Andy Jassy on figuring out what's next for Amazon
time.com
time.com
What a puff piece. I don't know if "TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2022" is some sort of Forbes-stye pay to play or what, but FFS if you have an opportunity to talk to someone like Jassy, get to the heart of issues like antitrust, and dig deeper on claims like "Earth’s most customer-centric company" and "If we look at the feedback we get [from 3rd party sellers], it’s much more positive than it is negative".
ETA: Does anyone really think Amazon is the world's "most customer-centric company" now? It's a notorious online bazaar more known for fake reviews, bad customer service, copycat junk, and bringing down the respected brands it touches. Maybe it's a different vibe among AWS customers ... can anyone address?
Absolutely, their customer support is stellar, across countries.
The problem of fake reviews and junk products is indeed a real problem. But I would argue that this by itself doesn't imply that Amazon doesn't care about it's customers, rather that it is a general problem that's largely unsolved in most (BIG) online marketplaces where manual curation of inventory is not feasible due to scale.
People in the US have no idea how bad customer support can be in third world countries. If I go to a store and buy something (pair of shoes, book, backpack, can of paint) and 5 minutes later I go back and decide that it doesn't fit or even show that it was broken, I can't get a refund. The salesperson, manager, etc will tell me that I can exchange it for another product, but since "we already logged the receipt on our system" (or some other BS explanation), there's no way to refund the money, only exchange for something else. Amazon's customer service is 10 times better than whatever was here before it. Now a few others have caught up and today offer good customer service. But Amazon is still better.
1) Their search is less than useless. Even eBay has a better search.
2) They allow sellers to switch out products and leave the old reviews.
4, Letting packages be stolen and cancelling the accounts of legitimate users.
5, Displaying goods that are completely fake, including books.
Just what I have on the top of my head. I have not used Amazon in the US for 6 years now due to these. I had used it for almost everything before.
2) The inflated review counts increase sales. It's also a form of social proof - "if 5,000 people like it, maybe it isn't a bad product, it's just what I can expect for the price I paid."
What? You're the first person I've heard say this. It's certainly not my experience.
For example, I tried to get a subscription to a soccer magazine for a young relative's birthday. They took the order and then apparently did nothing with it. I contacted them at least a half-dozen times over the following year and received a litany of excuses, promises of callback, and transfers to other people. Eventually, the order was quietly canceled.
The one thing they've been good at for me is basic returns. But if I've ever needed to contact them for anything complex or unusual, they've been painfully clueless.
Moreover, it's not clear that the two revenue sources are in competition. Advertising generally boosts demand. So it's possible that they win twice with ads: once for getting you to click on it and once when you buy the product. And given that the purpose of ads is to distort normal market outcomes, maybe they get even more when you come back and buy the right thing.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/amazons-advertisin...
The issue is that CEOs don't have to talk to journalists. Therefore, for journalists to have access to interview the CEO, the CEO has to cooperate.
How do you get CEOs to say "yes" to your interview requests and not ignore you? By building a reputation of not running negative hit pieces and ambushing interviewees with uncomfortable questions. (Authors Walter Isaacson and Steven Levy would be an example of "friendly" interviewers. Kara Swisher would not.)
So applying that to this thread's article, we see that the author John Simons had interviews with CEOs Tim Cook (Apple), David Solomon (Goldman Sachs), and Michael Dell (Dell): https://time.com/author/john-simons/
Those are all articles that paint the subjects in a good light. In other words, John Simons would have never been granted an interview with Andy Jassy at all if he was going to ask the tough questions you want him to ask. It's a "puff piece" due to the rules of engagement so-to-speak.
My sole question is, how have they built such large audiences. Do people enjoy hearing corporate-loving stories? Or do people rely on well-designed documentaries, articles and websites to assess the accuracy of the contents, betting everything on the production value? Or are those newspapers surfing on ancient glory and wearing off some reputation? But if so, what builds a reputation, and which newspapers are currently building a reputation by having quite-accurate content?
