Inside Amazon

[YankeeFan]

Would Amazon still make an amazing ****ing profit if they stopped treating people like ****? Yes

Would the people who own Amazon stock still make a profit if Amazon stopped treating people like ****? No

You're not very smart.

 

[cranberry]

Big companies have to be nimble, or else even the biggest can be surpassed by another company with better technology.

Who ever thought Myspace would be displaced?

Amazon can't afford to miss out on the next big thing, or to go down the wrong path.

So they've designed a system that keeps them nimble -- or as nimble as a company their size can be. At Amazon, they're determined to not let innovation, like what was possible at Kodak, go without being developed.

Like I said, the Hunger Games approach has its benefits from a business standpoint. Yet some companies still seem to do well by creating a workplace culture in which employees are treated with fairness, respect, dignity and civility. You can be nimble without ****ing over people.

 

[93Devil]

You're not very smart.

I like when you reach for that one because it means I'm right.

 

[JackReacher]

Didn't Gawker run a "Horror stories" series written by current and/or former Wal-Mart employees not long ago?

 

[93Devil]

I also have no problem with Amazon doing this to people if they know this is the type of business they are going to work for.

 

[Ace]

Do you know how many millions of dollars some companies blow on new initiatives because no one is willing to call bull**** on a dumb idea?

And, how many multi-million dollar ideas are never developed because they came from a low level employee, who didn't get a proper hearing?

Amazon wants to avoid the latter, and encourage the former, and it looks like they've developed a system to help make this happen.

Well, I worked at Gannett, so yeah. I concede your points here.

 

[LongTimeListener]

I also have no problem with Amazon doing this to people if they know this is the type of business they are going to work for.

Yeah. And as other companies follow suit, I'm sure it will be more common. (Anecdotally, I've heard Tesla is a particularly horrible sandpit for humanity, even within the tech world.)

The big problem is all of this runs up against what the tech industry says are its big new initiatives of diversity and work-life balance. It's obvious the only thing they want and will want are males, Asian and white, between 22 and 27 years old. If you're going to grow out of that age range that's OK, as long as you don't actually do any of the things that people in their 30s like to do.

 

[User 11148]

I thought this article from the weekend was interesting.

Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

They could have dominated digital photography, but didn't want to disrupt their own business model, so instead, they mostly ignored it -- even though it was invented in house!

But, it was probably a nice place to work:

Imagine a world where photography is a slow process that is impossible to master without years of study or apprenticeship. A world without iPhones or Instagram, where one company reigned supreme. Such a world existed in 1973, when Steven Sasson, a young engineer, went to work for Eastman Kodak.

Two years later he invented digital photography and made the first digital camera.

Mr. Sasson, all of 24 years old, invented the process that allows us to make photos with our phones, send images around the world in seconds and share them with millions of people. The same process completely disrupted the industry that was dominated by his Rochester employer and set off a decade of complaints by professional photographers fretting over the ruination of their profession.
...
Mr. Sasson made a series of demonstrations to groups of executives from the marketing, technical and business departments and then to their bosses and to their bosses.
...
Their response was tepid, at best.

“They were convinced that no one would ever want to look at their pictures on a television set,” he said. “Print had been with us for over 100 years, no one was complaining about prints, they were very inexpensive, and so why would anyone want to look at their picture on a television set?”

The main objections came from the marketing and business sides. Kodak had a virtual monopoly on the United States photography market, and made money on every step of the photographic process.
...
When Kodak executives asked when digital photography could compete, Mr. Sassoon used Moore’s Law, which predicts how fast digital technology advances. He would need two million pixels to compete against 110 negative color film, so he estimated 15 to 20 years. Kodak offered its first consumer cameras 18 years later.
...
The first digital camera was patented in 1978.
...
In 1989, Mr. Sasson and a colleague, Robert Hills, created the first modern digital single-lens reflex (S.L.R.) camera that looks and functions like today’s professional models.
...
But Kodak’s marketing department was not interested in it. Mr. Sasson was told they could sell the camera, but wouldn’t — because it would eat away at the company’s film sales.
...
Still, until it expired in the United States in 2007, the digital camera patent helped earn billions for Kodak, since it — not Mr. Sasson — owned it, making most digital camera manufacturers pay Kodak for the use of the technology. Though Kodak did eventually market both professional and consumer cameras, it did not fully embrace digital photography until it was too late.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/12/kodaks-first-digital-moment/

How'd Xerox's invention of ethernet/the graphical user interface/object-oriented programming pan out?

