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

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

#591

Post by scarface74 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #584
scarface74 wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thoug…

So you want to raise the minimum wage of everyone in San Francisco to $131K a year? How is that going go work out for inflation?

You want to raise the minimum wage of everyone in Portland to $91K year?

Let’s say the average grocery store has 6 people working every hour for 16 hours a day and 355 days a year. Their labor cost would be $1.465 million. Grocery stores already operate on thin margins (https://www.biz2credit.com/blog/2020/05/22/grocery-store-pro...) are you prepared to pay enough for the labor cost of the entire food chain to quadruple? From the people in the field, delivery truck drivers, etc?

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

#592

Post by toyg »

latchkey wrote: post #393
torginus wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of services is just crazy - I've worked with AWS solutions architects in trying to find the perfect solution to our particular problems, and even they don't seem to know what half the stuff does.

Kind of goes both ways, they might not have been very good architects.

I know a few certified "architects", and let's just say they are people whose career was built on talking, not building.

It's a cottage industry.

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

#593

Post by anothernewdude »

torginus wrote: post #384
capableweb wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The number of services is just crazy - I've worked with AWS solutions architects in trying to find the perfect solution to our particular problems, and even they don't seem to know what half the stuff does.

EC2, Lambda, S3, EKS, and their prepackaged DBs and queues. That's about it.

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

#594

Post by dleslie »

lisper wrote: post #269

> Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos saw his warehouse workforce as necessary but replaceable, and feared that workers who remained at the company too long would turn complacent or, worse, disgruntled, according to reporting by the New York Times. Wow. Think about what this is really saying: Amazon adopts the explicit policy of not wanting their workers to stay on long enough to figure out that they are getting…

> So it's not that they are running out of people to hire, it's that they are running out of people who have not yet figured out that working for Amazon is a bad deal.

My wife is a Physiotherapist; when we lived closer to a fulfillment center it was deeply concerning just how many of her patients were seeing her for WCB (Worker's Compensation Board) claims resulting from injuries at the Amazon warehouse.

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

#595

Post by FFRefresh »

avgcorrection wrote: post #590
FFRefresh wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The content of my comments is highly context-dependent. The poster who replied that it may not be the journalist's bias which led to the formulation, was right. It may or may not be due to bias. I'm willing to cede that I do not know this journalist personally, to be able to confidently say it was due to bias. I would personally bet that there's some degree of anti-Amazon/anti-big tech bias somewhere in the chain that led to the production of this article, but it's something that's hard to know for sure. I can only observe broad trends that usually show these types of formulations always leaning in one direction. This broad 'bias' is a major reason the media has lost so much trust.

Formulation: MAX(Group A) > MIN(Group B) . I often notice that some types of groups/entities always find themselves having the MIN function applied to their case, and others always have the MAX function applied to theirs.

You are also right that deadlines/school pickups aren't the main problem with media. I don't believe that to be true, I was just using that as an example because the poster I was replying to did. When we think about what a better version of the media could look like, those shouldn't be excuses.

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

#597

Post by scarface74 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #585
scarface74 wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m not questioning YCs business model. I’m calling out the hypocrisy of people who say that “companies who can’t afford to pay their employees a livable wage and stay in business don’t deserve to exist” while many people here work for companies who are only able to pay their wages even though they work at non profitable companies because they are being propped up by VC funding.

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

#598

Post by pvankessel »

TMWNN wrote: post #575
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…

>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. Some companies take pride in promoting from within. McDonald's is well known for turning entry-level workers into store mangers, then regional managers, and so on. Walmart does this, too. Does Amazon not have such a culture?

Lol, not yet it seems

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

#599

Post by whimsicalism »

lisper wrote: post #269

> Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos saw his warehouse workforce as necessary but replaceable, and feared that workers who remained at the company too long would turn complacent or, worse, disgruntled, according to reporting by the New York Times. Wow. Think about what this is really saying: Amazon adopts the explicit policy of not wanting their workers to stay on long enough to figure out that they are getting…

Yes, Amazon actually pays employees $5000 if they quit and agree to never return. Available to any employee who has worked there for long enough (I believe a year?)

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

#600

Post by Blackstone4 »

ljm wrote: post #535
swat535 wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and it has always been like this. Why would companies truly "value" Engineering? The majority of execs thinks we are just interchangeable drones and the only reason the salaries are so high in SV is because they literally can't get away with less. If they could, US salaries would be comparable to Canada or EU which are embarrassingly low for the amount of work they require. They will fire you in an instant to sav…

> If they could, US salaries would be comparable to Canada or EU which are embarrassingly low for the amount of work they require. I think that misses a cultural difference, which is that Canada and EU jobs don't require as much work because our work ethic is different. I can earn 100k in London and be very comfortable doing less than 40 hours a week, never working weekends, never doing crunch time, never being force…

Not true really...having worked in both countries...Americans do not work harder than the Brits yet many Americans earn way more for same qualifications and abilities...reflective of the market position many US companies have and the grip they have on the largest end-market in the world.
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