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A conversation with Shel Kaphan, Amazon’s first employee (2016)

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: A conversation with Shel Kaphan, Amazon’s first employee (2016)

#51

Post by dpeck »

grogenaut wrote: post #21
eastdakota wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was about where consumer base/population was. In Amazon’s early years, you only paid taxes in state where you were located. If they’d setup shop in CA then they’d pay sales tax on all shipments to CA (~20% of early sales). By setting up outside CA/NY (their two earliest markets) they’d have a competitive pricing advantage over any competitors set up in either. Arguably, this regulatory “loophole” gave Amazon a huge h…

Don't forget being able to poach from Microsoft

you misspelled hire

Re: A conversation with Shel Kaphan, Amazon’s first employee (2016)

#52

Post by alexpetralia »

ffdjjjffjj wrote: post #46
benjaminsuch wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually in the same spot but for a tech startup. But the founders are very nice and have a lot of good will. I'm working 12-14 hours every day because I want and I have fun doing the work. But even though I'm getting a lot less salary than I could have, I decided to keep grinding because I see way more opportunities and chances than my "personal loss". Imo, everyone working his ass off in a startup should make s…

This post reminds me of a younger me. The experience I got working hours like this at jobs like this was not as good as I thought. It was shallow and rushed, every cuttable corner was cut. And ultimately, it wasn’t worth it. You may not care about money now, but you will in 5 years when your friends are buying houses and your $5m ticket never got punched. Just my advice feel free to ignore. I probably would have!

It is also very emblematic of a younger me. I worked because I couldn't for the life of me contrive anything better to do.

Re: A conversation with Shel Kaphan, Amazon’s first employee (2016)

#53

Post by solatic »

research_pie wrote: post #48
abhinav22 wrote: post #33

I am a mid-senior level employee at a non-tech semi startup. It sucks. The founder wants everybody to work at his pace, and since he’s your boss, you have to mostly. There isn’t much growth for pay increases or promotions since it’s not a large company, and job security isn’t the best because it’s a semi startup. And since the founder is paying you directly from his pockets, he really wants to extract a full pound of…

Man, sorry for that it seems that you got into a toxic startup culture. My startup was a bit like this 10 months ago, the other founders were all about making sacrifices and working 999h per week. However, nothing was working out properly. I've made some drastic change to our culture to be more empathic, transparent and based on trust. Since then its way more enjoyable for everyone and we are way more productive. Sal…

Be careful with the combination of a ruthless pursuit of objectives, no explicit time tracking, and Peopleware-flavored advice not to interrupt people who are in maker-mode (which can easily be misunderstood as advice not to communicate). You have the makings of a culture where people bust their balls for 18 hours a day in order to meet their objectives and don't tell you that they're spending 18 hours and not 8 hours, because they don't want to rock the boat.

Yes, meeting objectives matter. But setting the right objectives is a conversation between the business's wish list and the constraints of the resources that the business actually has. Trust is a two-way street; too many managers talk about trusting their workers but they don't talk about what they do to earn their workers' trust.

Re: A conversation with Shel Kaphan, Amazon’s first employee (2016)

#54

Post by rsynnott »

juskrey wrote: post #11
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that being employee #1 is a sucker of a deal with a lot of the same downsides as being a founder without the huge upside of being a founder.

Employee does not take any risk. He says in the interview he was working with number of failing startups before. They failed, but they've paid his fixed project or hourly salary nevertheless. Moreover, many of those people are willing to hire someone good who is available for temporary jobs, and hence paying very competitive rates, at the same time surviving on canned tuna themselves. I've been #1 techie in many fail…

Generally, a startup first employee is selling the company their labour at a _substantial_ discount; that is, the employee is giving the company something, not the other way round.

This is usually compensated with stock, which is currently worthless but may not be in future. In effect, the employee is giving the company a high interest loan with a high risk of default.

