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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

#51

Post by pkteison »

javanix wrote: post #24

The end result of all this behind-the-scenes software? Fast, accurate search results that help you find what you want. Has Bezos ever actually used Amazon's search functionality? I know it isn't the easiest problem in the world to solve, but their search is by far the worst of any of the major shopping sites that I use on a regular basis.

Specific examples? It seems pretty good to me. Which shopping site has a better search, and what makes it better?

Exact keyword match is obviously fine. "harry potter and the sorcerer's stone" gives me various options for buying that book and a bunch of other harry potter related books, and i can sort by some useful options like reviews or bestselling.

Harder problems, Google shopping vs amazon: Misspellings: Hairy Potter - Amazon suggests 'did you mean Harry Potter?', but does not initially put that book in front of me. When I check again later they are now providing a second list, "Results for "harry potter" (corrected from "hairy potter")"

Google shopping shows me the Did you Mean question, search results are the lego sets and one movie.

Concepts/descriptions instead of exact thing: "Boy Wizard Series" - both fail to suggest harry potter to me, but they do start with "Harry, a History" which might be enough to jog my memory. Still, no real points here, but this is a hard problem, and I don't know any shopping site that does it well. Even Google's regular web search is not fantastic at this, hitting mostly news articles and not reading my mind and popping out with "I bet you want to see information about Harry Potter..."

So where's the trouble?

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

#52

Post by anatari »

Eliezer wrote: post #47
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).

Stocks don't react to how results in announcements compare to last year, stocks react to how results in announcements compare with how Wall Street priced the stock yesterday based on their guess to what the results would be. Efficient markets 101 - otherwise you could make money by buying, one day in advance, stocks that obviously probably did well compared to last year. If this is not obvious to you then you should…

Um, missing earnings means earnings was less than what the wall street analysts expected, it doesn't mean it was less than last year.

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

#53

Post by hga »

javanix wrote: post #24

The end result of all this behind-the-scenes software? Fast, accurate search results that help you find what you want. Has Bezos ever actually used Amazon's search functionality? I know it isn't the easiest problem in the world to solve, but their search is by far the worst of any of the major shopping sites that I use on a regular basis.

You can say that again. By far the worst; quite frequently I have to make several tries and occasionally resort to Google. I used to play with this technology in the early-mid '90s when it was a document imagine adjunct and I'm truly impressed by how bad it is.

I would be very surprised if they were not losing a significant amount of business from this deficit, especially outside of the well cataloged area of books.

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

#54

Post by neuroelectronic »

javanix wrote: post #24

The end result of all this behind-the-scenes software? Fast, accurate search results that help you find what you want. Has Bezos ever actually used Amazon's search functionality? I know it isn't the easiest problem in the world to solve, but their search is by far the worst of any of the major shopping sites that I use on a regular basis.

There is probably over a million products on Amazon. Is there any store in the world that offers a bigger selection? The only problem I have with the search is that they need something more NewEgg-like for searching for computer stuff.

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

#55

Post by chollida1 »

nerfhammer wrote: post #44
ghshephard wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, that goes both way. Any engineer so fixated on not using Microsoft Word, and unwilling to submit a resume in the format requested by their potential employer, might not work out well in a number of environments where they might gasp be required to use operating systems, applications, and methodologies that they were unfamiliar with, or downright opposed to. Works out well for everyone - so, to some degree,…

Not everyone owns a copy of Word these days

True, but I can create a word doc using Google Docs for free.

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

#56

Post by jrockway »

TWADDLE wrote: post #35
billswift wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

unless its APPL....

Apple's ticker symbol is AAPL.

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

#57

Post by mavelikara »

HockeyBiasDotCo wrote: post #29
daeken wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 am truly surpised by the rigidness displayed regarding Word docs. Limiting opportunities in your life because an HR department uses the most common document app in the world seems self-defeating. Why not rule out cmapanies that use a certain type of printer paper?

I have no problems with whatever document app the HR team is using. If they send me a doc file, I will read the information contained therein. In creating a document the author puts in more work than the reader; so as long as the format is not too onerous the author should be able to choose whatever tool is convenient to him/her.

I hope that you agree that txt and pdf files are just as convenient formats to read as doc ones. IMHO it is irritating when someone insists that any document you send them should be in the format of the application they write documents with.

Furthermore, these are no absolutes. If the State asks me to send a document in doc format, I will. Despite pretenses, these companies (and HR depts) are not Republic of Greater Timbuktu really - so I will skip, thank you. :)

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

#58

Post by ZoFreX »

HockeyBiasDotCo wrote: post #29
daeken wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 am truly surpised by the rigidness displayed regarding Word docs. Limiting opportunities in your life because an HR department uses the most common document app in the world seems self-defeating. Why not rule out cmapanies that use a certain type of printer paper?

It's a "bad smell". Too many bad smells and you don't apply for a job, it's like Bayesian filtering.

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

#59

Post by ZoFreX »

neuroelectronic wrote: post #54
javanix wrote: post #24

The end result of all this behind-the-scenes software? Fast, accurate search results that help you find what you want. Has Bezos ever actually used Amazon's search functionality? I know it isn't the easiest problem in the world to solve, but their search is by far the worst of any of the major shopping sites that I use on a regular basis.

There is probably over a million products on Amazon. Is there any store in the world that offers a bigger selection? The only problem I have with the search is that they need something more NewEgg-like for searching for computer stuff.

A million is really not a big number, especially in the context of a distributed database system.

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

#60

Post by vaidhy »

Disclaimer:I work at Amazon as a dev manager.

Working at Amazon does mean that you need to work hard, long and smart. There is a lot of technical debt to deal with too. But the technical debt did not come from bad design, but from the way business grows and changes. There is a 20% growth YoY. Inventories run into millions of products across multiple warehouses. We ship through multiple means and we ensure the product shipped reaches the customer on the promised date at over 95% of the time.

In real life, this means that you are going to have trade-offs and some of the trade-offs do turn into technical debt. What we do with the debt is more important and amongst my groups, we are decreasing the debt by leaps and bounds.

If you want to see how it is, give me a shout. We are hiring, as usual :) I can take resumes in any format too :)

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