Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#341

Post by Applejinx » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 3:21 PM UTC

mayneack wrote: post #237

_7siz wrote: post #10

Oof. I wonder what this means for Whole Foods culture and employees. If you don't know, John Mackey, the CEO / founder, is a major believer in conscious capitalism and of empowering his employees. Whole Food employees get paid pretty darn well with some crazy good benefits for their industry and line-of-work (UNION FREE most of the time too!). WF banks on them being true believers and motivators of the cause - includ…

> If you don't know, John Mackey, the CEO / founder, is a major believer in conscious capitalism and of empowering his employees. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/16/whole-foods-ceo-oba... > “It’s more like fascism,” Mackey recently told NPR. “In fascism, the government doesn’t own the means of production, but they do control it — and that’s what’s happening with our health care programs and these reforms.” > Ma…

Sounds like he's demonstrating what being 'consciously capitalist' gets you: bought out, and your lifework cannibalized to please bottom-line hungry investors. Also known as 'you can't have nice things'.

So basically, leave out the 'conscious' as it is disposable. Good to know.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#342

Post by throwaway91111 » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 3:21 PM UTC

vnchr wrote: post #324

rmc wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 1880s Bismarck increased the modern welfare state (it was called State Socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Socialism_(Germany) ). The idea was that, if the poor people can get some form of social welfare from the existing state, they're less likely to support a proper socialist/communist revolution. Sounds like that. People won't unionise when they don't think they need to.

Interesting comparison. In this case, people aren't unionizing for essentially the opposite reason. Rather than state provided social welfare, their needs are satisfied through this capitalistic solution. Employees are empowered and rewarded through their work.

I'm not sure if you can call this capitalistic, though. WF as a commune could likely share many of the benefits or exceed them even without requiring shareholders to satisfy. Instead, a devotion to profits will ensure they are given the minimum to execute their job well.

It'll be interesting to see what bezos does with it for sure.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#343

Post by pm90 » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 3:21 PM UTC

vnchr wrote: post #324

rmc wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 1880s Bismarck increased the modern welfare state (it was called State Socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Socialism_(Germany) ). The idea was that, if the poor people can get some form of social welfare from the existing state, they're less likely to support a proper socialist/communist revolution. Sounds like that. People won't unionise when they don't think they need to.

Interesting comparison. In this case, people aren't unionizing for essentially the opposite reason. Rather than state provided social welfare, their needs are satisfied through this capitalistic solution. Employees are empowered and rewarded through their work.

I mean if you think about it, Unions act as a protection mechanism. If your workplace is already labor friendly you feel less of a need for Unions, which cost money and time.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#344

Post by erikb » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 3:22 PM UTC

AndrewDucker wrote: post #23

https://twitter.com/dkberman/status/875701677504024576 "Amazon did not just buy Whole Foods grocery stores. It bought 431 upper-income, prime-location distribution nodes for everything it does."

Which is really nice if you want to roll out your own grocery store chain.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#345

Post by erikb » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 3:24 PM UTC

phreeza wrote: post #21

Somewhat off topic, but I have had a weird thought circulating in my head (triggered by reading Red Plenty) that I wanted to put out there: What is the relationship between a centrally planned economy as for example Gosplan was trying to run in the USSR, and the presence of these huge market-like but centralized entities like Amazon and Wal-Mart inside a free-market economy? This becomes particularly interesting beca…

Yes the end result of capitalism and communism isn't so different.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#346

Post by RoboTeddy » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 3:25 PM UTC

phreeza wrote: post #21

Somewhat off topic, but I have had a weird thought circulating in my head (triggered by reading Red Plenty) that I wanted to put out there: What is the relationship between a centrally planned economy as for example Gosplan was trying to run in the USSR, and the presence of these huge market-like but centralized entities like Amazon and Wal-Mart inside a free-market economy? This becomes particularly interesting beca…

> What is the relationship between a centrally planned economy as for example Gosplan was trying to run in the USSR, and the presence of these huge market-like but centralized entities like Amazon and Wal-Mart inside a free-market economy?

Amazon may not be trying to turn a profit short term, but they still pay huge amounts of attention to price signals. Prices are composable flows of information about demand and difficulty of production.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#347

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 3:25 PM UTC

phreeza wrote: post #21

Somewhat off topic, but I have had a weird thought circulating in my head (triggered by reading Red Plenty) that I wanted to put out there: What is the relationship between a centrally planned economy as for example Gosplan was trying to run in the USSR, and the presence of these huge market-like but centralized entities like Amazon and Wal-Mart inside a free-market economy? This becomes particularly interesting beca…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#348

Post by danm07 » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 3:26 PM UTC

I wonder if instead of Amazon building out their own stores, they're going to use Whole Food's... unlikely but possibility is there if they do it well.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#349

Post by pm90 » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 3:27 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #318

hosh wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure, but hearing about how Amazon is running into trouble with their grocery stores, they might want to learn something from Whole Foods (similar to Zappos). There was also an article that talked about the brilliance of Amazon biz organization. Business units are set up like API interfaces, ones that serve both internal needs as well as external customers. The author's claim is that it helps trim the fat, with w…

WF most likely will fail under Amazon (if WF must adapt to Amazon's business methods), opening the market for local competitors and similar national chains to absorb that market share. Great opportunity for Aldi on the low end and Trader Joe's on the high end. Groceries are not APIs.

I don't know. WF does have a very loyal base of users. Unless Amazon fucks with them majorly, I don't see it changing very much. In fact, with less pressure from activist investors to cut back on expenses, they might actually get more resources to experiment with new concepts.

If money weren't a matter, I would love to shop at whole foods: shopping for groceries seems more of an experience there than at other places. Maybe using Amazon's superior operations management would let them lower prices even further attracting more regular customers.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#350

Post by Applejinx » Fri, Jun 16, 2017, 3:27 PM UTC

lallysingh wrote: post #287

Fej wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with 'conscientious capitalism' is that a competitor will take the idea and run with it, save for the 'conscientious' elements, and push out the original from the market.

I don't know about this. I think it's been over-done to such a degree that actually good customer service is a rare gem to find at this point, and is a better discriminator than price in most products. The price difference is rarely worth the hassle or tension of dealing with bureaucracy or unpleasant people. Or bad websites.. I really can't stand vendors who can't build an easily navigatable, fast website. I've stuc…

The trouble there is under certain circumstances, good will is a commodity. It can be accumulated through a pattern of behavior, and then spent (converted to capital) to turn a short-term profit.

So there's a legit strategy that makes sense to a Wall Street firm, where you specifically go after stuff with good will so you can convert that to capital and then flush what's left. It's not dissimilar to how real estate is a form of storing capital, best used without actual people living in the real estate to mess it up: the wipe-and-flush strategy is about intentionally converting these 'rare gems' into raw capital through using the goodwill up.

As long as that is more profitable than not doing it, good customer service (or 'enlightened' capitalistic activity) is something you can't have, or can only have until it's seized and squeezed. Market forces make the wipe-and-flush phase inevitable: the longer you hold out, the bigger a prize that goodwill is, provided the thing is publically held and subject to this dynamic.