No, I'm not saying that at all. Media can run negative stories. I was explaining why _this_ particular story of this thread doesn't have the hard-hitting questions the gp was asking for. It's because the journalist was granted an interview by the CEO. The reality is that CEOs must volunteer themselves to be interviewed. And human nature dictates that they will not volunteer to be interrogated with uncomfortable questions.
>Do people enjoy hearing corporate-loving stories?
Readers also want to read corporate-hating stories ... but the CEO(s) will then have to be referred to in the 3rd person in that type of story instead of being asked questions in a 1-on-1 interview format. That's just the reality of how different types of stories are created. Understandably, CEOs don't like to cooperate when it's a hostile story.
In rare cases, a notable person will sometimes volunteer themselves to be interviewed with "tough questions" ... such as disgraced bicyclist Lance Armstrong being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey. This is usually perceived as a public relations redemption tour to start rehabilitating their image.
As much as I hate a lot of things about Amazon, their customer support is hard to beat. I go out of my way to avoid amazon: I buy musical gear from sweetwater, books through a local bookstore (you can often have your local bookstore order books for you; pretty win-win), outdoors gear through REI, etc. Sweetwater actually has unbelievable customer support, that's probably the most enjoyable shopping experience I've ever had.
_but_, when it comes to convenience and peace of mind, Amazon is really hard to beat. I can take for granted that if I have any issue whatsoever, I can practically press a button and get a refund, a replacement, a return, maybe 5 or 10 bucks if the issue isn't easy to solve, etc. Not to mention their shipping and credit card.
I wish I didn't feel that way. I openly plead every other retailer to do what they can to help me not give Amazon money. Unfortunately it's tough
As for AWS my experience has been good as well.
First of all, let's talk about the stuff that you didn't mention. Go try to return something with any other online seller, or get consistent shipping for anything in under 2 days, never mind for free. It's impossible.
By all accounts, amazon's shipping and hassle-free returns are completely unmatched by any other retailer.
Now, let's address the stuff that is definitely a problem: Fake reviews and copycat junk. No defense. AMazon has really slipped and needs to do a lot better.
Counterpoint: At least between the fake reviews they also have real reviews. Most retailers have no reviews at all.
Copycat junk is a hard problem, but at least the selection is there, and note the hassle-free returns.
Finally, bad customer service, excuse me? Amazon has the best customer service for any company at their scale. Go try to talk to a person with Google. Impossible.
AWS is unquestionably the most customer-obsessed cloud provider. Microsoft is too dumb. Google is too arrogant.
It can't possibly be that hard to at least copy some of these things is it?
Elon Musk and his disciples always touts the idea that "the organizational deficiencies manifest themselves in the product". There must be some serious bloat or lack of talent at these other companies that has resulted in this situation.
Target and Best Buy are some of my main go-to's for avoiding Amazon, especially for video games or tech (obviously). They really do offer good experiences in general, but you're right, they can't compete on certain aspects and on other aspects, they're still more painful than they have to be
Its like the common wisdom of capitalism has failed. Usually large companies become slow moving laggards but Amazon has shown that a large company can really keep competing and the smaller firms are the laggards.
I haven't use AWS that much, but when I have it has been straightforward, with good documentation, and it seems I have more control over things with AWS than other cloud providers I've tried.
Comedy is the review / product switchouts - how is this not detectable.
To be clear: my primary concern is not that the CEO is paid too much, but that the gap between them is so great. As a company grows more profitable, that profit should be shared amongst the workers, not paid out as insane executive compensation.
In all cases, employees should be treated well. I don't advocate taking advantage of the lower rung. Have some level of purchasing power, etc. But, there is always going to be a bottom wage where people "struggle" and the only fix is to climb to a higher level as an individual. Lifting the entire bottom just moves the needle and doesn't improve purchasing power as it just forces prices up as well.
Out of curiosity, what is an acceptable gap between min/max compensation?
