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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

#731

Post by illumin8 »

ethbro wrote: post #274
opportune wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many employees at WF are pastry chefs and how many are in stocking, orders, cleaning, and manning the register?

I feel like at least half of the average grocery store staff I see are skilled: butchers, fishmongers, cheese and wine managers, and pasty or bakers. Proportion varies with class of grocery: BiLo obviously having fewer than WF. There's the checkout counter and stock in the back, but I feel like the employed-during-the-day crew definitely has career opportunities.

Thank you for saying this. WF needs a half dozen unskilled workers to stock shelves, and about 6 dozen skilled laborers in the trades you mentioned. Do you think a 21-day dry-aged steak can be made by someone that just showed up during a high school job fair with zero training? Would you eat it?

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#732

Post by WillPostForFood »

zeteo wrote: post #420
mdasen wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is the ability for new firms to compete. With centralized planning, there's only one source. If that source is inefficient or corrupt, that inefficiency and corruption stays around. You can try to regulate, threaten, and police it, but nothing can really take it down. By contrast, Walmart and Amazon might be very large, but they still have competition. Heck, Amazon started less than 25 years ago. Remem…

> How many companies have been "the unstoppable juggernaut" for 50+ years? AT&T isn't the AT&T from 30 years ago. [...] Microsoft was the unstoppable juggernaut... and then Apple and Google came along. These are very good examples. However in both cases the decisive action was taken by federal antitrust enforcement. The Bell System was broken up by a consent decree [1] and Microsoft only dropped its aggressive Browse…

AT&T was broken up 35 years ago, so the evolution of the company in the last 30 years from long distance provider to wireless should be looked at separately from the monopoly days (which were government granted in the first place).

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#733

Post by 20years »

kevinsundar wrote: post #656
20years wrote: post #463

Does anyone else think that this purchase is largely in part so they can get AmazonFresh in a lot more places quickly? In my area where there is a big college campus, they have been hiring for AmazonFresh devs for over a year. We have no AmazonFresh here but we do have a Whole Foods.

Are we talking about SLO haha?

Yes :)

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#734

Post by illumin8 »

magic_beans wrote: post #296
illumin8 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A pastry chef is unskilled?

It's not that pastry chef's are unskilled, but they are very easily replaceable. It's really difficult for culinary school grads to find work because of the influx.

Not true. It's very hard for restaurants to find skilled cooks nowadays because the salaries they are willing to pay are not high enough. When an artisanal pastry chef can open their own business, setup a Stripe account, and make six figure income, you know a restaurant only willing to pay $45K for a skilled chef is going to have a problem...

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#735

Post by dragonwriter »

illumin8 wrote: post #729
computerex wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a point you are trying to make that's relevant to this discussion? I have read a few of your comments on this thread and I just can't for the life in me figure out what point you're trying to make.

Honestly, forget it. The point I'm trying to make is that nobody owes you a handout or an easy job. The fact that I've worked brutal fast food jobs for $3.35 an hour, yet you don't see KFC, McDonalds, Taco Bell, etc, being trashed here for terrible working conditions, while AMZN is, speaks volumes. Today has taught me that HN has a pretty fierce anti AMZN bias, and it shows. I have 4K+ karma, and am sharing my honest…

> The fact that I've worked brutal fast food jobs for $3.35 an hour, yet you don't see KFC, McDonalds, Taco Bell, etc, being trashed here for terrible working conditions, while AMZN is, speaks volumes.

If it speaks volumes, those volumes are more about this being a tech-industry biased forum than anything else. We don't really talk about the fast food industry and it's working ccondition nearly as much (though, even so, the whole industry is often used as a shorthand for terrible working conditions even when discussing other things.)

Your idea that the fact that HN talks about Amazon more than the fast food industry is anti-Amazon bias and not tech-industry focus is interesting, but not particularly plausible. (Especially given that plenty of that talk is positive.)

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#736

Post by throwaway91111 »

sqeaky wrote: post #700
throwaway91111 wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is a competitive advantage in having real loyalty from employees. Treating people well makes them want to be loyal. Even Walmart has started realizing this. It turns out that when you hire unmotivated people, pay them as little as possible, screw them on medical benefits, pay them too little to get their own apartment and in general work them harder than everyone else in that job sector that you get people who…

There may be competitive advantages to happy employees, but there's always a cost, and capitalism is about minimizing those costs. Again, if a business could get away with it, they would simply not hire anyone to keep costs down.

Simply put, human welfare is directly in contest with maximization of profits. This occasionally can result in being paid well—it's cheaper than hiring two people at a lower rate.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#737

Post by s73ver »

mayneack wrote: post #237
_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…

> If you don't know, John Mackey, the CEO / founder, is a major believer in conscious capitalism and of empowering his employees. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/16/whole-foods-ceo-oba... > “It’s more like fascism,” Mackey recently told NPR. “In fascism, the government doesn’t own the means of production, but they do control it — and that’s what’s happening with our health care programs and these reforms.” > Ma…

I'm happy that he's willing to give those kinds of benefits to his employees when he doesn't have to. But I cannot have respect for someone that doesn't believe that everyone should have that.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#738

Post by s73ver »

jhall1468 wrote: post #565
alphonsegaston wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I seem to "have an agenda" based on widespread media reports that are far beyond that one NY Times piece, how exactly would you categorize your own stance? What's your relationship to Amazon? I'm only one of their occasional customers. Anyway, here's reporting about how their warehouses used Neo-Nazis to intimidate immigrant laborers and worked a temp to death. If you have evidence of the drastic measures that wou…

The first article is about a temp worker dying. One guy. The second article is about Amazon Germany, specifically that the security company they hired, allegedly hired neo-nazis. You don't seem to have an agenda, you absolutely have one. What happened to that temp is tragic, but you can't get more isolated than 1. > Anyway, here's reporting about how their warehouses used Neo-Nazis You mean the company they hired tha…

One guy is far too many. There is absolutely ZERO excuse for that happening.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#739

Post by s73ver »

SubuSS wrote: post #674
s73ver wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reject that notion entirely. The employees are the reason why the store was able to do so well. They should get the bulk of the reward for that. I flat out reject this idea that people should get the bulk of reward simply for already having money.

You keep referring to the 'moneyed' as an alien entity when in reality it is a lot of index funds, pension funds, 401ks and what not. Are you saying there should be less/no return for investing your money? If so, how do you suppose we incentivize investments?

I didn't say there should be no return. Suggesting that is quite dishonest on your part.

I merely stated that the bulk of reward should go to those who actually DO something, not those who's only contribution is already having money. Of course they should get a return on that money. It just shouldn't be the bulk of the reward.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#740

Post by sidlls »

tigershark wrote: post #714
sidlls wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless all 50 hours are compensated, 10 of them at 1.5-2x base pay, the person working them is getting ripped off. Every one of my friends in engineering (actual engineering, e.g. civil, aerospace, etc.) positions get at least 1.5x for any hour over 40 they work in a week. In fact "unpaid overtime" is something I hadn't heard of for an engineering position prior to working in software. It's almost like workers in thi…

I guess you are speaking about juniors/graduates? Senior engineers in my experience in two different European countries have always contracts with unpaid overtime exactly as management contracts.

No. Three of them have very senior positions (e.g. principal or chief engineer). They've always had paid overtime at every stage of their career.
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