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

#611

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 12:51 AM UTC

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…

"The leaked internal findings also serve as a cautionary tale for other employers who seek to emulate the Amazon Way of management, which emphasizes worker productivity over just about everything else and churns through the equivalent of its entire front-line workforce year after year."

"Amazon's attrition rates were 123 percent in 2019 before jumping to 159 percent in 2020, according to internal data in the report Recode obtained, while turnover rates across the US transportation and warehouse sectors were much lower: 46 percent and 59 percent respectively in 2019 and 2020, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates."

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

#612

Post by labcomputer » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 12:54 AM UTC

mikem170 wrote: post #216

alangibson wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The associated wage stabilization is going to be necessary for us to control inflation. It won't. Everyone involved in business dealing with physical goods knows it's a supply side problem. Fiscal policy will do little to control inflation at this time. The Fed of course knows this.

How come Switzerland has only 2.5% year-over-year inflation, less than a third of the U.S. rate? Last I checked there seemed to be some correlation between a country's money printing and current inflation rates. That's not to say that a protion of the current inflation rate is not due to supply consitrictions, but I certainly not assume that is the only factor.

IIRC, Switzerland was doing funny things with bank deposits and exchange rates to control deflation until recently. So +2.5% inflation may represent a significant jump from where they were last year.

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

#613

Post by sib » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 12:54 AM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #172

sib wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea where you are getting your numbers, but Amazon did not post $200B in profit in 2021. The list of top five annual profit (adjusted to current USD) by any company ever is: 1. Saudi Aramco (2018) - $120B 2. Saudi Aramco (2021) - $115B 3. Vodafone (2014) - $113B 4. Fannie Mae (2013) - $98B 5. Apple (2021) - $95B Perhaps you are thinking about revenue?

> Amazon annual gross profit for 2021 was $197.478B, a 29.28% increase from 2020. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/gross-... Gross profits.

Gross profit is not profit.

And the comment said "profit" not gross profit.

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

#614

Post by throwaway675309 » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 12:57 AM UTC

dgfitz wrote: post #206

treeman79 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. They keep messaging me. Could double my salary and not a chance I would work there. I know some recent grads that are starting there however. I miss the days when I was young totally clueless about corporate or political values and I just wanted to program stuff. Was so much easier.

> corporate or political values If you think any company has any real values beyond "make as much money as possible" you're doing yourself a disservice. I would never work for amazon because I refuse to grind leetcode, but in an odd way they're almost the most honest about their mission being to make money.

A company's true loyalty is naturally to its shareholders but it's a bit of a cop out on your part to deny the fact that there are different levels of ethicality within different companies (palentir vs yacht games).

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

#615

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 12:57 AM UTC

labcomputer wrote: post #602

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…

> Never attribute to malice that which blah blah blah... I think we need to hold journalists to higher standard than "complete idiot". I've noticed the same pattern, and I can't believe it's not intentional.

[deleted]

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

#616

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 12:59 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #607

scarface74 wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.biz2cre…

Let's just say that I don't subscribe to the conservative traditional view of economics and politics that you're using to point out how absurd this sounds. Yes, I believe we should be paying much, much more for most of the things in our lives. Right now, those of us who make about 80% of median income and above are essentially riding on the backs who make less. I think this is immoral, although I recognize that chang…

I am not justifying anything. I am putting numbers behind your belief that “everyone who works for 40 hours a week should be able to support a family of four”. It’s easy to talk about ideals until the cold reality of numbers, inflation, etc are brought up.

How do you propose we restructure our economy so that everyone get a wage that supports a family of four?

How many people do you think will “lose out” if inflation sky rockets where food isn’t affordable? You can look at places like Venezuela to see what happens.

Do you personally give away enough of your income to bring your compensation down to the median household wage of $65K a year?

I assure you that I’m not a conservative by any means. I’m card carrying member of the F*## the police (and have been since the 90s), BLM, keep religion out of policy, pro-choice brigade.

But I’m also a student of economics and an MBA drop out with one course remaining (CS undergrad)

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

#617

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 1:09 AM UTC

vishnugupta wrote: post #476

hintymad wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a result, AWS engineers are very much promotion oriented. This leads to two results: title inflation and disgruntled employees. L6 used to be a big deal but not any more. L7 is now the new L6. The challenge with this arrangement is that whoever got promoted early on but stayed in the same level get less in return. And apparently it's human's nature to compare. When engineers see that their peers get promoted to L7…

> 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 (…

[deleted]

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

#618

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 1:13 AM UTC

lamontcg wrote: post #198

mc32 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those idiots! Everyone and their mother knew that printing money since 2008 was going to blow up one day. Technology and unsubstantiated sectors allowed them to print without repercussions for a while and the administration and them also tried to fool people into believing the inflation was transitory... Reckless idiots. And now wage labor is the one to suffer most. 4TT in spending for BBB? Uhhuh! Even Yellen said it…

Everyone is Ludwig von Mises these days. Time to start buying stock in Keynes.

[deleted]

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

#619

Post by Tiktaalik » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 1:15 AM UTC

blakesterz wrote: post #2

I've always wondered about this, at Amazon and also at Uber/Lyft/DoorDash etc... They seem to burn through people quite fast. Won't they all just run out of people at some point, or will just increasing pay bring enough people back?

They'll start to lobby the government to bring in temporary foreign workers before they'll raise wages and improve working conditions.

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

#620

Post by neycoda » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 1:27 AM UTC

Good! They can raise wages and give better benefits and treat workers better. It's really not that hard when you have billions of dollars laying around.