Bezos And The Super Rich Get Married While We Wait for Code Review
Sanchez and Bezos
I’ve worked with people who thought a good code review was one where they insisted that import statements be listed alphabetically. I’ve worked for a manager who once suggested we throw away the entire project because his friend on Twitter told him to. But never in my wildest Agile retrospectives did I imagine Jeff Bezos would decide the best way to celebrate eternal love was by single-handedly renting Venice. Every. Single. Water Taxi.
Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey, Orlando Bloom AND Katy Perry
When most people I know get married they’re lucky to get a Slack message “congrats”. Bezos is operating on another level. Venice, a city once known for its history, culture, slowly sinking into the sea, is due to be the backdrop for the latest billionaire wedding.
Sanchez, Bezos, and Kim Kardashian
While his employees are back in the office 5 days a week, Jeff and his beau Lauren Sánchez will be floating down the Grand Canal surrounded by the holy trinity of pop culture. It’s only going to be Oprah, Kim Kardashian, and Katy Perry. I can only imagine Taylor Swift doesn’t support the hardcore environment over at Amazon. These are people who don’t have an issue getting “key stakeholders” into their product demo, clearly.
The whole shebang is being planned by a company so private it doesn’t even have a website portfolio. Which, if you’ve worked in tech long enough will seem like a parallel with agile planning, where developers cloak their work to prevent management scrutiny getting in the way of actually doing stuff.
That Ring and Bling
There’s something oddly familiar about the Bezos wedding planning strategy. Take over a city, book everything, ignore scalability, and launch. It’s basically a typical poorly planned tech product release but this time, someone actually wants to be there.
Lauren reportedly blacked out when she saw the $2.5 million engagement ring, and wouldn’t you just? I blacked out the last time I read a PR description that included the words “Refactor to make the code cool” as a cleanup ticket IMMEDIATELY AFTER committing the offending poor code.
I’m sure those Amazon developers working hardcore hours with unpaid overtime are thrilled at it all too. The ring, the bling and the wedding. I’m sure they’ll get a Slack update when it is all over. Jeff? Good on him! Now his life is back in order can he handle the tech debt at Amazon?
If you doubt Jeff’s greatness, just take a look at his rocket.
Image: https://spacecraft.fandom.com/wiki/New_Shepard?file=New_Shepard.png
Conclusion
I don’t hate the rich. I just wish they’d adopt some developers along the way. Maybe someone to optimize their ceremony process. A real “weddingOps” solution. Because the rest of us are still trying to remember what it’s like to celebrate anything without an accompanying JIRA ticket moving right.