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Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

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Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#351
post #336
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

Gotta hedge your bets, but I'm glad that I don't shop at diapers.com.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#352
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's probably bored at this point. Whats there really left to do at Amazon? AWS and the website are eating the world. He's 57. Why not at this point go play with his rockets and spend time inside that WaPo newsroom that he loves.

He's one of the richest men in the world... and single. We're about to witness one of the most glorious midlife crises in history.

I think having one in Musk is enough (though Musk is married now). Don’t need planet of the billionaire bachelors in the midst of their midlife crises.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#353

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 don't see any reason to accept either of those premises. Empirical evidence says you're 0 for 2.

If you think profit motive, rather than ethics and benefit to society, should control prisons, the provisioning of healthcare, or the education of citizens, there is no middle for us to meet on.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#354
post #13

" Amazon is also announcing today that Jeff Bezos will transition to the role of Executive Chair in the third quarter of 2021 and Andy Jassy will become Chief Executive Officer at that time. “Amazon is what it is because of invention. We do crazy things together and then make them normal. We pioneered customer reviews, 1-Click, personalized recommendations, Prime’s insanely-fast shipping, Just Walk Out shopping, the…

Amazon did not invent customer reviews.

Or insanely-fast shipping either, interstate phone orders were being affordably delivered in less than 24 hours at least in the 1980s.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> corporations are not democratic, and putting so much power in the hands of one person or a handful of people is dangerous to society. Citation needed. Democracy is not a sufficient nor even necessary requirement for prosperity or "good" in general.

Not really possible to give you a citation, it's an opinion, or a philosophy. If you have a different idea of an ideal society, we're not going to cite our way to an agreement.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#356

> 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…

> His lawyer had already turned up his nose at "Cadabra"

True. I've heard (employee #20k-something, joined in early 2008) that the issue with Cadabra was its resemblance to the sound of the word "cadaver".

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A for-profit corporation seems like a terrible candidate for such a position.

Consider all the horrors that large nations have inflicted on this world. You might conclude that they are an even worse fit for the position. In my country it is illegal not to subscribe to the state TV channel. The same cannot be said about Amazon Prime.

> In my country it is illegal not to subscribe to the state TV channel.

Just curious: 1) What country 2) Do you have to pay?

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Listening to cbell rip someone apart in the weekly ops meeting while watching the #wtf peanut gallery whilst sipping my coffee are probably my fondest memories of working at AWS

I'll try "Places I wouldn't want to work" for 400K, Alex.

It's funny how differently people respond to that type of stuff.

I grew up playing pretty competitive sports. Being ripped apart in front of my peers was a once a week occurrence for me for most of my life. I had no interest in doing it to anyone else, but it didn't seem like a big deal, and didn't bother me much.

My first job was at a company where it happened a lot. I didn't realize how toxic it was until I started talking with co-workers who were having panic attacks from it.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#359
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#360
post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That does tell us something about the corporate structure though - whilst a lot of people think AWS would be better off being spun out, there's no way you hire the head of AWS as CEO of Amazon if you think that's the direction forward.

My mental image is that people want to spin off AWS for society’s benefits because Amazon grew too big and abuses the integration. Amazon squarely resisting this idea seems uncontroversal.

People argue companies like Walmart don't want to pay their rival Amazon for cloud hosting, but the truth is if AWS is the best cloud provider, it makes business sense to go with them
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