[jburwell]

You must contend with politics working for USG at any level for any department/agency. There are plenty of very nasty, bitter politics within each of the intelligence agencies, as well as, across the larger intelligence community (IC). These are massive organizations with very large budgets. Because these battles occur in classified settings, they are not visible to the public. I highly doubt that AWS hasn't had to content with a myriad of political battles within CIA, not the least of which being, groups within the CIA who remain skeptical about "cloud" and trusting a third-party with their data.

[bilbo0s]

But they don't care about any political battle invisible to the market.

That's the point.

It's the shitstorms that generate the tweetstorms that impact their larger bottom line.

[jburwell]

Of course they care about those battles. Not only could they impact their renewal and/or trigger large penalties, but they can (and often do with large contracts) percolate up to Congressional oversight committees. Unless you have experienced intensity of political battles within the IC, it is impossible to understand their stakes (in terms of both money and reputation) for $100 million+ programs of record.