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Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

bloomberg.com

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Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#611

Post by markshead »

s73ver wrote: post #487
markshead wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any reason they would get a different amount per share than other shareholders? I'd assume it would only depend on how much stock they have obtained either by purchasing it from the market, using the stock purchase plan (where they can buy it for 85% of market price if they agreed to keep it for 2 years), or the stock-grants that were given to employees.

Well, for one, the employees are a huge part of why those shareholders get any returns in the first place.

And the ones who bought stock (including those that did so at the 85% discount) will get the value of their stock. However, shareholders aren't guaranteed any returns. If they bought their stock in 2013 they lost money. Employees who bought stock with the 85% discount won't be quite as bad off as non-employee shareholders.

Imagine suggesting that any employee who was hired when the stock price was higher than the selling price now had to pay money to those who were hired when the stock price was lower. Fortunately, employees are not held liable for the valuation of the company at which they work. If they WANT to participate in that risk and reward they can buy stock--sometimes at a discount like Whole Foods offered.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#612

Post by illumin8 »

uji wrote: post #248
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 don't think this is completely true. I was with AWS for 3 years as SW engineer and was working around 12 hours until I decided to switch. AWS has pretty messed up softwar services with lot of technical debt. Rather than fixing these, AWS relies on oncall (pager duty) to mitigate production issues. My team use to get 200 pages a week.

I've worked here for a year and have never seen that. I'm sure there are a few bad managers, as there would be in any company with 350K+ employees, but Amazon really tries to take a data driven approach to employee retention. If you think they don't know this causes burnout and aren't trying to optimize for long-term employee sustainability, you're underestimating their management talent.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#613

Post by throwaway91111 »

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.

Why? What's your point? Just sayig you can't possibly pin the benefits on capitalism—you know very well whole foods would avoid hiring anyone if they didn't have to. That is capitalism: minimize loss of money.

Whole foods is a good employer IN SPITE of being capitalist.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#614

Post by vilmosi »

andreyf wrote: post #527
jhall1468 wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work 40 hours a week. Sometimes I work 45, and I usually offset it by cutting it shorter the next week. I have no need (or desire) to "strike" just because some businesses/orgs/teams are garbage.

No competent programmer I know has to work 40 hours a week to have their needs met. The best ones charge rates would allow them to have their needs met working <10 hours a week.

Maybe because you define a competent programmer as someone who works more that 40h week?

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#615

Post by TranquilMarmot »

BurningFrog wrote: post #581
steego wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh. This deal is about expansion, not about tapping into 431 measly location. Amazon knows they can set up satellite warehouses a lot faster and cheaper than they can create a store. Let's be clear. Whole Foods is not a commodity food supplier. They enjoy high margins because they have cultivated quality and consciousness into their products. They did to food what Apple did to computers. They added the right mix of…

I think the stores could become a modern version of the Post Office, where you can pick up and/or return your Amazon packages.

They already have this with Amazon Lockers. I get a majority of my packages shipped to the locker that's in the grocery store next door.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#616

Post by wu-ikkyu »

Danihan wrote: post #337
wu-ikkyu wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if Amazon stop running well then someone else will come along and replace them Is this really true though? Over the past few decades we've seen that if a company is big enough, and it fails, the government will step in and prop it up with a bailout.

Only for the financial sector though.

Chrysler, GM, Ford, United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta, and Lockheed have all also been bailed out by the government.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#617

Post by joveian »

One thing I haven't seen mentioned here yet is that I wonder if Amazon intends to sell on their regular online store some of the non-perishable items that Whole Foods sells. Currently, Amazon is not usually competitive vs. VitaCost, Lucky Vitamin, and Swanson Health. I didn't realize until checking just now that VitaCost is owned by Kroger.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#618

Post by aeorgnoieang »

deong wrote: post #499
wooter wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, mos…

Comparing the US to Iceland is an extremely unfair comparison.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#619

Post by entwife »

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #238
indolering wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here comes store automation and hefty lay-offs? ... or just expand and move people to new stores. Seriously, what's the yearly turnover for front-line positions?

I worked for Palo Alto Whole Foods from 2008-2011, and I think one thing that really hurt the company was that they aggressively overexpanded. Does Santa Cruz need two stores (Capitola is practically Santa Cruz)? A Blossom Hill store? Competing with Los Gatos and Campbell? At the time (I was s cashier) WF culture was dead set against self checkout stands, because they really wanted someone to be there to help custome…

They have also over expanded in Berkeley/Oakland. Three WF between Lake Merritt and Albany is too many, and they are opening a 4th. They should open more in other parts of the East Bay, such as San Lorenzo, Freemont, other parts of Oakland, etc.

Only the 27th street WF is as good as the many, many other natural/whole/organic foods stores there.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#620

Post by BurningFrog »

TranquilMarmot wrote: post #615
BurningFrog wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the stores could become a modern version of the Post Office, where you can pick up and/or return your Amazon packages.

They already have this with Amazon Lockers. I get a majority of my packages shipped to the locker that's in the grocery store next door.

Exactly. At minimum this is a lot of new locker locations.

But you can have so much more than lockers when you own the place.

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