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Amazon met with startups about investing, then launched competing products

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Re: Amazon met with startups about investing, then launched competing products

#111

Post by notatoad »

kaesar14 wrote: post #70
whoisjuan wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the thing they tell you the most when you work there. Like in a a obnoxious way. Most infosec training is about that. If someone has access to customer’s data for their work they have to do a bunch of extra training and do other stuff. Potentially sign some things and there’s probably a different way to authenticate. I really don’t know because I never had to do that and nobody I knew had that type of access but…

But then what about other commenters saying that this is exactly what their sectors of the company do? Do you think it's impossible that a massive company like Amazon that controls an ungodly amount of the Internet would break those rules? Especially when the government of their home country hasn't pursued an antitrust case in God knows how long

>But then what about other commenters saying that this is exactly what their sectors of the company do?

i don't see anybody claiming that amazon is harvesting data from inside their customer's infrastructure. amazon has a lot of data that's "amazon's data" that would tell them about businesses that are operating on AWS that might be ripe for competition.

For example, they know what your AWS bill is, and how it's been trending. If you pay a huge bandwidth bill and it goes up 50% each month, they know you've got a business model that's working and that they can undercut you on one of your big expenses.

Re: Amazon met with startups about investing, then launched competing products

#112

Post by borski »

hodgesrm wrote: post #106
throwaway_aws wrote: post #12

"An Amazon spokesman said the company doesn’t use confidential information that companies share with it to build competing products" Maybe...but in the past, AWS proactively looked at traction of products hosted on its platform, built competing products, and then scraped & targeted customer list of those hosted products. In fact, I was on a team in AWS that did exactly that. Why wouldn't their investing arm do the sa…

> "An Amazon spokesman said the company doesn’t use confidential information that companies share with it to build competing products" The above statement may be "true" if you redefine what is confidential. The Amazon MNDA in past years basically said that they could use any information they remembered from the meeting. I read non-disclosures carefully. I've never seen anything like it.

This is called a residuals clause, and it’s increasingly common. Be really careful looking for these - I won’t sign a vague/broad one, unless I am out of options. (e.g., acquisition or fail)

Re: Amazon met with startups about investing, then launched competing products

#114

Post by 2sk21 »

seizethecheese wrote: post #54

Amazon announced a copycat of us pretty quickly after we went through YC. I suspect it’s not some sinister top-down thing (unless they are actually reading all YC company descriptions). Most likely, the copycats are ambitious, unoriginal PMs pitching some budget. We facilitate subscriptions using a smart scale, and it works way better than a Dash button (Bottomless.com, YC W19). I’m actually surprised they haven’t la…

Indeed, as a startup you do typically have a speed advantage!

Re: Amazon met with startups about investing, then launched competing products

#115

Post by hodgesrm »

borski wrote: post #112
hodgesrm wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "An Amazon spokesman said the company doesn’t use confidential information that companies share with it to build competing products" The above statement may be "true" if you redefine what is confidential. The Amazon MNDA in past years basically said that they could use any information they remembered from the meeting. I read non-disclosures carefully. I've never seen anything like it.

This is called a residuals clause, and it’s increasingly common. Be really careful looking for these - I won’t sign a vague/broad one, unless I am out of options. (e.g., acquisition or fail)

Ah, so that has a name? It was in the middle of the document in a fat paragraph. I was delighted to find it--kind of like picking up a big seashell on a crowded beach.

Re: Amazon met with startups about investing, then launched competing products

#116

Post by klyrs »

snird wrote: post #64

Am I the only one who thinks this is to be expected? Stealing good ideas is literally amazon biggest strategy in retail. They monitor best selling products, then launch their own brand and crash the competition. Why anyone expected them to change strategy with business ideas? This strategy served them well.

If nothing else, it doesn't come as a surprise because amazon consistently operates in an anticompetitive nature. I see this as building public understanding of why amazon should be broken up.

Re: Amazon met with startups about investing, then launched competing products

#117

Post by akerro »

throwaway_aws wrote: post #12

"An Amazon spokesman said the company doesn’t use confidential information that companies share with it to build competing products" Maybe...but in the past, AWS proactively looked at traction of products hosted on its platform, built competing products, and then scraped & targeted customer list of those hosted products. In fact, I was on a team in AWS that did exactly that. Why wouldn't their investing arm do the sa…

Amazon does it also with popular independent sellers. I know a motorcycle shop that was selling top quality products. Amazon representative contacted him if he would like to sell on Amazon, showed him offers how to stock and sell items. Amazon started a brand with the same name and their products were higher in search, were poor quality China made, jackets that were falling apart within a year. For the same price! Angry consumers targeted their anger to the real website leaving negative comments, not on Amazon! Shop owner had to change his brand after 18 years of being in business, as legal battle against Amazon would cost him more than the business had in stock.

Re: Amazon met with startups about investing, then launched competing products

#118

Post by pyrrhotech »

seizethecheese wrote: post #54

Amazon announced a copycat of us pretty quickly after we went through YC. I suspect it’s not some sinister top-down thing (unless they are actually reading all YC company descriptions). Most likely, the copycats are ambitious, unoriginal PMs pitching some budget. We facilitate subscriptions using a smart scale, and it works way better than a Dash button (Bottomless.com, YC W19). I’m actually surprised they haven’t la…

There's nothing sinister about a copycat. It just feels that way selfishly for the original creator. Capitalism works best in the long run with near perfect competition, copy cats are great for everyone except the first guy with the idea.

Re: Amazon met with startups about investing, then launched competing products

#119

Post by losteric »

kaesar14 wrote: post #70
whoisjuan wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the thing they tell you the most when you work there. Like in a a obnoxious way. Most infosec training is about that. If someone has access to customer’s data for their work they have to do a bunch of extra training and do other stuff. Potentially sign some things and there’s probably a different way to authenticate. I really don’t know because I never had to do that and nobody I knew had that type of access but…

But then what about other commenters saying that this is exactly what their sectors of the company do? Do you think it's impossible that a massive company like Amazon that controls an ungodly amount of the Internet would break those rules? Especially when the government of their home country hasn't pursued an antitrust case in God knows how long

Amazon does not trawl customer data.

However, metrics like AMI popularity is Amazon's data... and that definitely informs first-class AWS product development. Once the company identifies a business opportunity, different teams often investigate "build" and "buy" options simultaneously.

Same goes for retail - Amazon works backwards from high-margin categories to identify opportunities, then pursues investment in existing brands versus spinning up products under the company brands.

This all feels very monopolistic to me, but regardless it's worlds apart from the accusation of stealing private information through faux investment offerings.

Re: Amazon met with startups about investing, then launched competing products

#120

Post by Kudos »

rattray wrote: post #102
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it happens, the Congresswoman who represents the part of Seattle that contains Amazon is on the House Judiciary committee, and may also very well be your member of Congress. Seems like something her office would probably want to know about if you could substantiate the claim. https://www.wsha.org/policy-advocacy/legislative/u-s-congres... (ignore the odd source of the link. it's the only place I could find her CoS…

It didn't sound like GP was saying their team did anything illegal – they accessed _public_ information about the companies they were copying. It definitely feels scummy, but it didn't sound like GP had access to evidence of a crime. IANAL.

I'm not super familiar with antitrust laws, but it feels like they might apply here.
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