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How Amazon Can Blow Up Asset Management

jirisancapital.com

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Re: How Amazon Can Blow Up Asset Management

#91

Post by lsc »

virgilp wrote: post #17
lsc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so, I trust amazon too (at least the 'shipped and sold by amazon' brand... I consider everything else to be more like ebay) But... I just don't see how amazon would get me away, say, from vanguard. There are already good retail brokerages, and I don't see why I'd want to go through amazon instead of another company.

There are lots of ways, of course: A. Going global: a lot of those "good retail brokers" are US-only. Sometimes it's dumb - I already have an ETrade account & signed all the paperwork including stuff relevant for my foreigner status... But ETrade will only let me trade my employer's stock, nothing else. B. Bundle stuff that others can't match - e.g. Prime C. One account, with good actual security (few appreciate that…

You have some good points, especially about scaling the international stuff, something I hadn't thought of. That does sound compelling

but B? I don't see why I want to bundle my stocks with my television series. And, I'm not sure Amazon has security that is any better than Vanguard.

Re: How Amazon Can Blow Up Asset Management

#92

Post by scottlegrand2 »

sten wrote: post #73
scottlegrand2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my in-laws more or less pioneered the entire clothing manufacturing industry in Southeast Asia. Watching him and his wife tear apart garments by looking at the stitches and feeling the fabric is incredibly entertaining. It's on par with the way I tear apart other people's code on GPUs. 10,000+ hours doing anything gives one some serious skill. I've even used their expertise as evidence that AI and machine lear…

Can you PM me the names of the books. My wife does a lot of that stuff and she'd either be very interested or insulted that I gave her more work to look at.

Look up Conway Liu with "garment" and that ought to get you the information you need. I do not appear to have the karma to PM yet.

Re: How Amazon Can Blow Up Asset Management

#93

Post by Zigurd »

thisisit wrote: post #4

Amazon has a serious problem with counterfeit goods and fake reviews. One might think that with the rise of AI/ML catching fake reviews and counterfeits will be much easier but Amazon doesn't seem to be doing any thing. In which case, allowing them to handle money seems like a recipe for disaster. As for the Ant Financial comparison, I find it hard to believe that Amazon is not utilizing the reserves it gathers by se…

Amazon sells gift cards. You can even specify one-day shipping on gift card. Amazon does a wholesale business in Amazon credits that have the effect of lowering transaction prices. For example, Coinstar machines don't charge a fee if you take an Amazon credit in return for your coins.

Re: How Amazon Can Blow Up Asset Management

#94

Post by [deleted] »

baumy wrote: post #78
anoncoward111 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a VC or an angel investor would just give me $10,000 a year as salary, I would work on any idea full time for them, 90 hours a week, fighting fires, everything. The issue is that the labor demand in this country (VCs, corporations, angels, basically anyone with money) would much rather prefer to spend $120,000 on one "really good" programmer than say $30,000 total on a team of 3 young and hungry programmers. Somet…

This comment is so odd I'm not sure where to begin. You would work more than 2x full time hours on any idea proposed by some VC for ~$2.25/hour? And you think there is an availability of competent "young and hungry" programmers who would do the same? And the lack of availability of this arrangement is causing these young hungry programmers to starve? Is this entire comment some kind of joke or satire that went over m…

[deleted]

Re: How Amazon Can Blow Up Asset Management

#95

Post by anoncoward111 »

jannyfer wrote: post #90
anoncoward111 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I promise it isn't satire. There are a lot of us out here who are trying hard to get jobs but can't. I would rather work for $10,000 with a chance at more responsibility and future promotions than not work at all. Additionally, where I am currently, $10,000 would more than pay for food and rent and internet!

What are some reasons you can’t find a job? I’d love to be able to tell my AVP that I can hire someone for $2.50/hour. We’ve paid $20/hour for data entry clerks just as a stop-gap measure before we automate things. At such a price we’d stop all our investment in automation and just massively hire people.

Perfect! Then we should be able to get to work together right now. Let me tell you my history, and why the $10,000 year number makes sense to me.

