Email from Jeff Bezos to employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#311

Post by splistud » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:29 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #148

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?

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…

"A governments responsibility is solely to its citizens who also control it by vote"

And most Western governments are now abdicating this responsibility in the name of political ideals and the stated notion that non-citizens have the right to demand a place in the nation of their choosing.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#312

Post by burkaman » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:29 PM UTC

SllX wrote: post #208

munificent wrote: post #106

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. 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?

Because money is power, corporations are not democratic, and putting so much power in the hands of one person or a handful of people is dangerous to society. I would also refer you to the entire history of US antitrust law, which will be hard for anyone to summarize in a comment. The whole field of competition law is a question of how to balance the rights of those running a business with the rights of those affected by the business. Often those rights conflict, and there is no way for the law to be "neutral", it has to take a position on how to strike the right balance.

I don't have an answer for how to determine when a corporation is too large, it's a very difficult question that I am not qualified to answer. As for who determines that, I think a democratic government should decide. I disagree with how the current US government makes these decisions, but I still think it is the right organization for the job.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#313

Post by GreenWatermelon » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:29 PM UTC

rabidonrails wrote: post #279

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #231

> This journey began some 27 years ago. Amazon was only an idea, and it had no name. It had a name, and that name was "Cadabra". It didn't become Amazon until Jeff watched a documentary about the Amazon River. His lawyer had already turned up his nose at "Cadabra", and Jeff was looking for something else. It's also worth noting that the idea didn't grow over time - Jeff always intended to build something like "Sears…

I think it's probably lost on a number of people who you are (even though you call it out).

This is my first time hearing about him.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Davis_(programmer)

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#314

Post by andrewjl » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:29 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #201

da_big_ghey wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One of the ideas behind federalism was that government / the state need not have a monopoly on everything.

Corporate monopolies usually only persist due to two reasons: regulatory barriers or technological stagnation. Both are solvable.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#315

Post by mrep » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:29 PM UTC

GizmoSwan wrote: post #305

mrep wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an up to date source on bezos owning the flying fox as that one is based on a tweet that was deleted and everything I've read since says that was false including a quick google search. Also, I'm interested in how you think Amazon is too big to fail because I most certainly do not think they are.

If you mean the boat https://themarketherald.com.au/magazine/the-pursuit-of-comfo...

Yeah, you already linked to that article which mentions "A recent Twitter post" but of course has no link because it is probably the aforementioned deleted one because that website is probably complete BS. It does say january 2 but again, the twitter rumor was 1.5 years ago.

Here is an article refuting that twitter rumor back in august of 2019: https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-rumors-own-400-mi...

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#316

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:29 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #256

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you get issued stock options at a company, you immediately become liable for taxes on them, since they are treated as income. This is true even if there is no public market for the shares at that time (something that caused headaches for many early dotcom stock option grantees). It's is an obvious precedent for taxing somebody who has "received" wealth via the route that Bezos has done.

How about land? IP? Or a private company? Surely, only people that get issued options aren’t subject to a $1B max.

no need to set a max. Just set the marginal rate so high that earning (or, if a wealth tax, owning) more than some amount becomes pointless.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#317

Post by JulianMorrison » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:30 PM UTC

desireco42 wrote: post #97

paxys wrote: post #52

It was public knowledge that Bezos stopped running Amazon day-to-day a while ago. It was headed by the two execs under him (Andy Jassy for AWS and Jeff Wilke for retail). Jassy even had the CEO (of AWS) title. With Wilke announcing his retirement a few months ago, Jassy was the clear frontrunner to take over from Bezos. In hindsight I guess Wilke retired because Jassy was picked over him. The timing of the announceme…

Sounds like Jeff Wilke felt a little bit left out?

Anyone that high up in Amazon is going to be laughing all the way to the bank regardless.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#318

Post by sbarre » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:30 PM UTC

da_big_ghey wrote: post #160

unethical_ban wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I dispute that premise. I'd hardly call America "unified" at the present moment; we are in such a state of disunity that many are refusing to accept election results. Pervasive as Amazon, Google, et al. may be, they are still much easier to escape than the United States government.

I would argue that America is a terrible example of government and governing, and that you shouldn't be using it as a comparison in your argument.

Good government is hard, but it's certainly better than a corporation that is legally obligated to put profit ahead of anything else.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#319

Post by arcticbull » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:30 PM UTC

splistud wrote: post #311

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…

"A governments responsibility is solely to its citizens who also control it by vote" And most Western governments are now abdicating this responsibility in the name of political ideals and the stated notion that non-citizens have the right to demand a place in the nation of their choosing.

> And most Western governments are now abdicating this responsibility in the name of political ideals and the stated notion that non-citizens have the right to demand a place in the nation of their choosing.

Nobody is doing that. However, I'd suggest that even if they were, it wouldn't invalidate anything I'm saying.

Non-citizens are permitted to immigrate under various circumstances, defined under naturalization law. Sometimes that's on the basis of being refugees. Sometimes its on the basis of skills and needs. Sometimes its granted in the face of exigent circumstances.

In the case of the DREAMers, it's based on the notion that if you're brought into the country as a toddler, then you didn't intentionally commit a crime and the fair thing to do is to let you remain - in no small part due to the huge role these folks play in the economy. The parents who committed those crimes are not granted any sort of amensty.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#320

Post by biztos » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:30 PM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #231

> This journey began some 27 years ago. Amazon was only an idea, and it had no name. It had a name, and that name was "Cadabra". It didn't become Amazon until Jeff watched a documentary about the Amazon River. His lawyer had already turned up his nose at "Cadabra", and Jeff was looking for something else. It's also worth noting that the idea didn't grow over time - Jeff always intended to build something like "Sears…

Does AWS have a Sears-type analogue or was that a new concept?

Just curious, no agenda, I grew up on the Sears Catalogue.