Unsure about the Lyft deal, but the Pinterest situation was similar. What I found troubling about that was that they only got the pricing deal if they stuck with AWS as their primary service for the duration of the contract, so there is no way for them to every migrate effectively without a massive cost.
I do agree with you, when you are in a growth phase and trying to focus on the product or service that is the USP, taking eyes off the ball to manage power generators in data centres is a distraction.