Amazon AWS Summit: Los Angeles

Amazon AWS Summit

plus fooding and books

Kitchen at The Original Pantry Cafe.

Hard at work.

Plates of pre-cooked bacon.

Mounds of hash browns.

Chicken fried steak and eggs was mostly just fried, minus the chicken.

French toast, eggs, hash browns, bacon. Inside.

Inside.

The counter area.

Amazon AWS provided shortbread cookies.

Workshop/lab time.

Heading off to customer research.

Keynote room is also site of multiple simultaneous presentations given over headphones.

Exhibit hall.

Soyoung Lee, co-founder of Twelve Labs, explaining movie development impacts of generative AI.

Little spring rolls at cocktail hour.

Exhibit hall.

South Hall lobby of the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Massive line outside of Staples Center.

Apparently a Tommorow x Together (TxT) concert tonight.

The Last Bookstore.

Travel books.

Little vendor hallway inside The Last Bookstore.

The Last Bookstore.

Olio Pizzeria inside Grand Central Market.

Brought my own drink.

Crust is very California, medium-bready and not that interesting.

Sausage, jalapeno, and peppers.

Shishito peppers were good. Not spicy.

Amazon AWS Summit Los Angeles this year was, like most events, very heavy on AI/ML. Neal and I bailed on the keynote as it did not seem all that interesting, and instead grabbed a late breakfast at The Original Pantry Cafe, which is still one of the OG places that hasn't lost its charm (or its great value). Oddly Neal's chicken fried steak was minus the chicken-fried and mostly just pan fried, while I had a very generous portion of bacon to go with my french toast and hashbrowns. Wait wasn't too bad at such an early hour, and we got in before the crush of tourists and sailors from the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) made the line too crazy.

Back at the AWS Summit, the afternoon sessions were more interesting, and Amazon does a good job re-using both the keynote hall (for simultaneously-delivered-via-headphones) and the expo hall for all kinds of presentations. Ended up at a fairly intensive customer research bit that was very focused on how Amazon AWS is delivering AI to their customers, but they still heard enough from everyone in attendance to get a decent feel for our opinions on AWS overall. Was a bit crazy as it was a 1:1 employee:participant situation in the room, although all but one of the employees just sat there on their laptops, while one guy contracted by Amazon actually lead the entire customer research session.

Cocktail hour seemed a bit lame (although they had some better looking snacks back in customer research...), so headed over to The Last Bookstore instead. Somehow had never been, and while the it's both smaller yet more dusty inside than expected, it manages to actually live up to its reputation as a place with a ton of character, and still a decent place to buy books. Although their travel section was a bit more limited than I hoped. *sigh*

Dinner was at Olio Pizzeria at nearby Grand Central Market. They do a very cheesy sausage and jalapeno pizze, with a crust that's classically American, medium thickness and kind of bready, not too crisp. Not the kind of pizza that draws a rave review from me anymore, but still glad to say I finally tried the place.