 

[BTExpress]

Would Amazon still make an amazing ****ing profit if they stopped treating people like ****? Yes

And, uh, how much of an "amazing ****ing profit" do you think they are making?

Amazon: Nearly 20 Years In Business And It Still Doesn't Make Money, But Investors Don't Seem To Care

 

[User 11148]

Like I said, the Hunger Games approach has its benefits from a business standpoint. Yet some companies still seem to do well by creating a workplace culture in which employees are treated with fairness, respect, dignity and civility. You can be nimble without ****ing over people.

Did your dictionary just happen to open on the page that has the definition of "equifinality" on it?

 

[LongTimeListener]

This also of course feeds in with tech companies' eternal lament that they "can't find qualified Americans" and must expand the H1B visa program. By accepting these conditions as inevitable and necessary, we condone a system that brings in more indentured servants at half the pay and benefits and with 100-hour workweeks. Then tech companies lament that Americans won't work as hard as the Chinese and Indian laborers, and we need even more H1B visas. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

[I Should Coco]

Even the best newsrooms these days are riddled with contentment and complacency. Even so, there are a lot of good people with good ideas. The problem, of course, is that if you're not in the idea pipeline, it's next to impossible to get the aforementioned proper hearing. The idea that newspapers have run off all the good people is wrong. The issue is that the powers that be in most newsrooms don't have any idea who many of the good people are. And as long as communication remains insulated and circular, they never will.

This is why — unlike Amazon — newspapers' list of principles totals exactly one line: How did we handle this last year?

 

[I Should Coco]

And I'm not saying Amazon's office politics culture of backstabbing, conflict and a total lack of work/life balance is the right way to go. There needs to be something between the all-out go getters of Amazon and the three-martini-lunch management of newspapers.

 

[93Devil]

And, uh, how much of an "amazing ****ing profit" do you think they are making?

Amazon: Nearly 20 Years In Business And It Still Doesn't Make Money, But Investors Don't Seem To Care

That's from three years ago.

This is more recent.

Amazon Posts Surprising Profit

 

[93Devil]

Yeah. And as other companies follow suit, I'm sure it will be more common. (Anecdotally, I've heard Tesla is a particularly horrible sandpit for humanity, even within the tech world.)

The big problem is all of this runs up against what the tech industry says are its big new initiatives of diversity and work-life balance. It's obvious the only thing they want and will want are males, Asian and white, between 22 and 27 years old. If you're going to grow out of that age range that's OK, as long as you don't actually do any of the things that people in their 30s like to do.

Around here, it's Geico who has that rep of grinding employees.

 

[Alma]

Well, it ran in the same paper just days before the Amazon article.

Big companies have to be nimble, or else even the biggest can be surpassed by another company with better technology.

Who ever thought Myspace would be displaced?

Amazon can't afford to miss out on the next big thing, or to go down the wrong path.

So they've designed a system that keeps them nimble -- or as nimble as a company their size can be. At Amazon, they're determined to not let innovation, like what was possible at Kodak, go without being developed.

Those are nice motivational bromides, and yet you've proven nothing.

Where is the evidence that Kodak's failure was related to the company treating its employees well?

 

[The Big Ragu]

That's from three years ago.

This is more recent.

Amazon Posts Surprising Profit

Amazon doesn't make huge profits. Last quarter was a surprise, because everyone was expecting yet another quarter in which they announced a net loss on an EPS basis. Even with the surprise -- which was a one-off instance -- 19 cents per share earnings in a random quarter for a company with a market cap that large does not amount to a very profitable company. It's less than $100 million in earnings for the quarter. It wouldn't even point toward good profitability if they could string together multiple quarters like that. The fact is, though, it is expected to return to a losing quarter when it announces 3rd quarter results next month. Projections have it at -15 cents per share next quarter before potentially turning profitable at the end of this year or in 2016.

