever wondered what is a day in the life of a server in an AWS data center ? @quinnypig.com has it covered for you
www.lastweekinaws.co...
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A Day in the Life of Server #47B-2: An AWS Data Center Memoir
Or: Surprise! I Contain Multitudes and Also Your āServerlessā Functions
https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/a-day-in-the-life-of-server-47b-2-an-aws-data-center-memoir/
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I'm hosting the
@duckbillgroup.com
office hours in ten minutes! If you have questions about
#AWS
contracts, cost optimization, or
#FinOps
in general, come on over!
zoom.us/webinar/regi...
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Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Duckbill Group Office Hours. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.
⢠Get personalized advice on your AWS cost optimization strategy ⢠Ask questions about confusing billing elements ⢠Learn about AWS contract negotiations ⢠Connect with FinOps professionals who unders...
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_3d5TTMmgRCaWHtpSkWoAMA
7 months ago
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reposted by
Mike Julian
Duckbill
7 months ago
Want to know the most telling metric about cloud cost management tools? Check how many people actually USE them. Great tools matter, but without the right people driving your strategy, they're just expensive dashboards collecting dust.
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Cloud Cost Tools Won't Fix Your AWS Bill (Here's Why)
Think throwing money at fancy cloud cost management tools will solve your AWS spending problems? Here's why that approach fails: Most companies have fewer th...
https://youtube.com/shorts/vsGdv3z6gtk
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reposted by
Mike Julian
Duckbill
7 months ago
Missing your AWS EDP commitment? Donāt panic. If youāre 10ā15% underwater, doing nothing might be optimal since shortfall fees use discounted rates. Focus on total savings, not perfect forecasting.
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What To Do When Youāre Underwater on Your AWS EDP
Underwater? Letās go swimming. You have optionsā¦
https://www.duckbillgroup.com/blog/what-to-do-when-underwater-on-aws-edp/
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reposted by
Mike Julian
Duckbill
7 months ago
Finance and Engineering need couples therapy when it comes to cloud costs. Finance wants confidence in the numbers and trajectory. Engineering thinks they need to defend every dollar. Better understanding leads to better outcomes.
youtube.com/shorts/XY4Ax...
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The Finance-Engineering Gap in Cloud Costs: A Simple Fix
Stop assuming Finance wants a detailed justification of every dollar in your cloud bill. What they really want is confidence - confidence that someone unders...
https://youtube.com/shorts/XY4AxprWtVg
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reposted by
Mike Julian
John Breen
7 months ago
I have managed multiple teams at a company with a hybrid schedule. I have also been hiring pretty consistently for years now (basically until like a month ago). One thing I hear from candidates often is that they are actively excited to come into the office a few times a week to be around others.
add a skeleton here at some point
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Mike Julian
Liz Fong-Jones (ę¹ē¦®ē)
7 months ago
You can skate by with informal knowledge and keeping state in people's heads and making it accessible via in-person conversation if you are in person. Mandatory written artifacts create a lot of overhead for many people if they are not reading and writing first people.
add a skeleton here at some point
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reposted by
Mike Julian
Duckbill
7 months ago
The foundation of cloud cost management isn't about optimizationāit's about understanding why engineering teams make the decisions they do. Start there, and meaningful optimization follows.
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Why Engineering Teams Don't Focus On AWS Costs
Here's something crucial about cloud costs that most people miss: Engineering teams are shipping features because that's exactly what they should be doing. T...
https://youtube.com/shorts/FpA52VSOjmY
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reposted by
Mike Julian
Scott Piper
7 months ago
This is great to see AWS centralizing info about their end of life products in one place! Hopefully I'll eventually be able to retire
github.com/SummitRoute/...
aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/in...
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Introducing the AWS Product Lifecycle page and AWS service availability updates | Amazon Web Services
Today, weāre introducing the AWS Product Lifecycle page, a centralized resource that provides comprehensive information about service availability changes across AWS. The new AWS Product Lifecycle pag...
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/introducing-the-aws-product-lifecycle-page-and-aws-service-availability-updates/
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reposted by
Mike Julian
emily freeman
7 months ago
Freeman & Forrest is a year old! It's been a wild, incredible journey and we've learned so much. I'm remembering an executive we pitched early on who called us a "small business for shitty little companies." Anyway, we've paid technical content creators $1.7M. I'm proud of that.
fnf.dev/one-year
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5 Big Numbers from 1 Big Year at Freeman & Forrest
With one full year under our belts, here are a few of the numbers from this year that weāre most excited about.
https://www.freemanandforrest.com/blog/3dYzROwYeGpPJMctpLpJKV
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reposted by
Mike Julian
Scott Piper
8 months ago
AWS VPC endpoint interface support for AZs is chaos. Of the 392 services these endpoints support, 75 services are not available in all AZs in us-east-1. You think, ok use1-az3 is probably missing support for some, because of course it is, because it's cursed and you'd be right, it's the worst, but
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reposted by
Mike Julian
Duckbill
8 months ago
Your cloud cost management central team can't handle it all forever. The path to scale is through decentralization - equipping teams across the organization with the tools, standards, and processes to manage their own costs. Enable, don't control.
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Scale Your Cost Management Like This
The reality of scaling cloud cost management hits hard: your central team can't do it all. Learn how successful enterprises shift from centralized control to...
https://youtube.com/shorts/Pah7TQHfPXI
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Pretty common case that we see $500k-$750k a month on cloudwatch logs in our enterprise customers. This is great.
add a skeleton here at some point
8 months ago
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reposted by
Mike Julian
Duckbill
8 months ago
Want to make a real dent in your AWS costs? Stop obsessing over turning off unused resources. Start examining your architectural choices. How you design your application matters more than how you optimize individual components.
youtube.com/shorts/bVJYT...
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The BIGGEST AWS Cost Driver Nobody Talks About
Think AWS cost management is all about finding idle resources and resizing instances? Think again. The real impact on your cloud costs comes from your archit...
https://youtube.com/shorts/bVJYT6LgUPM
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Today's self-own: introducing the eng team to quines
8 months ago
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reposted by
Mike Julian
AWS FinOps News
8 months ago
Optimizing cost for using foundational models with Amazon Bedrock
Amazon Bedrock cost optimization: Choose pricing options, select models wisely, optimize knowledge bases, use prompt caching, and leverage automated reasoning. Balance capability and cost with managed AI models on AWS.
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We do a lot of hard work on whiteboards over here. Chief among them is this graph explaining the quality distribution of burritos in SF vs the national stage. šÆšÆšÆ
8 months ago
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reposted by
Mike Julian
Corey Quinn
9 months ago
Great, ANOTHER reservation expression to keep track of. Just what absolutely no customer wanted.
add a skeleton here at some point
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reposted by
Mike Julian
Corey Quinn
9 months ago
Thatās significant.
add a skeleton here at some point
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I was just last week trying to explain to someone in SF the difference between y'all, all y'all, and y'ouns
add a skeleton here at some point
9 months ago
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