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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

#121

Post by kaesar14 »

notatoad wrote: post #111
kaesar14 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're right that other commenters aren't necessarily saying that they're peering into buckets and PII...but I err on the side of questioning that the company is committing wrongdoing.

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

#122

Post by code4tee »

There’s a big difference between stealing actual IP and executing on someone else’s idea (even if the idea was “stolen”).

The sour grapes here seem to be coming from those who thought they “owned” having an idea but failed to fully execute on it. The winner is the one who actually does it.

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

#124

Post by acruns »

KorfmannArno wrote: post #82
bg24 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can speak for AWS. Only the later. Basically the usage information for cloud resources. This constitutes the foundation for billing. BTW, this is be true for any cloud, any SAAS. There is no way an employee can look into customer data. There's enough trail inside AWS to prove that without any doubt.

What are the measures being implemented to ensure that no employee can look into customer's data?

I can tell you generally how this works in Azure, I can't speak for AWS, but unless a customer is using BYOK for encryption of their data, I can't imagine how AWS c o u l d n ' t be capable of accessing data, and even then I wouldn't gurantee they couldn't still get your data. In Azure (as of a couple years ago), in order to access a customer's tenant it required VP approval, the support engineer was granted access for a specific amount of time, and typically only to specific services, all with the customers knowledge beforehand. It may have changed since the last time I had to go through this process and was restricted to blue badge employees. I have worked support cases since then and the support engineer would not even do a log me in/WebEx, etc session as they said they were not allowed to see the portal. But it may have been that they were not a blue badge and/or bcuz the customer was a critical infrastructure customer.

In order for AWS to comply with LEO's they must have some way of accessing data, that is NOT to say they do this for business purposes.

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

#125

Post by rattray »

ivalm wrote: post #88

This is a bit complicated. I’m not in Amazon but work for a (very large) org. Often we will have some product in mind and approach/maybe even partner with a vendor while at the same time having an internal effort. Occasionally we go with an internally developed solution, sometimes we go with vendor solution. I am sure some vendors feel bad that suddenly they are forced out by a “similar” internal product. However, in…

Yeah, I haven't read the article (paywall) but from the first paragraph or two it sounded like AWS invested in the company and launched a competitor 4 years later.

To me, that sounds like the startup just wasn't able to perform well enough to beat an AWS-built solution, in the eyes of an executive.

Of course, if I were doing a startup that played in AWS's space, I'd view them as a pretty formidable competitor and I wouldn't expect to get a great deal from an investment or acquisition from them, since unless I have a really special sauce they can probably build whatever we've done and sell it better.

It's shitty, IMO, and probably drives startups away from a field in which they could sell to AMZN – since they know they won't get an awesome deal. Probably reduces innovation in the field overall.

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

#127

Post by philwelch »

Kudos wrote: post #120
rattray wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is AWS a monopoly?

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

#128

Post by rattray »

ApicalDendrite wrote: post #67

I worked on the Echo Show team. The product had been in development for over a year when we invested in Nucleus. I remember thinking it was very strange that Amazon was investing in that company when we were building such a similar product internally.

Thanks, that's a really helpful perspective.

I've definitely seen the same thing happen – an org that isn't sure it can build function X well might invest in a startup building X just in case.

Of course, they may or may not take advantage of that situation by misusing confidential information.

Either way the startup could lose (or just not have much negotiating power).

So yeah, sounds like this may not be a case of AMZN misbehaving. But I'm still not sure I'd want to talk to them if I were a startup, at least until I know they really need us and are willing to pay a lot.

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

#129

Post by jessaustin »

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.

Neither "traction of products hosted on its platform" nor "customer list of those hosted products" are typically public information. They are information to which a trusted vendor might have access. There seems to be a fine line between trusting Amazon to sell and ship one's products and services without using its position to sell competing products and services, and trusting AWS to host one's confidential data without reading that data...

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

#130

Post by throwaway-cdo »

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…

Throwaway to avoid being ID'd.

I was on the team that was peripherally involved in building the Amazon Dash collection of products. The scale idea has been floating around within the company since 2015/2016. It takes long to do this at scale and a cost-effective point.

There were also other similar products that were scrapped because there was no way we could sell them at a reasonable price.

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