* No, using a colo saves you way more than just 20%. In one of our facilities, our org has maybe ~15k servers under management and dc costs are ~ 1 million/mo. Build out of the cages and racks wasn't incredibly expensive, I think ~2 million. Power isn't insane either.
* I have no idea what he's talking about re: the fiber statement. We have a blend of different backbone providers that give us ~100 gigabit for ~$0.60 per gig. Compared to bandwidth costs for AWS, it's dirt cheap.
* You don't need ultra fast hot swappable robotic arms if you're not FAANG. With a handful of dc techs and a simple monitoring system, you can swap out disks just as easily, at the expense of a little more opex.
* PCI requires no consultants, its terms are pretty black and white - you will need an ISA though. HIPAA and can be more of a bear, but your org will need this consultation regardless of whether you own a dc or put it in the cloud. AWS does not give you automatic compliance.
* Yes I can totally believe that working at Google, you'd give TCOs that make Google look good.
Literally none of us except Lyft's operations knows what's good for Lyft. 100 million a year is a ton of cash, but gives them presence around the world. My company has datacenters around the world and it is very operationally complex to maintain them. It's definitely not for everyone, but this guy is making it sound worse than it actually is.