I don't believe that you need to have a working poor in order to have a functioning economy, but I'm curious to hear the argument as to why it's necessary. I think we should run the economy in such a way as to maximise human happiness, and the working poor exist contrary to that goal.
As for shareholders - I don't think they should get either sole control of profit or unlimited upside. I think companies should be controlled by all their stakeholders, including (especially) the workers. After all, it's their work that's generating the profit, so they should be able to decide where it goes.
I don't either. I believe there is distinction from poor and the bottom, which is why I like the word "bottom". There is always a floor somewhere and they will be the ones perpetually "struggling" because struggle as they want for more but at the end of the day, they are fed and housed and so on. I would not advocate for a bad standard of living, but I also generally think the bottom's standard of living is not so bad in the current USA. (I do happen to think very wealth folks should be taxed more highly and offset the tax burden of the lower brackets. Politically, I feel like even if they taxed the ultra rich more, it would not lead to reduced taxes for others, there would just be more revenue for the govt).
> After all, it's their work that's generating the profit, so they should be able to decide where it goes.
No, I just don't agree here. I'm a capitalist even with it's pitfalls. I want investors to have an incentive to invest. After all, it's shareholder's investment that provided worker's a job to begin with and created the company that can provide them a paycheck at all. Everyone is free to start and manage their own company if they which to have control of profits. But employee's get a paycheck (... and other compensation that the company decides to provide).
There will always be a bottom, sure - but currently I believe the bottom is far too low, with even full time workers having to use government support to survive and having to shoulder the stress and risk of living paycheck to paycheck. To say nothing of other "bottom" groups like the homeless and people in food deserts - it's pretty messed up that one of the richest countries on earth should not have solved these problems.
> Politically, I feel like even if they taxed the ultra rich more, it would not lead to reduced taxes for others, there would just be more revenue for the govt
But if that revenue was put into government services, then it would benefit the lower economic rungs.
> No, I just don't agree here. I'm a capitalist even with it's pitfalls. I want investors to have an incentive to invest. After all, it's shareholder's investment that provided worker's a job to begin with and created the company that can provide them a paycheck at all.
Investors can still have incentive to invest while not having total control of the company alongside the founders. If we start a community soup pot and I bring the pot, should I be able to allocate everybody else subsistence quantities of food and keep everything else for myself, just because I brought the pot? That's unethical.
> Everyone is free to start and manage their own company if they which to have control of profits.
That's not true in reality; most factory workers don't have the capacity to start their own factory, for instance. This is pretty much only true for well off people and software engineers whose means of production is readily available. Courting investors is time consuming and many people can't just go for it.
> But employee's get a paycheck (... and other compensation that the company decides to provide).
This leads directly to the insane income inequality we were talking about. Employees do all the work to generate profit, but get paid as little as the shareholders can get them to accept. You can't justify that ethically.
Oh? Why's that? And how long have you spent struggling at the bottom rung?
My quoted "struggle" is because there is a distinction between real poor and bottom, in my mind. Bottom is just that and can be quite functional and the struggle comes from perception and comparing to other things/people. Sacrifice is necessary at this level. You can not get every new Apple product, etc. But that's been normalized and they feel they are struggling when they can't get the shiny things. They typically can afford housing but have to sacrifice on location, commute, schools, etc.
The "$15 federal minimum wage" topic is a good example of the bottom. It's billed as a "living wage" because it's compared to current prices. However, if implemented, just moves the bottom upwards. Their position on the ladder does not change, rents go up and they still have the same affordability issues they do right now.
Instead of having “fireside chats” maybe you could move out of the way and let the engineers get back to work putting out the fires.
New CEOs of well-run companies always get good coverage like this at the beginning. But it does not always correlate with the result if you look back. Internal reputation seems to have slightly better predictive power on the other hand.
The Time article was submitted 2 days ago and 1 day ago to HN. This thread seems to be from 5 hours ago but has the same submitter and points as the one submitted 2 days ago. I’m not sure why there is a discrepancy in the time stamp.