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I find it interesting that the Google, Apple and especially Amazon have become very successful by going against the orthodoxy of the last few decades which was outsourcing everything that wasn't a core business because you can't possibly do it efficiently.

If these companies followed prevailing MBA business thinking, their products and services would be as mediocre as many other large but floundering fortune 500s.

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Interesting, but consider that, in general, they probably did outsource some aspects early on, and learned the lessons needed. In most cases, the example you give are just too large for anything they do to be outsourced to anyone else - few other companies operate on Amazon scale.

The "outsource everything" mantra may also be fueled in part by VC firms who also just happen to be funding a bunch of other companies that... look at that... provide some of the services you should outsource. Many years ago, on a small scale, I had discussions with a small VC firm. In exchange for their investment, we were also expected to use some of the other companies in their network whenever possible (media/marketing/other tech/etc). That seems a bit of an extreme scenario, but i can't imagine this doesn't ever happen at all.

And now half the world outsources things _to_ them (like AWS).

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