Email from Jeff Bezos to employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#241

Post by stevewodil » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:11 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #121

lend000 wrote: post #105

I'm excited that this will really accelerate the space race. I think his relative lack of attention paid to Blue Origin (compared to Musk and SpaceX) is why they've fallen so far behind.

I really wish billionaires would focus on fixing this planet before worrying about others. But I guess many of them consider a planet a resource to be exploited.

Jeff Bezos has mentioned a strategy of doing things that pollute the Earth somewhere else in space and bringing back the goods that are created from it to Earth

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#242

Post by sjg007 » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:11 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #3

End of an era. I wonder what he'll do next.

Turn a lot of cash into rocket fuel.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#243

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:11 PM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #195

WitCanStain wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why it actually provides things people want and is based on voluntary interaction.

Voluntary interaction plays a necessary but insufficient role in the existence of corporations of this size.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#244

Post by sigstoat » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:11 PM UTC

agloeregrets wrote: post #153

airstrike wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Amazon is amassing this money by NOT spending it on the economy

as the sibling comment notes, amazon is not amassing money. rather, amazon has amassed value.

you might want to familiarize yourself with what a corporate valuation is, and means.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#245

Post by __MatrixMan__ » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:12 PM UTC

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.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#246

Post by viraptor » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:12 PM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #195

WitCanStain wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why it actually provides things people want and is based on voluntary interaction.

It's only voluntary if they don't get too large. See: company stores. Or basically any megacorp in cyberpunk genre.

Also it can appear voluntary... "Sure you can pay 2x the cost for your insurance or you can get insurance, food, accommodation conveniently provided by Amazon who is also your employer for a good discount"

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#247

Post by anotherman554 » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:12 PM UTC

vasco wrote: post #206

agloeregrets wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> probably for the rest of his life. At a net worth of $1 billion and assuming he lives to 100 that is $23 million dollars a year to spend, which reasonably, he could only spend around $5-10 Million if he tried. He is worth what, $150 Billion? By the fall he probably will be. He could find a group of 10,000 people of the same age, spit the money evenly and each person would have $340k per year, a large enough sum to…

Why would you give that money to worse allocators of capital? He's generated 1.3 million jobs. How many jobs would you sacrifice in order to limit Bezos to whatever wealth cap you think is appropriate? By definition you will sacrifice them, so the question is at what cost is it too much and how much money is too much money? Also who decides that, is it you?

The demand for products has generated 1.3 million jobs. It's a fallacy to think the jobs wouldn't exist without this company or this billionaire.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#248

Post by ValentineC » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:13 PM UTC

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.

I agree. Amazon's upper management should really do a mystery shopping exercise themselves to see how dysfunctional their (both Amazon.com's and AWS's) support has become.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#249

Post by paxys » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:13 PM UTC

elindbe3 wrote: post #96

keanebean86 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, he's just one health crisis from complete bankruptcy. What if he goes to the hospital complaining of a headache and they charge him $182 billion for an aspirin?

It's a joke but with the US healthcare system you never know..

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#250

Post by idownvoted » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

Avalaxy wrote: post #62

mssundaram wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps Bill Gates truly has developed compassion for the less fortunate, however moving his money into the foundation is a very convenient tax strategy, and I suspect he enjoys the challenges and influence he has, and less so the warm fuzzies from helping people. (I anticipate this comment will not go over well, as it seems I must just not see the truth that Bill Gates is a perfectly benevolent being who has ascende…

What does Bill Gates care about optimizing tax? He is old, isn't planning on giving his money to his children and he has so much money he wouldn't even be able to spend it if he wanted to. It makes no sense. Im pretty sure he does care about his legacy on the other hand.

isn't planning on giving his money to his children

1. none of "giving pledge" signees pledged 100% – they do pledge most of it, although inheriting "almost nothing" of billions is still pretty comfy.

2. the biggest cushion the heirs of Giving Pledgers will inherit is something money can't buy: influence. After all the Gates foundation is a family trust and as such will be run by the trustee's heirs, when their parents die [1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/commentisfree/2017/jul/2...