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Why I, Jeff Bezos, Keep Spending Billions On Amazon R&D

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Re: Why I, Jeff Bezos, Keep Spending Billions On Amazon R&D

#11

Post by icey »

mfringel wrote: post #7
matthavener wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think so, but not for the reddit/EBS outage.

Exactly. This is all about their earnings. Given a general trend towards decreasing or outsourcing R&D, Amazon is still doing it in-house, because it's their competitive advantage. Explaining that to a bunch of panicky stockholders who just saw a Big Ugly show up on the cashflow statement is mandatory, no matter how much they care about the long-term.

I feel like I'm missing something. As of this moment (9:42AM PDT) Amazon's stock is up 5.6% for the day and near a 52 week high. That doesn't seem like panicky shareholders to me.

I'm not a stock maven, so it's possible that I'm missing some important detail.

Re: Why I, Jeff Bezos, Keep Spending Billions On Amazon R&D

#12

Post by pkteison »

jordanb wrote: post #5

Judging from things Steve Yegge has written about Amazon, and from friends of mine who have worked there, I don't get the impression that Amazon is a company dedicated to technical excellence. In particular I seem to recall something about 40 million lines of C++ code in their core product, and about mediocre engineering talent and high levels of burnout due to the technical debt they're required to deal with... In f…

I've seen some negative stories about working at Amazon. I don't recall seeing anybody write that it's a great place to program. Anybody have any stories or links about the upside?

Re: Why I, Jeff Bezos, Keep Spending Billions On Amazon R&D

#13

Post by mikle »

petercooper wrote: post #6
jordanb wrote: post #5

Judging from things Steve Yegge has written about Amazon, and from friends of mine who have worked there, I don't get the impression that Amazon is a company dedicated to technical excellence. In particular I seem to recall something about 40 million lines of C++ code in their core product, and about mediocre engineering talent and high levels of burnout due to the technical debt they're required to deal with... In f…

In my experience, their tech job listings list tech degrees as a must-have . That seems to be a common attribute of companies that care more about HR box ticking than technical excellence, alas.

More than that, it is very easy for only one programmer or researcher doing a bad job to create technical debt that will take disproportional time to pay off.

Re: Why I, Jeff Bezos, Keep Spending Billions On Amazon R&D

#14

Post by groovylick »

icey wrote: post #11
mfringel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. This is all about their earnings. Given a general trend towards decreasing or outsourcing R&D, Amazon is still doing it in-house, because it's their competitive advantage. Explaining that to a bunch of panicky stockholders who just saw a Big Ugly show up on the cashflow statement is mandatory, no matter how much they care about the long-term.

I feel like I'm missing something. As of this moment (9:42AM PDT) Amazon's stock is up 5.6% for the day and near a 52 week high. That doesn't seem like panicky shareholders to me. I'm not a stock maven, so it's possible that I'm missing some important detail.

AZMN stock climbed over 8% during the AWS outage, the market is disconnected from reality.

Re: Why I, Jeff Bezos, Keep Spending Billions On Amazon R&D

#15

Post by daeken »

petercooper wrote: post #6
jordanb wrote: post #5

Judging from things Steve Yegge has written about Amazon, and from friends of mine who have worked there, I don't get the impression that Amazon is a company dedicated to technical excellence. In particular I seem to recall something about 40 million lines of C++ code in their core product, and about mediocre engineering talent and high levels of burnout due to the technical debt they're required to deal with... In f…

In my experience, their tech job listings list tech degrees as a must-have . That seems to be a common attribute of companies that care more about HR box ticking than technical excellence, alas.

I thought about going to Amazon when I decided to get out of the startup world about 6 months ago. I went through the standard application process, and promptly closed the tab when I found that they would only accept my r�sum� in MS Word format -- rejected PDFs, HTML, and even plaintext. It may seem like a silly reason not to work somewhere, but I think that the hiring process says more about a company than just about anything else.

Re: Why I, Jeff Bezos, Keep Spending Billions On Amazon R&D

#17

Post by billswift »

petrilli wrote: post #9
jordanb wrote: post #5

Judging from things Steve Yegge has written about Amazon, and from friends of mine who have worked there, I don't get the impression that Amazon is a company dedicated to technical excellence. In particular I seem to recall something about 40 million lines of C++ code in their core product, and about mediocre engineering talent and high levels of burnout due to the technical debt they're required to deal with... In f…

I get the feeling that you're both right and wrong. Right in that a lot of the legacy Amazon code is probably burdened with huge technical debt. I also get the feeling they're pushing the boundaries in other areas. A bit of the "chase the shiny coin" syndrome. One of the issues is that none of us really know what goes on inside Amazon. They are notoriously secretive about most everything.

"Secrecy is the beginning of stupidity." It both reduces feedback, often dramatically, and wastes your time and energy in maintaining the secrecy.

Re: Why I, Jeff Bezos, Keep Spending Billions On Amazon R&D

#18

Post by webspiderus »

daeken wrote: post #15
petercooper wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, their tech job listings list tech degrees as a must-have . That seems to be a common attribute of companies that care more about HR box ticking than technical excellence, alas.

I thought about going to Amazon when I decided to get out of the startup world about 6 months ago. I went through the standard application process, and promptly closed the tab when I found that they would only accept my r�sum� in MS Word format -- rejected PDFs, HTML, and even plaintext. It may seem like a silly reason not to work somewhere, but I think that the hiring process says more about a company than just abou…

I pretty much do the same - mostly since I decided to typeset my resume a while ago, and converting it to anything, particularly MS Word, just feels like a travesty.

Re: Why I, Jeff Bezos, Keep Spending Billions On Amazon R&D

#19

Post by meterplech »

czhiddy wrote: post #16

Interesting how AMZN jumps 5% after missing earnings, yet GOOG drops nearly 10% with nearly the exact same results (increased hiring and expenses resulting in lower than expected profit).

I think that is because investors believe in Jeff Bezos more as CEO than Larry Page. Bezos comes from Wall Street, so Wall Streeters probably have more confidence in him. Plus he has been CEO for a long time, whereas Page comes from academia and just started the role (again).
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