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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

#491

Post by brian_herman »

pc86 wrote: post #19
_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…

It's nice to see non-union employees treated well and paid well, not because of any negative feelings toward unions or unionization, but because I think it shows that you can be a successful capitalist without trying to suck every ounce of productivity and profit out of your lowest-paid employees.

Maybe sucking every ounce of productivity is by treating your employees well and paying them well?

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#492

Post by NuSkooler »

magic_beans wrote: post #384
marrone12 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I wonder how this is going to affect Blue Apron's upcoming IPO. My guess is for the worse.

I really don't undertand how companies like Blue Apron and Plated ever expected to be in business very long. Do they get many repeat customers? Theoretically a subscriber would actually learn to cook over time and then Blue Apron would lose that customer... I just don't understand the long term goal.

I know many people that know how to cook (well) that use Blue Apron.

What they don't like to do is a) go to the store(s) all the time for fresh ingredients, and b) they like trying new things.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#494

Post by noir_lord »

euyyn wrote: post #490
_jal wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is important to note that the antagonism between union and management is especially bad in the U.S. Germany demonstrates one arrangement that generally works to align the interests of the two. Just calling this out to try to counter the tendency of U.S. folks to assume that there is only one, unchanging form of capitalism. In fact, ours is increasingly a weird outlier.

What is that arrangement? How are their interests aligned?

Unions have a board seat in larger SME's as well as much greater clarity on internal plans and finances.

Makes hard decisions easier since the union and employees can see why decisions are made.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#495

Post by alphonsegaston »

jhall1468 wrote: post #447
alphonsegaston wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is arguing that the people who work on Whole Food's website are going to suffer a significant drop in the quality of their work experience. It's a fair supposition, however, that Whole Food's front line staff (who map to the warehouse employees that Amazon absolutely treats like garbage) probably will.

> It's a fair supposition Why? Reviewing any of Amazon's acquisitions shows that they have revenue targets that, when met, means they just don't get involved. Why suppose they are suddenly going to do the opposite now?

When you have a documented record of mistreating you're employees, both white and blue collar, the onus is on you to rectify the situation and demonstrate that you'll behave better in the future. Amazon has done neither of these things.

It's entirely "fair" to posit that a company with a documented record of abusive workplace practices might extend that same umbrella of mistreatment over an acquisition. Even more so given that the acquisition involves a large number of employees of the category that Amazon has always treated as disposable.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#496

Post by giardini »

Joakal wrote: post #96
emodendroket wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but the fact that they were just acquired by a company notorious for abusing its low-level employees shows the limitations of this model (as did the pressure they began to face from investors to tighten up on that front when they started to become less profitable).

Treating them above market or not, Amazon acquired the company for billions and not because Whole Foods was doing badly.

Whole Foods stock has been down for years. Their year-to-year same store sales fell last year. The entire grocery industry is in a slump:

https://www.google.com/search?q=whole+foods+stock&oq=whole+f...

http://www.chron.com/business/article/Kroger-s-darkening-out...

Amazon buying WF will likely have two results:

1) As long as Mackey can run the company WF employees will stay. Once he leaves (likely soon), they will leave. This is an opportunity for some other investor with Mackey's same principles to buy up WF's human capital. For example, Starbucks will benefit b/c former WF employees make good baristas.

2) Amazon will be left with the infrastructure of WF, primarily the real estate, warehouses, storefronts and whatever slice of humanity Amazon hires to replace former WF employees. So maybe Amazon wants WF primarily for the locations, the real estate and the warehousing capacity. They're getting a good price by buying while WF is at a low.

Amazon is simply too much - time for the monopoly-busters to break them apart.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#497

Post by bpyne »

hellbanner wrote: post #369
rayiner wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of time when companies like that get acquired, someone is hoping to profit on the difference between the purchase price, and the value of the company when the management culture switches to wringing every last bit of productivity out of employees. Amazon might have a more strategic goal, but the above strategy is a common one.

"Strategic goal" like grocery delivery? This sounds like a move to strengthen their food delivery programs

Exactly my thought.

We had WF delivery for a couple of years. It was great for us. But, you could tell they were trying (unsuccessfully) to monetize it. When they curtailed it they offered a pickup service as replacement: Instacart is the app for placing orders. On the whole, the pickup service works pretty well except you don't get sale prices.

I can see delivery coming back now that Amazon is in the picture. I can also see a bigger push to sell prepared foods for delivery. Prepared foods are the real money makers.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#498

Post by chandler »

wooter wrote: post #400
throwaway91111 wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you can call this capitalistic, though. WF as a commune could likely share many of the benefits or exceed them even without requiring shareholders to satisfy. Instead, a devotion to profits will ensure they are given the minimum to execute their job well. It'll be interesting to see what bezos does with it for sure.

name a single commune as successful or operating at the scale of Whole Foods or Amazon. in history.

Well, Publix is employee owned, does that count?

Comparing the wikipedia sidebar shows Publix with more stores, revenue, and over twice the number of employees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Foods_Market

I'm not going near Amazon, though.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#499

Post by deong »

wooter wrote: post #401
m-j-fox wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're kidding, right? Programmers are decently paid but should strike for a 40-hour work week.

no thanks. look at what collective/forced/politicized bickering over hours has done to the job market everywhere its been tried. look at the corruption. i enjoy my freedom to negotiate my terms as I, as an individual, and my employer see fit.

I lived and worked in Iceland for five years, and they have a virtually 100% unionization rate. It's handled at the industry level rather than individual companies, but when you start a job, you are pretty much automatically enrolled in the union relevant for your work. A little money comes out of your paycheck, and the union is there in case you have problems.

The unions also provide other benefits. For example, most of them own summer houses that any member can reserve to go spend a weekend away. You rarely hear the average Icelander on either side of the worker/manager divide complain about them at all. Everyone more or less views them as beneficial.

Once or twice a year they make headlines when one group of workers or another feels aggrieved and it escalates to a brief strike in some small sector of the economy, but on the whole, I don't think many Icelanders would trade their system of employment for ours.

Like so many other areas, I think the problem is that we in the US are just so very much worse at running our society and country than most other comparable countries. Look at health care. No one liked the ACA; no will will like the AHCA or whatever the Republicans pass. The problem isn't that it's impossible to do a decent job at a health care system. The problem is that we specifically suck. Put us in charge of anything, and we'll turn it into something awful that doesn't work, but provides some brief period of outsized shareholder value.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#500

Post by lotsofpulp »

rubidium wrote: post #432
rmoriz wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kroger has some weak points: Only US, expensive store concept, many products. ALDI and Lidl are famous for their highly efficient lean store concept. Amazon will capture the premium/delivery segment. ALDI and Lidl will capture the discount segment. Kroger is right in between, a very, very tough position to hold.

Except for the majority of middle class people like somewhere in between. They can't afford premium, but want a little more assistance than ALDI. Basically, there's three market segments, not two.

Going forward, I would bet on the middle market shrinking.
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