Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

841–850 of 865 posts

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#841

Post by nunez »

somecontext wrote: post #832
nonameface wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no Whole Foods in West Virginia. I know you were generalizing but thought I would mention a counter-case.

My research suggests that 42 states contain at least one Whole Foods. The eight states excluded are (west to east) Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia, Delaware, and Vermont. These are exactly the seven states with population less than one million in the last US Census ... and West Virginia. (Note, however, that the District of Columbia -- also with a population under one million -- ha…

delaware totally has a whole foods; there is one near wilmington iirc

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#842

Post by rmc »

panarky wrote: post #567
rmc wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 1880s Bismarck increased the modern welfare state (it was called State Socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Socialism_(Germany) ). The idea was that, if the poor people can get some form of social welfare from the existing state, they're less likely to support a proper socialist/communist revolution. Sounds like that. People won't unionise when they don't think they need to.

This is a great discussion of company culture, treatment of employees, worker cooperatives, etc., but I hoped HN would go deeper into the business and technology implications. What is the strategic logic behind this move? NYT, WaPo, WSJ, Bloomberg all take the same line: this is about Amazon's expansion into brick-and-mortar retail. They need a physical footprint, knock out Instacart for delivery, accelerate Amazon G…

> Since Amazon said they're not renaming the stores, how can this be about Amazon's brick-and-mortar expansion?

Sure they say that now...

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#843

Post by rmc »

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?

If a certain amount of workers agree they can form a workers council which is a legally protected union within the company. And they have much stronger legal rights, seats on the board of directors, legal requirements to see certain documents, strong protection against being fired.

Lest you think this makes the country uncompetitive, Germany still makes cars, and the UK (which doesn't have this legal system) has vastly de-industrialised and doesn't make cars.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#844

Post by rmc »

laurencerowe wrote: post #440
wooter wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In the U.K. both the Co-op (a consumer owned co-operative) and John Lewis/Waitrose (a worker owned partnership) have similar revenue figures to Whole Foods.

The funniest thing is that John Lewis/Waitrose is an upmarket supermarket.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#845

Post by rmc »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #460
irfanka wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly the reason why there aren't any Software Developer Unions these days.

Ya, that EA spouse thing totally didn't happen: http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html

I don't think any union has come out after that?

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#846

Post by omarchowdhury »

dkrich wrote: post #825
omarchowdhury wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scott Galloway predicted AMZN buying WFM last month: http://www.businessinsider.com/scott-galloway-explains-exact...

I saw this and I give him credit although I think his idea that Amazon will be the only winner is pretty irrational. Less than 10% of purchases made today are online and even with that number growing, there are lots and lots of very smart companies with tremendous resources who can compete, not to mention lots of very smart people who can innovate in this space in ways Amazon won't think of and disrupt them. It happe…

I agree, he also has a video where he posits that Amazon will kill brands, and make brands obsolete. I don't think we will ever live in a world where every product is manufactured and packaged by Amazon. Sure Amazon would love that outcome, but it goes against the consumers need for choice, and then there's also the fact that brands have the resources to compete like you mentioned.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#847

Post by dang »

wavefunction wrote: post #435

I wouldn't say obviously. From my perspective Obamacare is fascist even as I support it compared to the alternatives save single-payer national healthcare. What other ideology than fascism best describes government coercion of its citizens to engage in business relationships with the insurance companies to ensure their profits remain at certain levels?

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14569540 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#848

Post by hellbanner »

bpyne wrote: post #497
hellbanner wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Yeah, now they can offer "healthy"/organic/fresh etc foods for delivery with Whole Food's brand (more trusted than Amazon Fresh). Prepared foods - absolutely. Packaged meals, granolas, sandwiches. Good point.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#849

Post by kesselvon »

yomly wrote: post #448
Chaebixi wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took literally two seconds to find: https://www.google.com/#q=amazon+ambulance+warehouse https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/inside-amazons-ver... > In a lengthy and heavily reported article, The Call said a warehouse employee contacted the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on June 2 to report that the heat index in the warehouse had reached 102 degrees, and that 15 workers had collapsed. The emp…

I suspect keeping ambulance at standby was more of a hotfix for a bug, than a feature. Yes Amazon is frugal, but I think it is a bit of a stretch to assume there was malicious intent in not cooling their FCs. In a giant warehouse managed by a company with > 100k employees, things are not changed that quickly...

Regardless of indifference or malicious, its still breathtakingly inhumane.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#850

Post by andreyf »

jhall1468 wrote: post #536
andreyf wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

First of all, what does that have to do with ANYTHING being discussed in this thread? Second, any "programmer" working 10 hours a week and charging enough to live comfortably on that isn't a programmer, they are a consultant.

It has this to do with this thread: programmers who say they don't need to unionize because "their needs are being met" in return for "40 hours a week" don't understand the basic economics of their craft of what being compensated fairly means, and that's something a union could help them with. I've heard more than one case of a big company saying "thanks for that optimization that will save us >$15M/yr for at least a decade, here's a ~$10k bonus!".

The few engineers who care to engage in the negotiations which yield their true market value end up making several times that of the average. Yes, some of them are exceptional engineers, but some are not, and the only real distinction is being able to find and negotiate optimal market rates for their work.

Post reply on HN