211–220 of 1001 posts
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Retiring at 57 is pretty risky. Hopefully his savings hold out. He's looking at 30 more years of life. Personally I would be too cautious to leave this early. Edit: risking -> risky; fixed life sentence
Yeah maybe he should've worked a few more years to shore up his net worth a bit, a 50% drop in the market might force him back to work
> This journey began some 27 years ago. Amazon was only an idea, and it had no name. Jeff's pitch at the time (1997); so on point, so precise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWRbTnE1PEM > The question I was asked most frequently at that time was, “What’s the internet?” Blessedly, I haven’t had to explain that in a long while. Here's Jeff explaining the Internet (at a TED talk): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMKNUy…
> This journey began some 27 years ago. Amazon was only an idea, and it had no name. Jeff's pitch at the time (1997); so on point, so precise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWRbTnE1PEM > The question I was asked most frequently at that time was, “What’s the internet?” Blessedly, I haven’t had to explain that in a long while. Here's Jeff explaining the Internet (at a TED talk): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMKNUy…
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> Corporations should never be allowed to get this large. Ok, I'll bite. Why? It's not like there's some natural law against it, so you need to provide an argument for why you think they shouldn't.
The obvious argument is the adage that "If a company's only goal is to grow at any cost it is not a company. It's a cancer." Secondary item is that a company of this scale has the ends and means to ward off any competitor and eventually set the wages for an industry. Companies scaling to this size is evidence that the taxation system is too lax and allows money to be funneled out of the loop. Think of it like a pool…
Quite incorrect on this point, Amazon has pretty small cash reserves compared to peer tech companies. Even then, if Amazon were merely putting that money in the bank, where is it going? It's getting loaned out to other companies and consumers, who are spending it, investing it, etc via fractional reserve banking.
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> 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…
Why does the government needs to be big (in size?).
It just needs to be strong enough and really connected to its people it represents. Then also a very small country (with a small government) can set up and enforce clear rules on multinational companies, doing buisness within that country.
The rules just need to be simple. If they are complicated, it just means, those with the best lawers will win and they are usually working for the corporations.
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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. Ok, I'll bite. Why? It's not like there's some natural law against it, so you need to provide an argument for why you think they shouldn't.
1.3 million employees, wow!
From https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/email-from-jef... >Fellow Amazonians: >I’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO. In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives. Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be a…
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.
This is partly why I left Google.
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.
Retiring at 57 is pretty risky. Hopefully his savings hold out. He's looking at 30 more years of life. Personally I would be too cautious to leave this early. Edit: risking -> risky; fixed life sentence
The takeover of tech by MBAs continues. It has now happened at the top 4 largest tech companies in the US. We will have Apple (Tim Cook), Amazon (Andy Jassy), Alphabet (Sundar Pichai), Microsoft (Satya Nadella & Steve Ballmer) all taking over from non-MBA founders. Facebook is next in size and has Sheryl Sandberg as COO but don't know if Mark Zuckerberg would ever hand over the reins. Why don't non-MBAs manage to get…
Errr...both Sundar and Satya were software engineers first?