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Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

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Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#71

Post by illumin8 »

scotchio wrote: post #63
illumin8 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I work for AWS, but my opinions are my own. I don't think you have much to worry about if you're a WF employee. Amazon actually treats their employees very well. In my experience here, I've never seen any of the things the NY times article talked about, either on my team or any other team I've interacted with. People have a healthy work/life balance (40-50 hours a week), get paid very well (definitely abo…

I mean to be fair, most of the jobs at WF stores ARE unskilled labor though.

Not true. I know several people that have good careers at WF and would be offended by the fact that you think they are unskilled.

Seasonal workers in the FCs literally get only 4 hours of training and are then filling orders. That's the pure definition of unskilled, and a far cry from a pastry chef at WF.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#73

Post by dx034 »

illumin8 wrote: post #55
_7siz wrote: post #10

Oof. I wonder what this means for Whole Foods culture and employees. If you don't know, John Mackey, the CEO / founder, is a major believer in conscious capitalism and of empowering his employees. Whole Food employees get paid pretty darn well with some crazy good benefits for their industry and line-of-work (UNION FREE most of the time too!). WF banks on them being true believers and motivators of the cause - includ…

Disclaimer: I work for AWS, but my opinions are my own. I don't think you have much to worry about if you're a WF employee. Amazon actually treats their employees very well. In my experience here, I've never seen any of the things the NY times article talked about, either on my team or any other team I've interacted with. People have a healthy work/life balance (40-50 hours a week), get paid very well (definitely abo…

I think working in a grocery store is more similar to working in a distribution centre than at AWS. Highly paid engineers are usually treated well, unskilled/low-skill labour often not (not implying that this is the job OP does, but many in WF will be low-skilled).

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#74

Post by Accacin »

illumin8 wrote: post #55
_7siz wrote: post #10

Oof. I wonder what this means for Whole Foods culture and employees. If you don't know, John Mackey, the CEO / founder, is a major believer in conscious capitalism and of empowering his employees. Whole Food employees get paid pretty darn well with some crazy good benefits for their industry and line-of-work (UNION FREE most of the time too!). WF banks on them being true believers and motivators of the cause - includ…

Disclaimer: I work for AWS, but my opinions are my own. I don't think you have much to worry about if you're a WF employee. Amazon actually treats their employees very well. In my experience here, I've never seen any of the things the NY times article talked about, either on my team or any other team I've interacted with. People have a healthy work/life balance (40-50 hours a week), get paid very well (definitely abo…

> People have a healthy work/life balance (40-50 hours a week)

40-50 hours of work a week isn't healthy.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#75

Post by pythonaut_16 »

rmoriz wrote: post #24

Looks to me like the ultimate war between grocery stores in the US will be fought out between Amazon/WFM (premium, delivery) and ALDI/Lidl (discount, no-frills). As a German I'm amazed by the "food haul" videos on YouTube and the positive feedback for ALDI US (belongs to ALDI Süd), Trader Joe's (ALDI Nord) and Lidl (part of Schwarz Gruppe, they just started in the US yesterday).

Don't count out Kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the US. According to Wikipedia in 2015 it trailed only Walmart and Costo in worldwide revenue, and had 20% more revenue than Amazon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retail#Global_top_ten_retailer...

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#76

Post by cowsandmilk »

illumin8 wrote: post #55
_7siz wrote: post #10

Oof. I wonder what this means for Whole Foods culture and employees. If you don't know, John Mackey, the CEO / founder, is a major believer in conscious capitalism and of empowering his employees. Whole Food employees get paid pretty darn well with some crazy good benefits for their industry and line-of-work (UNION FREE most of the time too!). WF banks on them being true believers and motivators of the cause - includ…

Disclaimer: I work for AWS, but my opinions are my own. I don't think you have much to worry about if you're a WF employee. Amazon actually treats their employees very well. In my experience here, I've never seen any of the things the NY times article talked about, either on my team or any other team I've interacted with. People have a healthy work/life balance (40-50 hours a week), get paid very well (definitely abo…

> keep in mind that those positions are temporary seasonal work by unskilled labor

What do you think most Whole Foods employees are?

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#77

Post by izacus »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #35
phreeza wrote: post #21

Somewhat off topic, but I have had a weird thought circulating in my head (triggered by reading Red Plenty) that I wanted to put out there: What is the relationship between a centrally planned economy as for example Gosplan was trying to run in the USSR, and the presence of these huge market-like but centralized entities like Amazon and Wal-Mart inside a free-market economy? This becomes particularly interesting beca…

The major difference is that if Amazon stop running well then someone else will come along and replace them. Whereas government is a monopoly, so if it runs badly then it doesn't automatically get replaced. Now, democracy is supposed to fix this, by allowing you to vote for a different supplier of government every few years. But because of the voting system in some countries (like the US and the UK) it's actually rea…

Hmm, as I remember the socialist governments were replaced (not easily, but they were). Have we even seen a conglomerate of AMZN size replaced in living memory?

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#78

Post by spydum »

tantalor wrote: post #59
balozi wrote: post #51

Nothing Amazon does makes sense immediately. Only in hindsight does the strategy emerge. What would be also helpful would be for Amazon to disrupt the wine and liquor sector.

> disrupt the wine and liquor sector Explain?

Maybe they mean the inefficiency in the producer -> distributor-> retailer chain? What value does the middle guy add?

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#79

Post by emodendroket »

dx034 wrote: post #47
codecamper wrote: post #25

Amazon is getting too big. How's this for an investment strategy... Long AMZN, short a basket of all other mid to large retailers & grocers.

The acquirer stock price often falls after an acquisition. So probably not a really good strategy. Conglomerates have happened in the past. They become very big until they stop making a lot of money and people realise that they could be more efficient if you split them up. Amazon and Google can afford growing so much because they have a very successful business line. If growth there stops they would likely start sell…

> Conglomerates have happened in the past. They become very big until they stop making a lot of money and people realise that they could be more efficient if you split them up.

Yeah, who could forget when companies like Standard Oil or AT&T decided to split up, entirely through the power of market forces, with no government intervention at all.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#80

Post by opportune »

illumin8 wrote: post #71
scotchio wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean to be fair, most of the jobs at WF stores ARE unskilled labor though.

Not true. I know several people that have good careers at WF and would be offended by the fact that you think they are unskilled. Seasonal workers in the FCs literally get only 4 hours of training and are then filling orders. That's the pure definition of unskilled, and a far cry from a pastry chef at WF.

That's not what unskilled means in this context. It just means that they are easily replaceable and not specialized. You can have respect for people as individuals while recognizing that the job they do could be done by just about anybody (the definition of unskilled)
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