If one looks at the whole economy, some prices might be very flexible and others rigid. This will lead to the aggregate price level (which we can think of as an average of the individual prices) becoming "sluggish" or "sticky" in the sense that it does not respond to macroeconomic shocks as much as it would if all prices were flexible. The same idea can apply to nominal wages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominal_rigidity
If Amazon were to open a subsidiary for lower priced delivery services it might be able to maintain its workforce branding and add lower rungs to the wage ladder for the purpose of labor supply development. It might be politically inconvenient for a wealthy company like Amazon to have an acknowledged wage tiering system even if it makes sense on different levels. For example, Amazon probably cannot publicly hire people without workforce documentation--an unacknowledged arms-length subsidiary would be able to provide this service.
Edit: it's the same idea as when I boxed competitively, and watched a Manny Pacquiao documentary. I wasn't going to wake up at 3 am to drink a 1000 calorie shake or do a 1000 sit ups everyday. I wanted to get into the mindset of optimizing my training within the reasonable constraints of my student life.
For example, I've started using a fountain pen and really like it better than the pens at the office and use it for minor work tasks. Four Hour Work Week isn't different from that but presents an extreme.
The hyperbolic subcontracting seems like a pain in the neck to manage to me, but I appreciate the challenge to think of work in terms of those activities in which I can personally add value and those that I can source value. How much of the time do we miss opportunities to do things better by forgetting to take a moment and think out the build vs buy implications?
Even Tim's own product couldn't be reduced to 4 hours. "If only I didn't sell a nutritional product, I wouldn't be getting contacted so much."
Yes, and if my job was to fill out paperwork and never Engineer, I could do my work in 4 hours a week.
Heck even if I paid some engineer in india, I'd still need to review their work, including learning the technologies and data sheets. I'm not sure how managers deal with this, just hope for the best?
Good managers do what you said earlier - learn the tech, study the sheets, talk to experts and build appropriate understanding and knowledge.
Bad managers deflect, blame, hide, etc