Email from Jeff Bezos to employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#81

Post by keanebean86 » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

wiremine wrote: post #63

Crazy, he's one of those guys that you think will just be at the top forever. Hopefully the transition for Amazon is as (seemingly) seamless as the Steve Jobs/Tim Cook transition was for Apple.

Retiring at 57 is pretty risky. Hopefully his savings hold out. He's looking at 30 more years of life. Personally I would be too cautious to leave this early.

Edit: risking -> risky; fixed life sentence

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#82

Post by Dig1t » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

Hopefully this will precipitate a change in how engineers are treated? Maybe they’ll be nicer to their employees and/or stop the practice of arbitrarily culling large portions of engineering talent..

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#83

Post by mongol » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #50

catacombs wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> spend time inside that WaPo newsroom that he loves. Investing in journalism is actually a very good thing.

As long as it's unconditional investing…

I have no problem with conditional investing. If I owned a media company, I would like to be involved.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#84

Post by jzer0cool » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

I still have the very first book I bought from Amazon when they were a very young company. Not too many choices. I bought "Relativity : the Special and General Theory" - Einstein.

Decades later. We see in fact they are "to the moon" financially and with Blue Origin. Well played. Well played.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#85

Post by maverickJ » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

Love him or hate him, Jeff Bezos has been a legendary figure in the world of business for over 25 years now. His focus on the long term has led to the tremendous success Amazon has undergone.

When he started selling just books, he was laughed at by some people; but he had a why behind starting off with books. One thing is certain, Bezos has stayed consistent on his principles. His annual letters to his shareholders contain a lot of business wisdom.

I wrote about him covering the theme: Thinking as a means of leverage in https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/jeff-bezos-amazon-an...

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#86

Post by 0zymandias » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

The takeover of tech by MBAs continues. It has now happened at the top 4 largest tech companies in the US.

We will have Apple (Tim Cook), Amazon (Andy Jassy), Alphabet (Sundar Pichai), Microsoft (Satya Nadella & Steve Ballmer) all taking over from non-MBA founders. Facebook is next in size and has Sheryl Sandberg as COO but don't know if Mark Zuckerberg would ever hand over the reins.

Why don't non-MBAs manage to get to the top?

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#87

Post by ianai » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

I’m just going to piss into the wind a little. After seeing what happened to Microsoft and Apple after they lost their founder CEOs, I don’t welcome this news as freely as others might. We’re not necessarily likely to see the company go directions that are for the better. (Maybe though this is really a rant about Cook. Amazon has lots of room to improve. Looking at all those forged brand names, for instance.)

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#88

Post by mlyle » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

acomjean wrote: post #61

mssundaram wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps Bill Gates truly has developed compassion for the less fortunate, however moving his money into the foundation is a very convenient tax strategy, and I suspect he enjoys the challenges and influence he has, and less so the warm fuzzies from helping people. (I anticipate this comment will not go over well, as it seems I must just not see the truth that Bill Gates is a perfectly benevolent being who has ascende…

Bill Gates was a ruthless business man, but through the influence of his wife/father/Warren Buffet or some combination, he's soften a bit and seems to have decided to give a lot away and convince others to do so as well. https://givingpledge.org/About.aspx There's lots of weirdness in society about having the wealthiest having influence starting to approach government program status, but here we are. (perhaps they're…

It's actually the other way around: Buffett followed Gates' lead on large-scale philanthropy, designating the Gates Foundation as the benefit of his largesse. Yes, each man had long-standing intentions for philanthropy, but it really reached fruition together.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#89

Post by faangeng » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

keanebean86 wrote: post #81

wiremine wrote: post #63

Crazy, he's one of those guys that you think will just be at the top forever. Hopefully the transition for Amazon is as (seemingly) seamless as the Steve Jobs/Tim Cook transition was for Apple.

Retiring at 57 is pretty risky. Hopefully his savings hold out. He's looking at 30 more years of life. Personally I would be too cautious to leave this early. Edit: risking -> risky; fixed life sentence

Yeah maybe he should've worked a few more years to shore up his net worth a bit, a 50% drop in the market might force him back to work

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#90

Post by filoleg » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

fakedang wrote: post #46

catacombs wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> spend time inside that WaPo newsroom that he loves. Investing in journalism is actually a very good thing.

Especially if you can change the narrative from "evil capitalist who forces his workers to piss in buckets" to "pioneer O'Reilly tube colonist"

WaPo has publicized quite a few articles critical of Jeff Bezos and Amazon, even after WaPo was acquired. So this is something that seems to be just another baseless "jeff bad" take.