Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire • Hacker News Board

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#581

Post by the_biot » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 11:25 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #545

tetromino_ wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everyone agrees that the website is tired, ugly, and slow, but lots of people still do all their shopping from there because they're used to it and it's easier than maintaining accounts with 15 different retailers with 15 different websites Slow compared to what? Amazon's website feels more responsive and more usable than 90% of online stores I've seen that carry orders of magnitude less variety of inventory. It lo…

Though the filtering features are pretty much useless for almost every product. Too many products to maintain any decent classification. That makes it pretty much useless for looking for computer hardware (that and counterfeit products).

So true, but I don't think it's impossible to maintain classification, that's just Amazon. I think they just gave up trying to, probably after they opened up up other sellers.

I suspect their search, classification, filters etc are all so broken because it's all based on a Google-style textual search, with no backend database driving those site features.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#582

Post by pvankessel » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 11:25 PM UTC

kfarr wrote: post #569

pvankessel wrote: post #544

Not surprised to see this pop up. I interviewed for a position with Amazon a few months back to lead up a new research program to determine how they can better recruit and retain hourly workers. I had no intention of taking the job, but was curious so I took the interview. What stood out was just the sheer scale at which they're operating - they're literally up against the constraints of domestic labor supply. I have…

> also on the verge of exhausting the viable labor market [at this level of pay]

I mean, that's definitely a huge factor, but there IS a limit to how much Amazon can pay their hundreds of thousands of workers and still remain competitive - and I have NO idea where that threshold is, which is why I'm fascinated to see how this shakes out. Either Amazon workers start getting treated better which is great, or the company collapses and turns into an unprecedented case study of what not to do. Either way, I'm grabbing some popcorn!

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#583

Post by anothernewdude » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 11:27 PM UTC

tetromino_ wrote: post #538

anigbrowl wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a good (albeit cynical) strategy to be honest. 80% of your users only care about 20% of the features, and by offering as many different services as possible, you minimize the number of purchasing decisions that customers need to make. Are all your offerings just OK or even mediocre compared to the competition? Yes. Do most customers care? No, as long as it's adequate and doesn't actively cause problem…

> everyone agrees that the website is tired, ugly, and slow, but lots of people still do all their shopping from there because they're used to it and it's easier than maintaining accounts with 15 different retailers with 15 different websites Slow compared to what? Amazon's website feels more responsive and more usable than 90% of online stores I've seen that carry orders of magnitude less variety of inventory. It lo…

Their local competitors in my country are so much better, and amazon shipping is so slow, I don't know anybody that actually uses amazon except for AWS.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#584

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 11:28 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #563

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to advocate the position that there's some age where the correlation between work and income can or should be looser, be my guest. For me, the bottom line is that spending 40 hours a week doing something that requires no skill should still entitle the employee to be able to live a basic life. Further, that it should require only one person in a family to do that work in order for the family do live a basi…

So it costs a family of four about $7000 a month to live in San Francisco https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/San-Francisco Should the minimum wage there be $48/hour after taxes? That’s $60/hour before taxes according to this gross up calculator https://www.paycheckcity.com/calculator/grossup/california/r... Portland Oregon is #25 on the list of the 50 largest metro areas in the US. A living wage there is about…

For the purposes of my answers, I am taking your cost-of-living values as they are. I am not convinced they are correct, but willing to assume that they are.

> Should the minimum wage there be $48/hour after taxes?

Yes.

> A living wage there is about $44/hour for a family of four. Should that be the minimum wage in Portland?

Yes.

What's your alternative? "Oh sorry, your job is requires so little skill that even though you could just spend 40 hours a week doing it, you will need to find at least another 20 hours a week doing something else to be able to afford a basic life"

I find that morally unsupportable.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#585

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 11:29 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #565

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"on average" does not mean "most companies". It could mean that, but in all likelihood it means that some YC funded companies make huge amounts of money for YC that sufficiently balances the losses that they keep doing it. Ya know, like most investment (that works).

That’s not how VCs make money. They make money based on “exits” either via acquisition or IPO. Over the last few years, most companies had exits without ever showing profitability. Joe Bob’s Burgers don’t have the luxury of losing money hoping they can survive long enough to find the “greater fool” either via acquisition or IPO.

> That’s not how VCs make money. They make money based on “exits” either via acquisition or IPO.