I graduated from a "top ranked" university, UNC Chapel Hill, with a degree in History. Because I knew a thing or two about computers, I got a job as a sales engineer (demonstrate and configure a hw/sw product for a customer) at one of the traditional IT corporations (HP, Dell, Cisco, Oracle, etc).

After 4 years, I was laid off due to extremely political management taking ownership of my manager's organization. This is common knowledge.

I was making about $55,000 a year, with some commission and bonuses. This again is typical for the industry.

I tried quite hard to get a job right back in the same line of work, but was unable to. If you look at unemployment statistics, unemployment is actually growing in the IT industry. Perhaps I am just bad at interviewing, or don't have good connections to get around this process.

The only other work I am qualified to do is retail management at about $45,000 a year. After taxes and living expenses in the North East USA, this is not exactly a profitable undertaking.

However! If I am able to do data entry, or basic web/game programming (think things that don't require "Senior" or "MA/PHD preferred), for $10,000 a year, remotely from my rural property, then I would be more than happy to do this. If I could have a small portion of equity, then great. My expenses would be more than covered, because I wouldn't have to pay city rent or commuting or etc.

Re: How Amazon Can Blow Up Asset Management

#96

Post by sct202 »

TheBeardKing wrote: post #77
jraby3 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. There seems to be so much low hanging fruit to at least reduce the problem but they haven't taken even the smallest steps. This is because they're prioritizing revenue, volume, and selection over fraud prevention.

Not true, they banned incentivized reviews. That's a big step towards getting more accurate reviews.

I'm not sure how they're enforcing the ban because I still see tons of reviews that are openly declaring that they were incentivized with the boiler plate "I received this item at a discount in exchange for my honest review." tag at the end of their review.

Re: How Amazon Can Blow Up Asset Management

#97

Post by cvaidya1986 »

anoncoward111 wrote: post #82
strgcmc wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes very little sense. If you are willing to work 90 hrs/wk for $10k salary, why not take a regular 40 hr/wk job for $10k salary (or more even, why limit yourself?), and spend the other 50 hours doing whatever you were going to do? There are plenty of $10k/yr 40-hour-work-week jobs that don't require any mental load after you clock out, and don't pretend like you won't get anything done in those 50 remaining h…

For additional context, please take a look at the other comment I just added in this thread :)! Right now, my friends and I are unemployed. We would love to be able to work on any project where someone believes in us. $10,000 is more than enough to cover food, rent, internet, etc where we live. And if there is a chance at future promotions and additional responsibility for a bump in pay, then great! Right now, I woul…

Have you tried upwork?

Re: How Amazon Can Blow Up Asset Management

#98

Post by anoncoward111 »

cvaidya1986 wrote: post #97
anoncoward111 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For additional context, please take a look at the other comment I just added in this thread :)! Right now, my friends and I are unemployed. We would love to be able to work on any project where someone believes in us. $10,000 is more than enough to cover food, rent, internet, etc where we live. And if there is a chance at future promotions and additional responsibility for a bump in pay, then great! Right now, I woul…

Have you tried upwork?

Upwork routinely denies workers from even starting on the platform, sides with the person buying your labor in case of dispute, and you typically compete with freelancers with dubious ethics. It makes for a difficult experience with everyone involved

Re: How Amazon Can Blow Up Asset Management

#99

Post by virgilp »

lsc wrote: post #91
virgilp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of ways, of course: A. Going global: a lot of those "good retail brokers" are US-only. Sometimes it's dumb - I already have an ETrade account & signed all the paperwork including stuff relevant for my foreigner status... But ETrade will only let me trade my employer's stock, nothing else. B. Bundle stuff that others can't match - e.g. Prime C. One account, with good actual security (few appreciate that…

You have some good points, especially about scaling the international stuff, something I hadn't thought of. That does sound compelling but B? I don't see why I want to bundle my stocks with my television series. And, I'm not sure Amazon has security that is any better than Vanguard.

I don't think Vanguard's security is better than Amazon's [1]... Technically they could be more secure than Amazon despite running stuff on AWS, but still, I'd say Amazon's track record on security is pretty good - and pretty much the entire Enterprise world relies on it.

[1] E.g. they obviously run stuff on AWS: http://www.vanguardjobs.com/job/7980466/ts03-cloud-architect...

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