What Last Week in AWS does

Last Week in AWS is a multi-channel media publication founded in 2016 by Corey Quinn and operated by L9 Labs, Inc., a privately held U.S. corporation. The publication targets cloud engineers, DevOps professionals, cloud architects, and engineering leaders who need to make sense of the high volume of AWS announcements, pricing changes, and service deprecations. Its core offering is a free weekly email newsletter that curates and contextualizes AWS news with a critical, often humorous editorial voice, supplemented by three podcasts (Last Week in AWS Podcast, the interview-based Screaming in the Cloud, and the daily AWS Morning Brief), a long-form blog, a branded merchandise store, and an interactive AWS Network Map visualization tool.

The platform is built on standard content management, email distribution, and podcast hosting infrastructure rather than proprietary technology, with a single applied AI capability — "Billie the Platypus," an email triage assistant powered by Anthropic's Claude that classifies inbound mail and drafts responses in shadow mode for human review. The product's value is editorial and brand-driven, not engineering-driven; the entire enterprise rests on Quinn's voice, his position as Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, and an accumulated content archive.

Monetization is multi-stream but small-scale. Revenue is generated through newsletter advertising and sponsorships from cloud-native vendors, podcast advertising, branded merchandise, and — most materially — a content-marketing funnel into The Duckbill Group's cloud cost consultancy. The core newsletter remains free; L9 Labs, Inc. is founder-controlled, not venture-backed, and does not disclose revenue or audience size.

Name

Last Week in AWS

Legal name

L9 Labs, Inc.

Website

https://lastweekinaws.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2016

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Last Week in AWS is a free weekly newsletter, blog, and three-podcast media publication founded in 2016 by Corey Quinn that curates and critiques AWS news for cloud engineers, DevOps professionals, and engineering leaders.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Supply Chain, Others

Revenue model

1. Newsletter Advertising/Sponsorships: Monetization through sponsored content slots and advertising within the weekly newsletter sent to subscribers. Sponsors include cloud-native vendors and AWS ecosystem companies targeting the same audience of cloud engineers and AWS practitioners.
2. Podcast Monetization: Podcast distribution with potential mid-roll advertising slots and sponsor integrations during episodes covering AWS news and analysis.
3. Merchandise Sales: Sale of branded merchandise through the merch store, including apparel and accessories featuring the Last Week in AWS brand and humor-driven slogans.
4. Consulting Services (via Duckbill Group): Corey Quinn's cloud economics consulting practice through Duckbill Group, which provides cloud cost optimization and AWS advisory services to enterprise clients. Last Week in AWS serves as a content marketing vehicle for this primary revenue-generating consulting business.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Last Week in AWS is an independent media publication that curates, summarizes, and comments on AWS and cloud-industry news. The flagship offering is a free weekly email newsletter written by Chief Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, complemented by two podcasts (Last Week in AWS Podcast and Screaming in the Cloud), a long-form blog, and the AWS Network Map visualization. Revenue comes primarily from newsletter sponsorships, podcast advertising, branded merchandise, and affiliated cloud-economics consulting through Duckbill Group.

Product overview

Last Week in AWS is a multi-channel content publication platform operated by L9 Labs, Inc. (The Duckbill Group). The core offering consists of a weekly email newsletter, two podcasts (Last Week in AWS and Screaming in the Cloud), and a blog providing in-depth AWS analysis. The company is led by Chief Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, who curates and contextualizes AWS news with critical analysis. Related services include an AWS Network Map visualization tool and a merchandise store. The company also publishes disclosures about paid relationships with AWS and Google Cloud.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Screaming in the Cloud: A weekly podcast where Corey Quinn is joined by cloud computing domain experts to discuss AWS, GCP, Azure, Oracle Cloud, and broader cloud industry topics.
• AWS Morning Brief
• Last Week in AWS Podcast
• Billie the Platypus

Products and services

• Last Week in AWS Newsletter A free weekly email newsletter curating AWS news with critical commentary and analysis from Corey Quinn, targeted at individual cloud engineers, DevOps professionals, and engineering leaders.
• Last Week in AWS Podcast Weekly podcast covering AWS news, popular service deep-dives, and listener Q&A with snarky analytical perspective.
• Screaming in the Cloud Weekly interview podcast where Corey Quinn speaks with cloud computing experts about AWS, GCP, Azure, Oracle Cloud, and broader industry trends.
• The Blog Long-form article blog with detailed AWS analysis, tutorials, and commentary on pricing, service deprecations, AI tools, and cloud architecture.
• AWS Network Map Interactive visualization tool that maps relationships and connections between AWS services and features for the practitioner community.
• Last Week in AWS Merch Store E-commerce store selling branded apparel and accessories featuring Last Week in AWS branding and humor-driven slogans.

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability2 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Duckbill GroupcoreOthersDuckbill Group is the parent company that backs and operates Last Week in AWS. Corey Quinn serves as Chief Cloud Economist at Duckbill Group, which provides cloud economics consulting services. Last Week in AWS serves as a content marketing and thought leadership platform for the Duckbill Group consulting practice. L9 Labs, Inc. is the corporate entity that publishes Last Week in AWS.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Others

• CloudZero: Cloud cost management SaaS platform competing with Duckbill Group in the cloud FinOps space — adjacent rather than competitive because LWIA itself is a media publication, but CloudZero is the most thematically related company given LWIA's role funneling Duckbill consulting leads.

Broad incumbents

• The Information: Subscription tech and business news publication that built a paid subscription newsletter business around niche, high-value audiences — comparable business model of monetizing deep expertise via subscription/paywall alongside advertising.
• Morning Brew: The category-defining daily business-news newsletter, scaled to millions of subscribers and now monetizing subscriptions, events, and sponsored content — directly comparable newsletter-to-business model, just at vastly larger scale and broader topic coverage.
• Jeff Barr AWS Blog: AWS's own official blog and news commentary channel run by then VP Jeff Barr — the authoritative incumbent that LWIA explicitly positions against with its snarky critical-angle commentary on the same announcements.

Direct peers

• The Cloudcast: Long-running weekly podcast covering cloud infrastructure topics with sponsorship-driven monetization and a practitioner audience — direct counterpart in the cloud-podcast category where LWIA's podcasts compete for both listeners and cloud-vendor sponsors.
• Packet Pushers: Long-running network of IT-infrastructure podcasts and newsletters with a practitioner audience and sponsor-supported model — comparable in operating multiple podcasts with the same topic area and monetization mechanics.
• Stratechery: Ben Thompson's subscription tech-strategy newsletter with a similar single-author, opinion-led analysis voice and newsletter-to-paid-product funnel — comparable in how a personal brand carries the publication.
• The Pragmatic Engineer: Subscription tech newsletter/podcast by Gergely Orosz covering software engineering and tech-industry careers with the same newsletter-first, sponsorship-driven model as Last Week in AWS — operating in a closely parallel niche-audience playbook.
• Benedict Evans Newsletter: Free, weekly tech-analysis newsletter from a single recognized industry analyst using a snark-and-strategy voice aimed at executives and practitioners — structurally the closest match in format, voice, and audience overlap with LWIA.

Emerging players

• Adrian Cantrill Training: Independent AWS training/courses producer built around an individual AWS expert — adjacent peer because both serve the same senior AWS practitioner audience with content from a recognized independent expert, though Cantrill sells courses rather than advertising.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/LastWeekinAWS
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/last-week-in-aws

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Last Week in AWS