Re: A conversation with Shel Kaphan, Amazon’s first employee (2016)

#55

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

fractionalhare wrote: post #5
Rebelgecko wrote: post #3

Another one of the early Amazon employees (I think he was #3 or 4?) has talked about his experiences a bit in comments here on HN but I unfortunately don't remember his account name. It's interesting to see what early employees think of what Amazon has become, and their current relations (or lack thereof)with Jeff Bezos

Yep - that commenter is Paul Davis, the same person mentioned in this article. He was the second employee.

Yo yo yo.

Re: A conversation with Shel Kaphan, Amazon’s first employee (2016)

#56

Post by juskrey »

jlokier wrote: post #43
deanCommie wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very absolutist view of risk. A founder may only be investing an amount in the venture that does not affect their own quality of life. They could have other wealth or means, and losing the entire investment would not be catastrophic. They might have a personal runway of several years before they have to give up and get a day job. Meanwhile, the early employee at a startup is far from without risk themselves.…

> or even eating into them I can confirm :/ Worked at a startup as an employee, made a significant financial loss, living on savings and eventually credit, because cost of living was higher than income. Eventually had to stop. This happened gradually as I just couldn't keep up the work. Employer was annoyed with me for not doing more work. I kept telling them I had to do other work because their pay didn't cover my e…

You think those people would have honored you if things have gone much better? I doubt. Typical toxic client. Nothing to do with business risk

Re: A conversation with Shel Kaphan, Amazon’s first employee (2016)

#57

Post by neffy »

juskrey wrote: post #49
jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The employee doesn't take money. The employee gives away life itself, measured in hours, in exchange for money. Do not trivialize this exchange. All of the value of the company comes from the bottom. The money that the shareholders put in is just a bet. SOMETHING has to back up that money, and that's what the employees are for: to help the investors win that bet. Don't say "I'm taking all the risk over here" because…

This is a static one dimensional socialist logic. In dynamics of lifetime and in aggregate employee leads much safer and well fed life than entrepreneur. And again, the latter gives his money to the former in any case

And I fear yours is static, exploitation logic. Certainly there are a lot of failed entrepreneurs out there, but there are millions more people who never even got the chance to fail, because they were screwed over by the former. With the greatest irony of all being, that if they hadn't screwed their employees over, they would have stood a far higher chance of success.

Re: A conversation with Shel Kaphan, Amazon’s first employee (2016)

#58

Post by neffy »

jlokier wrote: post #43
deanCommie wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very absolutist view of risk. A founder may only be investing an amount in the venture that does not affect their own quality of life. They could have other wealth or means, and losing the entire investment would not be catastrophic. They might have a personal runway of several years before they have to give up and get a day job. Meanwhile, the early employee at a startup is far from without risk themselves.…

> or even eating into them I can confirm :/ Worked at a startup as an employee, made a significant financial loss, living on savings and eventually credit, because cost of living was higher than income. Eventually had to stop. This happened gradually as I just couldn't keep up the work. Employer was annoyed with me for not doing more work. I kept telling them I had to do other work because their pay didn't cover my e…

The fact that they can't afford you is quite often a market signal about their business/product/idea in and of itself.

Re: A conversation with Shel Kaphan, Amazon’s first employee (2016)

#59

Post by neffy »

vinhboy wrote: post #14

What kind of person flies across the country to meet complete strangers, then ask those strangers to move with them to another state to start a business in a completely new frontier. What's like the percentage of people who takes on that kind of wild Hail Mary pass and win it all? Also I am curious, as single-track minded Software Engineers, how do we protect ourselves from the super smart and super driven Bezos of t…

Somebody who just finished working for Goldman Sachs...

Re: A conversation with Shel Kaphan, Amazon’s first employee (2016)

#60

Post by [deleted] »

juskrey wrote: post #49
jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The employee doesn't take money. The employee gives away life itself, measured in hours, in exchange for money. Do not trivialize this exchange. All of the value of the company comes from the bottom. The money that the shareholders put in is just a bet. SOMETHING has to back up that money, and that's what the employees are for: to help the investors win that bet. Don't say "I'm taking all the risk over here" because…

This is a static one dimensional socialist logic. In dynamics of lifetime and in aggregate employee leads much safer and well fed life than entrepreneur. And again, the latter gives his money to the former in any case

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