It doesn't matter. The only question for YC is whether they make money or not. They make money on some of their investments, and lose it on others. It's fairly clear that on average, that is, summed across all winners and losers, they make money overall.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#586

Post by the_biot » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 11:30 PM UTC

Firmwarrior wrote: post #505

vishnugupta wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> L7 (a role used to be considered almost impossible to reach) I can attest to this; worked there from mid 2000s to early 2010s. Principle Engineers, L7 ICs, were looked up as Gods back then. To an extent that a couple of projects by an L5 where it went through principal-review process was almost guaranteed to get them a promotion to L6. Back when I was there I thought pulling off L5-L6 required crazy work schedule (…

Man, I worked at Amazon in the early 2010s, and I remember I was an L something and proud of it, but thought I'd never make it to L whatever. It was such a huge deal and a huge part of my life, and now I can't even remember which number it was.. I wish I'd spent less time working and more time doing stuff I cared about

At least you picked up some life wisdom along the way.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#587

Post by sbf501 » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 11:30 PM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #299

madrox wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a secret. Engineers are treated this way as well. At my time at Amazon, it was explained to me that this is why their comp structure is so wrapped up in stock and salaries are so low. Unless you keep getting promoted and get more stock, employees will naturally want to leave within four years.

> employees will naturally want to leave within four years That also explains why the breadth of AWS services keep growing, but the depth of the existing ones remains the same. Seems they would, every 4 years, lose a bunch of people with deep knowledge in the existing ones, the ones who'd be able to add new and deep features.

Too many features: code bloat from noob engineers Too few features: too many new apps from noob engineers

Can't win.

I know you didn't say #1, but both of these contradictory points are floated quite often.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#588

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 11:31 PM UTC

pacoWebConsult wrote: post #408

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems unlikely to me that this analysis applies to amzn's retail division.

If you spend any time reading their retail forums [1], you'll see almost everyone lambasting Amazon constantly. Either disgruntled sellers who broke the rules and got terminated, or normal, hardworking mom-and-pop stores that were all but forced to sell on Amazon and consistently lose money due to amazon's ever-changing policies, poor support, and catering to large retailers. Large retailers get a direct line and qua…

The GP claim was

> where so much of revenue comes from the relatively few customers who are very deep in their usage.

I'm disputing that for retail.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#589

Post by avgcorrection » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 11:31 PM UTC

swatcoder wrote: post #286

FFRefresh wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Walmart is offering some workers with past warehouse experience as much as $25 an hour. An Amazon executive told Reuters in late 2021 that the company was bumping the average starting wage for new hires in the US to more than $18 an hour, attributing the decision to intense competition among employers. This is a common type of formulation in journalism that often reveals the bias of the journalist. 1. Walmart pays S…

I upvoted this for contributing a valuable and insightful clarification about how those two statements relate, but the part where you attribute "tactics" and "bias" to the journalist has no direct evidence and reads like a political meme. You may be convinced of your interpretation, but it's also likely that the journalist isn't rigorous enough to notice the distinction themselves, didn't have access to perfectly com…

What an incredibly myopic viewpoint.

That little “rule” sounds so smart, huh? That people are just dumb and there is no pattern to anything. It’s all random and people are just fumbling about, doing “stupid” or “random” shit. Their mind is distracted because they need to pick up their child froms school.

But it’s not even about malice or intent. It’s about patterns and analysis of how the media operates. You observe if things are slanted in a certain way. If they give one side the benefit of the doubt while the other not so much.

It’s not about finding evidence of the inner workings/mind of some run of the mill journalist. It’s about seeing what kind of output certain outlets put out. On aggregate.

This has been done before. It can be done.

And how do you disregard such good work? By half-quoting—it’s so cliche that you won’t lower yourself to finish the pseudo-quote—some smarter-than-thou, above the fray nonsense which fundamentally confuses individual intent (i.e. “conspiracy”) with aggregate analysis, all because you got hung up on the particular-sounding “bias of the journalist”, which could originally have been meant to be illustrative[1] and could have been taken as such in a charitable reading, especially since it’s not like any of us even remember the byline of this article.

[1] Although note that the original poster totally folded in a sibling comment, so whatever…

Re: Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire

#590

Post by avgcorrection » Fri, Jun 17, 2022, 11:34 PM UTC

FFRefresh wrote: post #318

swatcoder wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upvoted this for contributing a valuable and insightful clarification about how those two statements relate, but the part where you attribute "tactics" and "bias" to the journalist has no direct evidence and reads like a political meme. You may be convinced of your interpretation, but it's also likely that the journalist isn't rigorous enough to notice the distinction themselves, didn't have access to perfectly com…

Totally fair on the implying bias strictly on the journalist (which may or may not be there). Regardless of the awareness/intent of the given journalist, I do hope that we can find leaders (whether people/orgs/software) that can help improve our information environment to improve shared sensemaking. In an ideal world, non-rigorous journalists, arbitrary deadlines, and corner cutting because of school pickups shouldn'…

You went from a providing an astute observation in the first comment to providing vague platitutes about leaders (waves hands) in the next one. Way to go.

The deadlines of those poor journalists—and their kids!—is hardly the main problem with the Media. But you probably already know that.