> DevOps was a reaction to the fact that even outsourcing ops to AWS doesn’t entirely solve all of your ops problems

DevOps, conceptually, goes back to the 90s. I was using the term in 2001. If memory serves, AWS didn't really start to take off until the mid/late aughts, or at least not until they launched S3.

DevOps was a reaction to the software lifecycle problem and didn't have anything to do with AWS. If anything it's the other way around: AWS and cloud hosting gained popularity in part due to DevOps culture.