Live data from Hacker News

Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

aboutamazon.com

131–140 of 1001 posts

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#132
post #66

From https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/email-from-jef... >Fellow Amazonians: >I’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO. In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives. Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be a…

Yeah - the man is 57, and at this point does NOT have to work anymore...probably for the rest of his life. Looks like he still intends to run his philanthropies, Blue Origin, and the Post, but after the type of run he has had, he's probably taking some more free time while he's healthy. I try not to fall into the "cult of personality" trap, but Amazon is where it is _because_ of Bezos, and it'll be fascinating to wat…

Bezos's net worth was $12 billion after Amazon's IPO in 1997. Him and a dozen generations after him would be set for life on that much wealth. Whatever the reason for stepping away might be, it's definitely not money.

As a company Amazon is definitely too big to fail at this point. Its fate will probably be like Google's after Page/Brin/Schmidt stepped away. In the worst case it will start to fade away in another decade or two.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For comparison, using national total wealth, that makes Amazon worth more than Saudia Arabia, Denmark, Portugal, or New Zealand. It's $280.5 billion in revenue in 2019 put it above the GDP of Romania, Peru, Ukraine, etc. Corporations should never be allowed to get this large.

> Corporations should never be allowed to get this large. Why? Bonus question: Why should governments be allowed to get that big?

The retort to your bonus question is that the government doesn't get to "spend" its GDP. Although the counter-retort is to bring up government revenue instead, where Amazon instead slots in between Mexico and the Netherlands.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#134

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…

Three of the four have engineering degrees and have previously worked as engineers. Maybe having an MBA on top is not a bad thing to run a trillion-dollar company?

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For comparison, using national total wealth, that makes Amazon worth more than Saudia Arabia, Denmark, Portugal, or New Zealand. It's $280.5 billion in revenue in 2019 put it above the GDP of Romania, Peru, Ukraine, etc. Corporations should never be allowed to get this large.

> Corporations should never be allowed to get this large. Why? Bonus question: Why should governments be allowed to get that big?

Let's start with the premise that "representative government is the union of the people" and "profit motive is not always the best incentive for action in society", and go from there.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the future of Amazon as ~ 100% AWS. Do you think this will change that outcome?

How did you get to that conclusion?

Spending too much time around other developers.

In the current environment, E-commerce is a less interesting space for startup founders vs. cloud SW. This led parent commenter to assume the cloud is more important than E-commerce.

This is a fallacy, of course, since E-commerce is probably the largest / most important market on the internet, it just doesn't FEEL that way b/c Amazon has an unprecedented control over nearly the entire thing.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#137
He has bought a new 0.5 billion dollar boat this year. https://themarketherald.com.au/magazine/the-pursuit-of-comfo...

Bill gates is still renting.

What do you think he was going to do with all that cash.

After few years he will review his life after vacationing becomes dull for the workhorse.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#138
post #66

From https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/email-from-jef... >Fellow Amazonians: >I’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO. In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives. Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be a…

For comparison, using national total wealth, that makes Amazon worth more than Saudia Arabia, Denmark, Portugal, or New Zealand. It's $280.5 billion in revenue in 2019 put it above the GDP of Romania, Peru, Ukraine, etc. Corporations should never be allowed to get this large.

I would say in terms of anti-monopoly, that there is some natural cutoff that companies are forced to split. For instance, AWS and Amazon can easily be two separate companies as the missions and revenue streams of each are vastly different.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#139
post #66

From https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/email-from-jef... >Fellow Amazonians: >I’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO. In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives. Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be a…

For comparison, using national total wealth, that makes Amazon worth more than Saudia Arabia, Denmark, Portugal, or New Zealand. It's $280.5 billion in revenue in 2019 put it above the GDP of Romania, Peru, Ukraine, etc. Corporations should never be allowed to get this large.

It has 1.3 million employees and employs a great deal more through its distribution partnerships, sellers using Amazon storefront and so on. The amount of folks who rely on Amazon for their living is probably comparable to some of those countries you listed.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#140
post #66

From https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/email-from-jef... >Fellow Amazonians: >I’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO. In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives. Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be a…

We've changed the URL to that from https://ir.aboutamazon.com/news-release/news-release-details.... Thanks!
Post reply on HN