The fact that Amazon works with such low margins for its core retail business, and it has borrowed heavily (it is a fairly indebted company) into capital, plant, equipment and research, is why I actually guess Amazon has the type of culture that article described. The company has always had a reputation for being frugal in its operations. They try to squeeze the most out of everything and they really are innovative in their operations. I'd guess it takes a certain kind of person to be happy and succeed in that kind of environment. The thing is, it is such a large company, that it really shouldn't be surprising that as it has grown in scale (if not profits), and more and more people have rotated through employment there, it has had quite a few who just didn't fit in. And if someone is dedicated to finding those people, they can obviously make a story out of it.

I won't make sweeping pronouncements about the culture, because honestly I don't know how great or ****ty a place it is to work for the average employee -- just anecdotally I know people who work relatively high up the food chain there who are happy with their jobs. They work really hard. They chose to be there, though. They fit in well -- in a place with a culture of frugaility.

It needs to operate that way, because retail is a ****ty business. It is also why Amazon's strategy for years now, has also been to take try to expand from retail into other businesses, which is also why it has invested so much in so many different things -- and why it loses money and has taken on quite a bit of debt. But it really hasn't figured it out yet. The surprise quarter you pointed to was actually on the back of it's cloud business--Amazon Web Services--which grew unexpectedly for the quarter. It was why the stock popped in what I thought was an overreaction. The narrative was that some of those years of investment -- making Amazon borrow so heavily and earn nothing -- was finally paying off. But it's a long way off from anyone saying Amazon is a very profitable company. In fact, it's a company with upwards of $8 billion of debt on its books. Maybe that money will produce things that will pay off handsomely in the long run. But it's not there yet.

 

[Alma]

Amazon doesn't make huge profits. Last quarter was a surprise, because everyone was expecting yet another quarter in which they announced a net loss on an EPS basis. Even with the surprise -- which was a one-off instance -- 19 cents per share earnings in a random quarter for a company with a market cap that large does not amount to a very profitable company. It's less than $100 million in earnings for the quarter. It wouldn't even point toward good profitability if they could string together multiple quarters like that. The fact is, though, it is expected to return to a losing quarter when it announces 3rd quarter results next month. Projections have it at -15 cents per share next quarter before potentially turning profitable at the end of this year or in 2016.

The fact that Amazon works with such low margins for its core retail business, and it has borrowed heavily (it is a fairly indebted company) into capital, plant, equipment and research, is why I actually guess Amazon has the type of culture that article described. The company has always had a reputation for being frugal in its operations. They try to squeeze the most out of everything and they really are innovative in their operations. I'd guess it takes a certain kind of person to be happy and succeed in that kind of environment. The thing is, it is such a large company, that it really shouldn't be surprising that as it has grown in scale (if not profits), and more and more people have rotated through employment there, it has had quite a few who just didn't fit in. And if someone is dedicated to finding those people, they can obviously make a story out of it.

I won't make sweeping pronouncements about the culture, because honestly I don't know how great or ****ty a place it is to work for the average employee -- just anecdotally I know people who work relatively high up the food chain there who are happy with their jobs. They work really hard. They chose to be there, though. They fit in well -- in a place with a culture of frugaility.

It needs to operate that way, because retail is a ****ty business. It is also why Amazon's strategy for years now, has also been to take try to expand from retail into other businesses, which is also why it has invested so much in so many different things -- and why it loses money and has taken on quite a bit of debt. But it really hasn't figured it out yet. The surprise quarter you pointed to was actually on the back of it's cloud business--Amazon Web Services--which grew unexpectedly for the quarter. It was why the stock popped in what I thought was an overreaction. The narrative was that some of those years of investment -- making Amazon borrow so heavily and earn nothing -- was finally paying off. But it's a long way off from anyone saying Amazon is a very profitable company. In fact, it's a company with upwards of $8 billion of debt on its books. Maybe that money will produce things that will pay off handsomely in the long run. But it's not there yet.

The dispassionate nature of this post fascinates me. Yeah, it's ****ty, but so what?

Would you treat employees like this?

 

[User 11148]

Would you treat employees like this?

You ever signed anyone's paycheck, Alma? Ever put your own money at risk? Or had to skip your getting paid so you can make payroll?

Or have you always just sat on the sidelines saying "Tsk, tsk?"

 

[User 11148]

Where is the evidence that Kodak's failure was related to the company treating its employees well?

Did someone 'round here make that argument? I'll give you a hint: No.