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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

#641

Post by renonce »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #588
pacoWebConsult wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you view the sellers rather than the buyers as customers, then you’ll see that it is the case.

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

#642

Post by bpodgursky »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #625
peanuty1 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not sustainable for them to offer, say, $30 an hour starting salary for fulfillment centre employees. As it is, they have to subsidize retail with other revenue lines like AWS and advertising.

That implies their business is not viable.

"The conclusion is that Amazon is not a viable business"

-- best of HN

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

#643

Post by mwt »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #625
peanuty1 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not sustainable for them to offer, say, $30 an hour starting salary for fulfillment centre employees. As it is, they have to subsidize retail with other revenue lines like AWS and advertising.

That implies their business is not viable.

That is the design: business units that are not viable on their own are subsidized by a few cash cows but might gain market share and be profitable in the future

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

#644

Post by KennyBlanken »

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…

Bezos was invited to dinner with the Obamas at the White House, along with Jon Stewart. He was flapping his mouth off about his vision for us all being happy little worker drones.

Stewart told him that people want fulfilling, rewarding work they can be proud of, and that being errand boys for billionaires isn't fulfilling. Stewart capped it by saying that turning people into service drones for billionaires is how you end up with a revolution (ballsy words to say at a White House dinner to the richest guy on the planet.) And after a bit of silence, Obama said "I agree with Jon."

https://youtu.be/Vewz1v4rQYg?t=116

You'd think Bezos would take the words of the president of the united states a little more to heart, but it seems not.

And then years later, what happens? Staten Island union leaders thank Bezos for being too busy flying on his dick-rocket to stop them from unionizing his warehouse.

Bezos basically considers every other human to be a happy little servant, just dying to work for the 0.001%. He's exactly like the stereotypical 1800's British lord who looks down upon his servants and says "oh they enjoy a good hard day's work for someone else."

(print version: https://www.businessinsider.com/jon-stewart-jeff-bezos-econo...)

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

#645

Post by rashkov »

amzn-throw wrote: post #440
no_wizard wrote: post #9

This is specifically in reference to warehouse workers, not the tech side of things. Though I've heard from many recently ex-Amazon engineers that they're having real trouble recruiting engineers now too

I've been an engineer at Amazon for almost 10 years. Been promoted twice. Ask me anything. Yes, we're having a lot of trouble recruiting engineers, because of discussion threads like this where a lot of misinformation is shared about what it's like to work here. Is it tough? Yes. Is it competitive? Yes. Is there stack ranking? Yes. Is it the most fulfilling and challenging and interesting job I've had in 22 years of…

Can you expand on this a bit? What makes the work so fulfilling? Is it just knowing the impact? The team is good? Are you learning and improving as an engineer?

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

#646

Post by quickthrower2 »

bpodgursky wrote: post #642
quickthrower2 wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That implies their business is not viable.

"The conclusion is that Amazon is not a viable business" -- best of HN

Didn’t say that. I just wanted to tease more out of the comment I was replying to. I said that comment if true, without further clarification implies they are not viable.

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

#647

Post by quickthrower2 »

mwt wrote: post #643
quickthrower2 wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That implies their business is not viable.

That is the design: business units that are not viable on their own are subsidized by a few cash cows but might gain market share and be profitable in the future

My guess is what you say here, and where the plan is AI/Robotics will take over. That in itself will be unprofitable for a while until it is very profitable and like Google with search, hard to displace.

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

#648

Post by mwt »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #647
mwt wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the design: business units that are not viable on their own are subsidized by a few cash cows but might gain market share and be profitable in the future

My guess is what you say here, and where the plan is AI/Robotics will take over. That in itself will be unprofitable for a while until it is very profitable and like Google with search, hard to displace.

You might be right but that isn't even what I'm saying here. Your description could apply to many sectors of the economy, most of which they have a some amount of presence in

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

#649

Post by effingwewt »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #633
rexreed wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's quote more of this for context: Pagan began working at the Amazon delivery hub in October and, within two months, had been promoted to a role on the safety committee for the facility. The new role didn’t come with a pay raise, and is on top of a worker’s core tasks, but Pagan saw it as a stepping stone to an official promotion. But in April, Pagan told Recode, he took two days off to have an infected tooth look…

I never understood limited sick days... i mean.. you're sick, how can you limit your sickness to X days? But yeah, seems to be an US-only anomaly, atleast compared to the rest of the developed world.

This is an open secret in the US. It's used to fire people constantly for employee churn. This ensures by the time they are unhappy at the job, they are close to being fired.

It also ensures only the super dedicated or those without families are the ones to stay.

High turnover jobs known for this are telephone agent jobs, sales employees, or reallly anyone they can sucker into accepting crazy quotas.

Some places, especially those with several lines of business, will do this because they get laid $X/agent to graduate a class.

I don't know where the idea came from or why but I've seen it over and over, especially as a LOB (line of business) is being closed. They will rush to push through as many classes as possible, knowing full well they will be graduating into a non-existent job with little to no chance of moving to another LOB.

The US has really gone insane.

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

#650

Post by MaxHoppersGhost »

aaomidi wrote: post #77
alangibson wrote: post #22

The Fed is about to induce 3 years worth of rising unemployment by their own estimates, so the days of workers not needing to take crap jobs out of desperation will soon be at an end. https://qz.com/2178359/the-fed-predicts-3-years-of-rising-un...

We’re also living in a volatile time. It might end up meaning a potential civil war is a lot more likely. Desperation creates extremism. I don’t think the US is prepared for the monster it may unleash.

Civil war? That’s ridiculous. Please turn off Fox/CNN.
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