End of an era. I wonder what he'll do next.
run for president, seems like a thing for Billionaires these days.
I think the odds are quite high.
Email from Jeff Bezos to employees
181–190 of 1001 posts
Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
without Andy (and AWS), I'd posit that Jeff would just be another regular old billionaire who'd own a sports team, but otherwise folks would not know much about.
I'm pretty sure you're wrong. Most people have no idea what AWS is, but know what Amazon the consumer business is. AWS is only well known among tech circles.
AWS has been buying a zillion ads in NFL games, not entirely sure why but it's hard to ignore.
Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees
#183I’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.)
Apple is doing quite well under Cook. Same with Google under Pichai. Microsoft had some pains during the Balmer years, but I think that's partially due to the anti-trust suit making them gunshy and Balmer being a generally poor choice as a tech CEO, but they are doing very well with Nadella. I expect Amazon to be as ambitious as ever. Though, I am slightly afraid of a shift in focus towards AWS over retail. But I sus…
> I suspect Jassy's selection had to do with fears that a pick from the retail side may see Jassy as a threat
Amazon had (has) three CEOs: Bezos as overall CEO, Jassy as CEO of AWS, and Jeff Wilke as CEO of the "Consumer" business, i.e. the retail operation.
Wilke announced last year that he would be leaving and that SVP of Operations Dave Clark would replace him as head of the Consumer business.
The question is whether Bezos chose Jassy and that made Wilke leave, or whether Wilke leaving left Jassy as the only remaining choice to replace Bezos.
Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees
#184Earlier 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.
> 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. Or maybe we should convince a larger swath of humanity to unite behind an idea larger than "nationhood" or "my country".
So, replace our democracies with capitalistic dictatorships?
Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees
#185From 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…
> probably for the rest of his life.
At a net worth of $1 billion and assuming he lives to 100 that is $23 million dollars a year to spend, which reasonably, he could only spend around $5-10 Million if he tried.
He is worth what, $150 Billion? By the fall he probably will be.
He could find a group of 10,000 people of the same age, spit the money evenly and each person would have $340k per year, a large enough sum to reasonably travel all year long around the world for each person never working agin.
Nobody should ever have a $1B worth.
Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees
#186Time to spend the cash. The big money had been made.
I think retirement is more of a time to ponder life. I doubt he's going to pull some big expenditure. He'll probably invest in multiple companies.
I just posted a reference to his purchase of 0.4 billion dollar boat.
He is retiring. Amazon is outcome of purchase of many many companies just like Microsoft.
Gates is retired and Microsoft is still buying companies even hotels; anything and everything has been bought with the cash acquired from US's money printing machine.
Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees
#187The CEO role comes with a lot of mundane responsibility (and potential liability) that I’m surprised he held onto for so long. I would expect a guy like Jeff to want to get on another rocket ship (unsure if literal or figurative).
He had pushed a lot of it down to Jeff Wilke (retail business) and Jassy (AWS) but apparently wanted more time for other projects.
Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees
#188Earlier 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?
> Bonus question: Why should governments be allowed to get that big?
I would argue that most of our current problems are happening because our governments are small, ineffective, and corrupt. I would prefer big, effective, smart, and transparent governments that can take decisive action any day of the week. I'd go so far as to abolish state governments entirely and split their powers between counties and the federal government; they were made for a time when our communications were limited by the speeds of our fastest horses.
Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees
#189The 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…
> Why don’t non-MBAs manage to get to the top?
Because smart and talented people who are interested in business or administration tend to go on and study it. It’s self selecting. I think maybe you are imprinting “MBA” as some sort of personality? I know designers, coders and biologists with MBAs. It’s just an accreditation.
Every business has its roots or foundation with makers. But that doesn’t mean a chef should be running McDonalds, or a woodworker should be running Home Depot...
Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees
#190From 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.
That's the equivalent of saying "corporations should be limited in what services they provide and to how many people". And I disagree with that.