Debates about what technologies are or aren’t serverless are endless and tiresome. The term is now applied to products that require the operator to run their own clusters or manage installations of FaaS platforms. The buzzwordy nature of the term and its overuse obscures a deeper truth: serverless has never been about technologies. Instead, it’s an approach to development that focuses on delivering business value and minimizing total cost of ownership. When taken to its logical conclusion, it results in the technologies we call “serverless”, such as AWS Lambda. But the approach itself is not limited to these technologies: a person or team can apply this approach within the constraints imposed by their organization. The serverless mindset can serve as a compass to guide decision-making even in organizations that are entirely on-prem, leading to faster, more responsive development and lower TCO.