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Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

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Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#551

Post by astrange »

snakeboy wrote: post #445
mikepurvis wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some other effects of "voluntary interaction": "Concealment at scale is the secret to Amazon’s success. Customers enjoy a seamless one-stop shop experience from the comfort of their homes. Out of sight is a ruthless game of regulatory arbitrage, as Amazon installs itself in low-tax jurisdictions and exploits legal loopholes around the world. Even further away from the customer lies Amazon’s environmental impact, scor…

To be fair, Amazon has probably the worst corporate reputation among public-facing companies, up with Walmart when it comes to labor issues. So I find it hard to believe that anyone is being convinced that Amazon is a net positive here. And at a certain point it's consumerism that's driving all of this. I don't know if it's fair to blame Amazon for this any more than it is to blame McDonalds for obesity. We live in a…

> To be fair, Amazon has probably the worst corporate reputation among public-facing companies, up with Walmart when it comes to labor issues.

The US healthcare system, oil, gas and coal companies, weapons manufacturers, factory farms, fast fashion sellers, soft drink and dessert companies?

I mean, Amazon and MS are in ESG investing indexes, so they must be doing okay. Those indexes won't even allow nuclear power in.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#552

Post by TeMPOraL »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #346
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #231

> This journey began some 27 years ago. Amazon was only an idea, and it had no name. It had a name, and that name was "Cadabra". It didn't become Amazon until Jeff watched a documentary about the Amazon River. His lawyer had already turned up his nose at "Cadabra", and Jeff was looking for something else. It's also worth noting that the idea didn't grow over time - Jeff always intended to build something like "Sears…

Something that always stuck with me is I remember reading in a book about the internet long ago about how innovative the name Amazon.com was and how it was the future of internet business. It said it needs to be more memorable. You aren’t going to buy your books on Books.com you are going to use Amazon. Turned out to be very right. And this was in the pets.com era. Everyone thought you needed the most generic name po…

I wonder if the browsers themselves weren't responsible for the reversal of this trend. Back in the day, if you typed something into address bar, there wasn't a "fallback to search" like we have today.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#553

Post by lostlogin »

jasoncrawford wrote: post #477
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> His lawyer had already turned up his nose at "Cadabra" True. I've heard (employee #20k-something, joined in early 2008) that the issue with Cadabra was its resemblance to the sound of the word "cadaver".

I heard the same story (I joined in 2004). The version I heard was that Jeff was driving cross-country NY -> Seattle and was on the phone with his lawyer about incorporation papers, and the lawyer misheard “Cadabra” as “Cadaver”. That's when Jeff knew he needed a better name.

This instantly reminded me of the story about Microsoft posting a dev a dead fish.

https://olhardigital.com.br/en/2020/05/23/news/the-strange-s...

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#554

Post by paxys »

Traster wrote: post #268
paxys wrote: post #52

It was public knowledge that Bezos stopped running Amazon day-to-day a while ago. It was headed by the two execs under him (Andy Jassy for AWS and Jeff Wilke for retail). Jassy even had the CEO (of AWS) title. With Wilke announcing his retirement a few months ago, Jassy was the clear frontrunner to take over from Bezos. In hindsight I guess Wilke retired because Jassy was picked over him. The timing of the announceme…

That does tell us something about the corporate structure though - whilst a lot of people think AWS would be better off being spun out, there's no way you hire the head of AWS as CEO of Amazon if you think that's the direction forward.

Antitrust aside, has there ever been a business reason to split up Amazon? I doubt anyone inside the company ever took that talk seriously.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#555

Post by eganist »

danellis wrote: post #370
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #231

> This journey began some 27 years ago. Amazon was only an idea, and it had no name. It had a name, and that name was "Cadabra". It didn't become Amazon until Jeff watched a documentary about the Amazon River. His lawyer had already turned up his nose at "Cadabra", and Jeff was looking for something else. It's also worth noting that the idea didn't grow over time - Jeff always intended to build something like "Sears…

> It's also worth noting that the idea didn't grow over time I doubt that he started out imagining he would build the world's biggest cloud hosting platform or open the first chain of checkoutless grocery stores.

The former, probably not. But the latter fits within the context of "21st century Sears"

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#556

Post by astrange »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #373
adventured wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations are not legally obligated to put profit ahead of everything else. That's a bad myth that refuses to die. There is absolutely no substance to that claim. There is no legal obligation to maximize shareholder value.

I don't know of anyone claiming it's a legal obligation. It's a natural obligation, and it's worse. The shareholders want profit maximised, and with that end, decide upon the board of directors, who decide upon the CEO. If the CEO does not maximise profits, the CEO will not remain the CEO. Therefore, the CEOs of (publicly-traded) companies are obliged to maximise profits – those who do not feel such an obligation are…

It's odd to claim companies are obligated to maximize profit in a thread about Amazon, whose retail operation isn't profitable and basically exists because Bezos hypnotized investors into giving him free money forever.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#557

Post by dantheman »

andrewjl wrote: post #328
dantheman wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is amassing money by transforming the world and increasing efficiency. Everyone is richer, it's not a zero sum game.

Why is increasing efficiency always net good?

Because we get more than we had before. As costs go down, the risk of innovation goes down, we're able to be more responsive, able to do new things. People are able to have more variety to meet their individual needs and preferences.

In short we get more or work less and the overall quality of life for everyone increases.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#558

Post by throwaway09223 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #398
_2d30 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you get issued stock options at a company, you immediately become liable for taxes on them, since they are treated as income. This is false, right? It's only taxable on exercise. That or I know 1,000s of people at major companies that owe back taxes.

In the 1990s, I knew dozens of people who faced major financial problems because they immediately owed taxes on options they had just exercised, on shares that were not tradable. These were just regular developers (or in some cases, shipping crew), and they didn't have $50-500k sitting around to cover taxes like that. Maybe the rules have been changed since then? I do know that by the early 2000's there were financia…

"they immediately owed taxes on options they had just exercised"

On exercise yes, but not on issue. I think you're mixing up people buying their options (exercise) with issuance of the options.

No taxes are owed at grant or vest on options, whether NSO or ISO.

Upon exercise (buying - regardless of whether there's a sale) of NSO a tax is owed on the spread between the FMV (usually the 409a valuation, if pre-ipo) and the strike price at grant. This can be considerable and I'm sure is the tax event you're thinking of.

Savvy employees with a cooperative employer often exercise at grant time -- before the options vest -- writing a check almost immediately after hire. This is an early exercise. If this takes place before the value changes (before the board updates the 409a valuation) then there is a taxable event but the spread is $0. The employee then follows up with an 83(b) election to notify the IRS that they wished to be taxed now, rather than later at vest, which ensures that income tax on the spread is never paid. It all becomes regular capital gains.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#559

Post by astrange »

unethical_ban wrote: post #353
splistud wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any reason to accept either of those premises. Empirical evidence says you're 0 for 2.

If you think profit motive, rather than ethics and benefit to society, should control prisons, the provisioning of healthcare, or the education of citizens, there is no middle for us to meet on.

The right-wing (libertarian?) belief here is usually that doing things for the benefit of society doesn't actually benefit society, because irony always wins.

I don't know if this is true, but you'll only talk past each other if you don't acknowledge it.

Re: Email from Jeff Bezos to employees

#560

Post by matttb »

codeulike wrote: post #401
afavour wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Practically have to do backflips to avoid accidentally signing up to Amazon Prime. Dark patterns deployed front and centre.

And canceling Amazon Prime requires you to click a button saying you want to cancel four times.
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