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Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

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Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#201

Post by arcticbull »

da_big_ghey wrote: post #177
arcticbull wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "get this big"? Governments aren't defined by a market cap, but rather by the services they provide to their citizens. Consider that a private company's only goal is to enrich its shareholders, and they have no responsibility to the people or places around them. They are only accountable to their shareholders and the government. A governments responsibility is solely to its citizens who also contr…

Consider that politicians' only goal is to get re-elected. While the rare exception may exist, that's also true of companies. While governments are accountable in theory, that rarely holds true in practice. I don't think that a "bigger" government, id est one with more regulatory oversight, would help; rather, use the existing court system to enforce what we have. If we lack political will to enforce the existing mea…

Monopoly rules only exist and matter because of the government. It's pretty obvious that even with them, there's a real pressure for consolidation (and that's efficiency of scale).

The natural state of a company is a monopoly. Once you are a monopoly, you don't need to worry about getting "re-elected" any more than a despot does.

The free society exists only in the space between these two clashing titans.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#202

Post by pjmorris »

jzer0cool wrote: post #84

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.

Same here. In 1998, my aunt recommended I read 'The Call' by John Hersey. Local bookstores didn't have it, Amazon did.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#203

Post by dantheman »

mullingitover wrote: post #188
personjerry wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

small and corrupt, so let's make them bigger and corrupt? How much do you think the government should forcefully take from its citizens to get bigger?

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#204

Post by lotsofpulp »

agloeregrets wrote: post #185
s3r3nity wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Nobody should ever have a $1B worth.

How does this work? Forced sale of assets? Who determines the market price of the assets, if they’re not highly liquid?

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#205

Post by deegles »

elindbe3 wrote: post #96
keanebean86 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, he's just one health crisis from complete bankruptcy. What if he goes to the hospital complaining of a headache and they charge him $182 billion for an aspirin?

He should have bought Bitcoin if he wanted to be really wealthy.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#206

Post by vasco »

agloeregrets wrote: post #185
s3r3nity wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why would you give that money to worse allocators of capital? He's generated 1.3 million jobs. How many jobs would you sacrifice in order to limit Bezos to whatever wealth cap you think is appropriate? By definition you will sacrifice them, so the question is at what cost is it too much and how much money is too much money? Also who decides that, is it you?

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#207

Post by thehappypm »

munificent wrote: post #106
ksec wrote: 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.

Market Cap is stupid.

What's the value of 1 million shares of Amazon stock? If every single share of Amazon stock went on the market today, would it be worth share price * number of units? Hell no.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#208

Post by SllX »

munificent wrote: post #106
ksec wrote: 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.

> Corporations should never be allowed to get this large.

Make your case instead of dropping your groupthink everywhere. Why? And: What is the maximum size a corporation should be allowed to grow? Who gives that permission now?

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#209

Post by dantheman »

agloeregrets wrote: post #153
airstrike wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Corporations should never be allowed to get this large. Ok, I'll bite. Why? It's not like there's some natural law against it, so you need to provide an argument for why you think they shouldn't.

The obvious argument is the adage that "If a company's only goal is to grow at any cost it is not a company. It's a cancer." Secondary item is that a company of this scale has the ends and means to ward off any competitor and eventually set the wages for an industry. Companies scaling to this size is evidence that the taxation system is too lax and allows money to be funneled out of the loop. Think of it like a pool…

Amazon is amassing money by transforming the world and increasing efficiency. Everyone is richer, it's not a zero sum game.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#210

Post by paxys »

randomsearch wrote: post #60
astrojams wrote: post #20

I worked for AWS for a few years under Andy. He's a good pick for CEO of that company.

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

I'd say AWS + first-party products and services (Prime Video, Echo, Kindle, Grocery delivery). I can definitely see their pure retail business take more and more of a back seat as time goes on.
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