> Now I think that this internal email is what has actually stuck with me the most. Bezos realized that he had to change the internal communication infrastructure [..].
> He understood that a radical organizational change was required to arrange the internal dynamics in a way that would allow the creation of something like AWS.
This is quite a strong and opinionated statement. I'd agree that Jeff made this change to improve communication infrastructure for Amazon.com. I wouldn't agree that he made it to enable AWS - for two reasons.
First, Amazon started thinking about EC2 and S3 way way later than this. Second, Kindle and SimpleDB (now Dynamo) were similar independent bets. These projects were happening at the time of moving to SOA, but they weren't tied to it.
The one thing common across all of these products is - making informed bets on market fundamentals and enabling teams to deliver on them.
Now, I know of a few fairly senior Amazonians who read those forums. They have more context than I do. So, if they chime in and say that Jeff sent this email to enable AWS, I'll gladly take it. :)
Until then, I wouldn't extrapolate Steve Yegge's post to mean something about Jeff B.'s intentions, and build an overarching argument over it.