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Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

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Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#251

Post by debacle »

vitd wrote: post #235
Navarr wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't consider Jet.com not collecting sales tax as a "good thing" since you are technically required to pay it by law (in most places, normally, afaik, IANAL) So you technically do still need to pay that 8.25% differential.

Indeed you do. Many years ago I had a business. One year the state decided to audit my business. No biggie, I had paid all my taxes as required. Except I hadn't. My business was located near a big box warehouse and you could order on the website and go pick it up. This was when almost all online orders were claimed to be "tax free". I did that for a few hard drives and some other stuff. I ended up owing about $150 in…

That's a strange mentality. Many good accountants will weigh the chance of you getting audited + fined against the ROI of an "oversight."

Your accountant was probably trying to save you money.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#252

Post by organsnyder »

ikeboy wrote: post #163
organsnyder wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cancelled my Prime subscription for the same reason. I've been experimenting with using eBay the same way I used Amazon (mainly for computer-related purchases—we never got into the habit of using it for many household goods). So far, I've found eBay to be in many ways better than Amazon was. Amazon has gotten to the point where you're often buying from some unknown vendor anyways, so in many ways it's already simil…

If you stick to the 99% feedback with more than 50 feedbacks on Amazon you'll do fine as well. Amazon has far stricter requirements for sellers. What specifically do you find better at eBay?

I'm fed up with Amazon's business practices. I've found eBay to be an acceptable alternative that has a decent UI. And I find the closer interaction with the seller to be helpful.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#253

Post by debacle »

Yhippa wrote: post #243
andrewguenther wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My views don't represent that of my employer yada yada yada. Anything in the NYTimes piece that wasn't a personal story was grounded in truth, but spun as bullshit. It was a hit piece. There are bad teams, but at a company of this size, there will always be bad teams, and I am sorry for the poor experiences that people seem to have had, but I would hardly call them widespread. The entire article has really become a b…

You could probably find enough dirt in any Fortune 500 company, style it up, and put out an article similar to the Amazon one.

Especially if you were being paid to do it.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#254

Post by rifung »

sombremesa wrote: post #150
rifung wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also live in Seattle and worked at Amazon. When I was interviewing, a conversation I had often went something like this.. "Oh, I see that you were at Amazon; we've interviewed many people from there. I'd ask you why you left but I think I already know." I think it really just depends on your team though. Most of the people I worked with didn't particularly like Amazon (or working in general) but it was a job and pa…

They don't pay as well as most companies in Seattle, unless you're only looking at tiny companies or something. Maybe the new hire offer is market rate, but at 1+ years you are definitely going to be paid more anywhere else. Amazon's job levels are also structured to have higher requirements and lower pay than equivalent positions elsewhere.

What other big companies are hiring in Seattle besides Amazon, FB, and Google? The only ones I know of are Zillow and Expedia.

I just assumed they paid relatively well because there was a salary spreadsheet on here a few weeks ago and doing a ctrl F for Seattle, the salaries seemed lower.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#256

Post by dpark »

debacle wrote: post #251
vitd wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed you do. Many years ago I had a business. One year the state decided to audit my business. No biggie, I had paid all my taxes as required. Except I hadn't. My business was located near a big box warehouse and you could order on the website and go pick it up. This was when almost all online orders were claimed to be "tax free". I did that for a few hard drives and some other stuff. I ended up owing about $150 in…

That's a strange mentality. Many good accountants will weigh the chance of you getting audited + fined against the ROI of an "oversight." Your accountant was probably trying to save you money.

> Many good accountants will weigh the chance of you getting audited + fined against the ROI of an "oversight."

"Good" is a questionable descriptor here. I would think that a good accountant should follow ethical rules, which would exclude the possibility of knowingly breaking the law to under-report taxes.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#257

Post by dpark »

mikeash wrote: post #233
ArkyBeagle wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very effective sleight of hand. The cherry on top is 2-day delivery being prepaid. I wouldn't have paid for 2-day otherwise. They "fixed" that for me. The whole thing makes going to a brick and mortar store feel like going to the DMV.

It's funny, it feels like the opposite to me. Going to a regular store is pretty simple. Buying with Prime is a pain in the ass, since half the stuff they sell isn't eligible. Amazon is rarely the cheapest option anymore, too, so I no longer have the luxury of skipping the price comparison and knowing I'm getting a pretty good deal anyway.

> Buying with Prime is a pain in the ass, since half the stuff they sell isn't eligible.

From what I can see, Amazon sells very little that isn't Prime eligible. There are lots of "Marketplace" offerings that aren't Prime eligible, but you can filter those out by clicking the "Prime" checkbox that pops up on the left whenever you're in a search or category view.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#258

Post by [deleted] »

timje1 wrote: post #204
zeemonkee3 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect a lot of the current griping over hiring practices is due to this. Small companies cargo-cult hiring practices from Google/Amazon/Apple/Facebook, but they forget that these companies have huge numbers of good applicants who are willing to jump through hoops just for the opportunity to have $BIGNAME on their resume.

A tangent, but when did 'cargo-cult' become a verb and not a noun?

[deleted]

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#259

Post by tim333 »

tvladeck wrote: post #226
timje1 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tangent, but when did 'cargo-cult' become a verb and not a noun?

Nouns get verbed all the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_(word_formation)

I believe in "ideas can turn cargo cult" it was adjectived rather than verbed.

Re: Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders

#260

Post by mikeash »

dpark wrote: post #257
mikeash wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny, it feels like the opposite to me. Going to a regular store is pretty simple. Buying with Prime is a pain in the ass, since half the stuff they sell isn't eligible. Amazon is rarely the cheapest option anymore, too, so I no longer have the luxury of skipping the price comparison and knowing I'm getting a pretty good deal anyway.

> Buying with Prime is a pain in the ass, since half the stuff they sell isn't eligible. From what I can see, Amazon sells very little that isn't Prime eligible. There are lots of "Marketplace" offerings that aren't Prime eligible, but you can filter those out by clicking the "Prime" checkbox that pops up on the left whenever you're in a search or category view.

From the user's (i.e. my) perspective, "Marketplace" offerings are still things that Amazon sells. The "Prime" checkbox doesn't work well. It doesn't filter out add-on items (which can be removed with another checkbox), and it doesn't do a very good job of only showing me Prime items. Searching for hard drives, just as a random example, I get results where the primary seller isn't Prime, and the Prime option is either more expensive than what's listed, or is a used or refurbished item. I'm sure there's a combination of checkboxes that will do what I want, but they sure don't seem to be optimizing for the common case.
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