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Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

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Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#841

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

pasquinelli wrote: post #669
Aperocky wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's too bad that as soon as AT&T gets to commercialize the lab it ran it to the ground. Previously, the lab was protected by an agreement between the US and AT&T where AT&T has a lawful monopoly but there were only so much it can earn and X% will always go to fundamental research, and that's why the lab was so successful. That all changed when the federal government decided to break AT&T up in 1983. The for profit b…

The profit motive spurs innovation.

This assumes peopleare only motivated by greed. That's wrong. In the current class climate it would be fair to say that desperation is feeding innovation. Whether peoplecan be a more innovative when they're not desperate, stressed out, overworked, and surrounded by people worse off than them is a fair question but I suspect that's not where you were going.

Anecdotally, I'm not a fraction creative or innovative when I'm desperate. My risk tolerance increases but that's a disingenuous measure of innovation.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#842

Post by ryanlol »

codezero wrote: post #699
TMWNN wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it's because people are likely to try `sex.com` in a web browser for laughs (and get surprised when it turns out to be a real site), but aren't likely to do so with `books.com` or `travel.com`.

This is somewhat second hand but I worked with someone who claimed to know the person who owned sex.com (he was trying to buy it from him at the time, and I'm trying to be deliberately un-assertive) in the mid 90s (also fair warning, this was a long time ago and I probably misremember stuff) and said he paid a ton of money in bribes to the search engines/portals back then - which was what most people assumed, but tho…

> and if I'm remembering correctly, even in the later 90s, you would have had to type http://www.sex.com to get it to even load right

This wasn’t a technical requirement though, sex.com would’ve loaded just fine if it had an A record set.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#843

Post by telltruth »

afavour wrote: post #230
techlatest_net wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here is the video from 1999 [1] showing his obsession with customer which is why customer support is in the DNA of Amazon 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxwjzVW7z5o

I'd argue that the customer experience of Amazon has declined dramatically in the last few years. Maybe there should be more internal viewings of that video.

"declined" is a major understatement. Too many practices at Amazon is now decisively anti-customer:

- Fake reviews have been happening for years but almost no progress from Amazon

- Huge number of fake products and/or misleading specs

- Sponsored products trumps organic results every time

- Sellers use whatever brand they wish instead of their real names giving appearance that they are "official" vendors of that brand

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#844

Post by ekianjo »

afavour wrote: post #230
techlatest_net wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here is the video from 1999 [1] showing his obsession with customer which is why customer support is in the DNA of Amazon 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxwjzVW7z5o

I'd argue that the customer experience of Amazon has declined dramatically in the last few years. Maybe there should be more internal viewings of that video.

oh yeah? have you ever returned products on other online stores?

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#845

Post by hntrader »

niek_pas wrote: post #814
radu_floricica wrote: post #812

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some karma to burn, so let's do this again. Underpay compared to what? There has to be some comparison here. You can't say "underpay" and leave it at that. You might try and weasel and say "underpay compared to a decent living wage". Well, I have news for you - even that's relative. A fair comparison would be "underpay compared to the rest of the warehouse industry". Which begs the question - why do people go…

How about "underpay relative to the value they produce"?

That's true for every commercial transaction including every labor market transaction, and it's the reason why voluntary transactions are positive sum to both parties (ignoring the negative externalities to uninvolved third parties, and edge cases like a diminished ability to make an informed decision such as with a gambling addiction)

You paid $1000 for an iPhone because you thought the subjective value that it brings you is worth $1500. If Apple was asking you for $1501, you wouldn't make the purchase.

Google hired you as a dev for $300k because they think you bring more value to the table than $300k. If you were asking for more than what your value is to them, then they wouldn't hire you. Same for every other hiring arrangement including the ones Amazon makes and the ones you make in your personal life (such as if you hire a cleaner, book an uber, etc)

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#846

Post by Zsolt »

kevstev wrote: post #421
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something that always stuck with me is I remember reading in a book about the internet long ago about how innovative the name Amazon.com was and how it was the future of internet business. It said it needs to be more memorable. You aren’t going to buy your books on Books.com you are going to use Amazon. Turned out to be very right. And this was in the pets.com era. Everyone thought you needed the most generic name po…

I think you are leaving out a really important aspect of the early internet- content discovery was really hard for users. If you were looking for something about Pets until google became dominant, you were just as likely, if not more likely, to type pets.com into your browser as you were to go to a search engine. Getting the initial traffic to your site was really hard in those days, the domain was really important f…

The first time I had the chance to use the internet I typed in "whitehouse", hit enter and whitehouse.com loaded. It turned out to be a porn site, the teacher saw and I got banned from using the internet - in 40 seconds.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#847

Post by telltruth »

ianai wrote: post #87

I’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.)

Please also include Google in your list.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#848

Post by jdironman »

Zsolt wrote: post #846
kevstev wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are leaving out a really important aspect of the early internet- content discovery was really hard for users. If you were looking for something about Pets until google became dominant, you were just as likely, if not more likely, to type pets.com into your browser as you were to go to a search engine. Getting the initial traffic to your site was really hard in those days, the domain was really important f…

The first time I had the chance to use the internet I typed in "whitehouse", hit enter and whitehouse.com loaded. It turned out to be a porn site, the teacher saw and I got banned from using the internet - in 40 seconds.

White House was the first time I ever seen porn / naked women. Cue me spending the next 6 months sneaking to load the page on dialup all hours of the day. To be a kind again. Now we have TBs of data but tend to be uncontent sometimes.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#849

Post by kypro »

mlindner wrote: post #820
afavour wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that the customer experience of Amazon has declined dramatically in the last few years. Maybe there should be more internal viewings of that video.

I disagree. Amazon has many times refunded my order in full with a simple call, and for orders internationally they do it entirely faith-based and will send you another version without having to even return the original.

They're great for this. I once ordered the wrong tablet which was totally my mistake and I even ended up unboxing it, but they still allowed me to return it. It's one of the main reasons I use them because I know there's no hassle if anything goes wrong with my order.

Unfortunetly I know a few people who have been abusing Amazon's refund policy recently. I don't come from the best background so I know a few people who have ordered phones and other electrics from Amazon just because they know if they complain they were stolen from their doorstep they might get a free phone. From my experience working at ecomerce and insurance companies it's hard to have a relaxed returns policy when you also have to accept that the majority of the claims will be fraudulent.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#850

Post by 11235813213455 »

Zsolt wrote: post #846
kevstev wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are leaving out a really important aspect of the early internet- content discovery was really hard for users. If you were looking for something about Pets until google became dominant, you were just as likely, if not more likely, to type pets.com into your browser as you were to go to a search engine. Getting the initial traffic to your site was really hard in those days, the domain was really important f…

The first time I had the chance to use the internet I typed in "whitehouse", hit enter and whitehouse.com loaded. It turned out to be a porn site, the teacher saw and I got banned from using the internet - in 40 seconds.

what search engine was the culprit?
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