“The computers are set to idle for 10 minutes after every query.”
The queries took about 2 seconds. Snowflake billed for the next ten minutes every time, and the projected bill dropped from a million dollars to half a million once someone changed the setting. The fix was suggested a year earlier and sat in a discovery ticket. Management then asked for slides about careful statistical analysis and a slow rollout so it would look like work. Snowflake’s default made the money and the org chart protected it.