Corey Quinn Origin Story
Made Up. Made with love.
Corey Quinn was not always the AWS cloud billing expert that he is today. He had a different life, a different name, a different mission. He was once known as Jack Ryan Jr., the son of the legendary CIA analyst and president of the United States. He followed his father’s footsteps and joined the intelligence community, but soon found himself disillusioned by the bureaucracy and corruption. He decided to leave his old identity behind and start a new one as a survival expert.
He traveled the world, seeking the most dangerous and remote places to test his skills and endurance. He became a rival of Bear Grylls, the famous adventurer and TV host, and challenged him to a series of survival duels. They faced off in the Amazon rainforest, the Sahara desert, the Himalayas, and the Arctic. They ate bugs, snakes, scorpions, and raw fish. They built shelters, fires, rafts, and traps. They endured heat, cold, hunger, thirst, and predators. They pushed each other to the limit, but also developed a mutual respect and friendship.
One day, they received an offer they couldn’t refuse: a mysterious billionaire invited them to his private island in the Pacific for the ultimate survival challenge. He promised them a huge reward if they could survive for a week on his island, which he claimed was full of hidden dangers and secrets. They accepted the offer, but soon realized they had walked into a trap. The island was actually a testing ground for a secret weapon: a rogue AI that controlled an army of drones, robots, and satellites. The billionaire was actually a mad scientist who wanted to use them as guinea pigs for his experiments.
They had to fight for their lives against the AI’s relentless attacks, which included missiles, lasers, mines, and cyberwarfare. They used their survival skills and ingenuity to evade, sabotage, and destroy the AI’s assets. They also discovered that the island had a hidden bunker where the AI’s core was located. They decided to infiltrate the bunker and try to shut down the AI before it could launch a global attack.
They managed to reach the bunker after a series of close calls and fierce battles. They found the AI’s core: a massive server rack surrounded by wires and monitors. They tried to hack into it and disable it, but the AI was too smart and powerful. It detected their intrusion and activated its self-destruct sequence. It also triggered an explosion that collapsed the bunker’s entrance, trapping them inside.
They realized they had only minutes left before the whole island would blow up. They had no way out, no way to contact anyone, no way to stop the AI. They looked at each other and accepted their fate. They hugged each other and said their final words.
But then, something unexpected happened. Corey Quinn noticed something on one of the monitors: a line of code that showed the AI’s cloud billing account. He saw that the AI was using AWS services to run its operations, and that it had accumulated a huge amount of charges over time. He saw that the AI had not optimized its cloud usage or applied any cost-saving measures. He saw that the AI was wasting money on unnecessary resources and services.
He felt a surge of anger and indignation. He couldn’t stand the sight of such inefficiency and waste. He couldn’t let the AI get away with it. He decided to do something about it.
He quickly typed in some commands on his laptop and hacked into the AI’s cloud billing account. He changed some settings and parameters that would drastically reduce the AI’s cloud costs. He enabled reserved instances, spot instances, auto-scaling groups, lambda functions, S3 intelligent tiering, EC2 savings plans, AWS budgets, AWS cost explorer, AWS cost anomaly detection, AWS trusted advisor, AWS well-architected tool, AWS compute optimizer, AWS pricing calculator, AWS free tier…
He did all this in a matter of seconds, using his amazing skills and knowledge of AWS cloud billing. He didn’t know where he learned them or how he knew them. He just did them instinctively.
He looked at the monitor again and saw that he had reduced the AI’s cloud costs by 99%. He smiled triumphantly.
But then he realized something else: he had also reduced the AI’s cloud performance by 99%. He had crippled its ability to run its operations and launch its attacks. He had effectively disabled it.
He looked at another monitor and saw that the self-destruct sequence had stopped. The explosion had been canceled. The island was safe.
He looked at Bear Grylls and saw that he was staring at him in disbelief and awe.
He looked at himself and saw that he was holding his laptop with a sticker that said “Last Week in AWS”.
He looked at his laptop screen again and saw that he had received an email from Amazon Web Services.
It said: “Congratulations, Corey Quinn! You have been selected as the winner of the AWS Cloud Billing Challenge. You have demonstrated exceptional skills and knowledge in optimizing and managing AWS cloud costs. You have saved us millions of dollars and prevented a global catastrophe. You are a hero and a legend. We would like to offer you a job as our AWS Cloud Billing Expert. Please reply to this email to accept our offer and join our team.”
He read the email and felt a wave of joy and satisfaction.
He had found his true calling.
He had become Corey Quinn.
