Am I the only one who read "Type I and II decisions" and thought "System I and II decisions" (from Thinking, Fast and Slow?). I like the idea of distinguishing reversible from irreversible decisions, I just wish he'd come up with better names...
Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders
51–60 of 297 posts
Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders
#52Stallmans letter to Amazon customers:
Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like being that irresponsible one. Though it is impressive that Amazon has turned a delivery fee - that most people don't like paying - into an exclusive subscription service. A service that customers fall over themselves to sign up for when it's offered at a discount.
The fee is getting paid somehow - either by you up front, as a subscription, or for "free" built into the cost of the item.
That's not what I've heard. A quick search found me this:
> The company loses an estimated $1 billion to $2 billion on Prime shipping annually
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-free-shipping-killing-am...
Amazon wants market share enough to absorb a loss on shipping costs. It's part of why Amazon is still not profitable.
Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the Amazon river dried up we'd all be dead. Most of it's 'economic' value isn't recorded in our myopic economic measurements.
How would that kill us all?
It would mean no rain was falling anywhere in the Amazon basin, which would imply some really messed up weather :)
Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders
#55Still very relevant: http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/9/4/why-amazon-has-n...
Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders
#56I see this letter as an attempt at vindication for the controversy sparked by the NYT article on Amazon's corporate culture. Jeff Bezos was clearly affected and I see this as a defense of their "distinctive culture". "For better or for worse" that culture got them to $100 billion in annual sales faster than any company in history.
We venerate leaders like Churchill and Roosevelt because they inspired millions of individuals to act directly against their self-interest and in favor of the organizations that those leaders own and manage. "We will fight on the beaches" sure sounds inspiring, but if it was my intestines bleeding out onto the sands of Normandy, at that exact moment, it wouldn't have quite the same ring. Yet these inspiring words still convince millions to follow them, and so we have warehouse workers dropping from heat stroke and programmers sacrificing their personal life to fix that bug into the late hours, all so people like Bezos can live the high life, rake in millions, and write some pithy emails. Works for them I suppose, and it seems to be human nature for such type of organizations to arise and dominate. Amazon is a great company that makes a lot of money, no doubt about its success. Me? I'll try to keep my intestines _inside_ my stomach.
Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders
#57I see this letter as an attempt at vindication for the controversy sparked by the NYT article on Amazon's corporate culture. Jeff Bezos was clearly affected and I see this as a defense of their "distinctive culture". "For better or for worse" that culture got them to $100 billion in annual sales faster than any company in history.
I live in Seattle and am friends with a lot of Amazon folks. Most work very hard and complain from time to time, but I only know one who left for another job because most who are there now actually really like their jobs. One friend put it best after he transitioned from a small department in the ecommerce side of the business to one of AWS's early-ish hires, that most young departments have the thrill of working at…
I know a lot of people who have left Amazon, and are very bitter about how it was to work there. I know some who are waiting out their signing bonus. I also know a lot who've left Microsoft, but they definitely have a lower average bitterness about the company.
Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders
#58Amazon isn't making any money yet. Maybe in future they will make some. I don't like using AWS (I just don't know why), I prefer Microsoft Azure and Digital Ocean.
> Amazon isn't making any money yet. Amazon makes TONS of money. They aren't currently returning any of it to shareholders as profits, they're continuously reinvesting it in the company. The difference between gross profit and net profit is how much Amazon is spending on building new businesses that after a few years start grossing $10b a year in sales like AWS. That got funded out of the gross profits from regular A…
The issue is Amazon stock is very expensive when compared with other companies.
Walmart's market cap is ~250B, whereas Amazon is $350B.
Amazon had $100B sales last year, Walmart had $500B.
If Amazon can generate profit at the same rate as Walmart then Amazon needs to get to $700B in sales for that valuation to make sense...
If Amazon double's in value again it would have to have sales representing 10% of US GDP at the same profitability level as Walmart.
Smells like a speculative bubble to me.
Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fee is getting paid somehow - either by you up front, as a subscription, or for "free" built into the cost of the item.
That's not what I've heard. A quick search found me this: > The company loses an estimated $1 billion to $2 billion on Prime shipping annually http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-free-shipping-killing-am... Amazon wants market share enough to absorb a loss on shipping costs. It's part of why Amazon is still not profitable.
That's not a fact, that's some rando's guess.
Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like being that irresponsible one. Though it is impressive that Amazon has turned a delivery fee - that most people don't like paying - into an exclusive subscription service. A service that customers fall over themselves to sign up for when it's offered at a discount.
It's the value of certainty that people are buying. Think of it more like 'Shipping Insurance', delivery fees are an unfortunate unavoidable thing, like car accidents. However, by purchasing 'shipping insurance' one can normalize the cost of shipping similar to the way one normalizes the cost of car accidents through car insurance. There is a virtuous circle too that is the opposite of moral hazard typically incurred…
There are other valid reasons besides not paying the initial shipping cossts.
Typically anything shipped Prime is a no-fee/no-hassle return. Great for when you're buying clothes. After accidentally buying something NOT shipped prime, then getting hit with a bunch of fees from the seller to return it I've gotten much more careful about it.
We also get discounts on our monthly recurring purchases that make it cheaper than going to the store to replenish, not even factoring for saved time.
There's also the Prime video- which has a surprisingly good catalog of shows and movies (in the US at least). I still watch Netflix more, but I use prime video at least once a week.