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Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

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Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#331

Post by beowulfey »

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?

Well, one way to think about it is to consider what the effect of the growth might be. What good is a corporation doing getting that large? Who benefits from the amassing of so much wealth? Are they acting for the benefit of many people, or are they more like a black hole -- mindlessly absorbing money and growing over time?

Certainly if a corporation can grow to get so large, it's hard to argue against it. It becomes a bit like a force of nature in that sense. But there are possibly repercussions to that, just as there would be repercussions if a black hole were to suddenly appear in our solar system.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#332

Post by the_duke »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #245

Musk made his initial money at PayPal and then went on to do much weirder stuff. I wonder what kind of weird stuff we can expect from Bezos, having secured Amazon-scale seed money for it.

He's already pumping a billion a year into Blue Origin, which incidentally has quite a few management issues.

So that would be a logical step, although I'm doubtful how effective the Amazon principles would be for spaceflight.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#333

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

biztos wrote: post #320
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.

No, AWS was definitely not part of Jeff's early vision. And as many people have said, major credit to Jassy for making it what it is today.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#334

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

riversflow wrote: post #117
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.

> Hopefully the transition for Amazon is as (seemingly) seamless as the Steve Jobs/Tim Cook transition was for Apple. I like Apple, but there is quite a seam with the Jobs/Cook transition. That seam is the overly minimalistic industrial design patterns witnessed in the butterfly keyboard, vanishing ports, trashcan Mac, etc. They seem to finally be coming around on this.

That's because Ive left. The product pipeline is now getting to the post Ive point and you can see a distinct change.

IMHO Apple are stepping back from the form over function precipice and are being more pragmatic, to the benefit of customers.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#335

Post by adventured »

sbarre wrote: post #318
da_big_ghey wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Corporations are not legally obligated to put profit ahead of everything else. That's a bad myth that refuses to die. There is absolutely no substance to that claim.

There is no legal obligation to maximize shareholder value.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#336

Post by trts »

obenn wrote: post #302
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…

Was it ever named “relentless” at some point? I’ve heard that was the original name, relentless.com still redirects to Amazon.com.

They must have turned off the redirect sometime in the past few years. diapers.com also used to land on amazon.com :)

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#337

Post by burkaman »

ufmace wrote: post #239
SllX wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Would also want to know, once you decide the maximum size of a corporation, exactly what happens to it once it exceeds that size, and who determines that it has infact exceeded it, and carries out whatever the plan is for what happens at that time.

In the US, Congress decides the rules, the FTC and the Department of Justice decide when they believe a corporation is too large, and the court system decides if they're right. The corporation can then be stopped from acquiring other businesses, stopped from executing certain business practices, or broken up into smaller companies. Generally a judge ensures that the plan is carried out.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#338

Post by biztos »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #333
biztos wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does AWS have a Sears-type analogue or was that a new concept? Just curious, no agenda, I grew up on the Sears Catalogue.

No, AWS was definitely not part of Jeff's early vision. And as many people have said, major credit to Jassy for making it what it is today.

Thanks, appreciate the reply from an authoritative voice.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#339

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

obenn wrote: post #302
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…

Was it ever named “relentless” at some point? I’ve heard that was the original name, relentless.com still redirects to Amazon.com.

That does sound vaguely familiar. Jeff did have a handful of other "name candidates" sitting around, and this seems like one in keeping with the sort of thing he was thinking about. I don't specifically remember it though.
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