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Comment by systemvoltage | Hacker News Reader

Amazon has made my life better since I started using them in 2005. That's delivering value for over 17 years. Saved countless trips to stores.

You don't become a billionaire without providing value to millions of people and improving their lives. I admire Bezos and his achievements, candor, leadership, and judgement. His yearly memos are profoundly thoughtful and he has changed the world forever, for the better. Obviously he is not perfect. Amazon employees have become millionaires and they are paid fair wages.

I really don't understand billionaire hate.

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Plantation owners in the South also improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people by providing cheap cotton that made the switch to modern clothing possible. They forever changed the world as well, and made gigantic fortunes because of it.

Of course, just like Bezos, it wasn't the plantation owners providing the cheap cotton, it was the work of their slaves doing so - they only provided some direction and made some managerial decisions.

Of course, Bezos doesn't treat his workers as badly as the plantation owners treated their slaves - I'm not trying to say that Amazon workers are treated as badly as the disgusting inhumanity of the slave trade.

The general idea is that the entirety of Amazon's success is to be attributed to its workers, not to its owners. Bezos of course has an important contribution, probably higher than any other individual worker - but in his capacity as worker, not owner. As he is no longer a CEO, his contribution to Amazon's new successes is 0 or close to it, even if he remains a major shareholder.

Of Amazon's millions of employees though, only a small handful became rich, and only one became a billionaire. This is the issue here: Bezos is an important part of Amazon, but his profits from its growth are completely, mind-boggling disproportionate compared to all other workers for Amazon. The designers of AWS, the people who negotiated the network of distribution contracts, the marketing and sales people etc - all of them are only getting scraps of the value they have created. The warehouse workers of course are not even getting scraps.

Bezos's share is not deserved due to the profits of the company. It's deserved because of how much better his company is, compared to others doing the same thing. There are millions of ecommerce sites. Tens of thousands of hosting companies. And he wasn't the first in either domain, but now he's the best or close to it. That's his contribution as an owner, as opposed to a worker.

And the comparison with plantation slaves is hilarious. There are even now jobs and activities that are literally harsher than slave work. People do a lot of them for fun and hobby. The difference is choice.

And a small thing, which is just a bit grating to me: plantations weren't that efficient, actually. It was a social self-perpetuating system that kept them going. Using employees and later machines was more effective for pretty much the whole human history.

> It's deserved because of how much better his company is, compared to others doing the same thing.

That's not only his merit, it is the merit of all of the workers of Amazon (plus a massive dose of luck).

> That's his contribution as an owner, as opposed to a worker.

No, it's not. His only contribution as an owner is putting down the original capital to buy the PCs and offices and books. All his other contributions in leading the company and deciding what paths it takes are as the CEO, a worker.

> The difference is choice.

Yes, and people often don't have a real choice: in certain areas, they either work for Amazon or go without food while trying to learn a new skill/move to a new city.

> plantations weren't that efficient, actually. It was a social self-perpetuating system that kept them going. Using employees and later machines was more effective for pretty much the whole human history.

They weren't efficient in terms of cotton yields, but they were efficient in terms of return on investment (until machines became widely available) - it's cheaper to buy slaves and have them work the land for some food and some shelter than it is to hire a worker a living wage for the same job, even if the worker has better productivity.

Sooo... why exactly is Amazon the best? Luck? You may want to short their stock then, because a 20 year lucky streak is incredibly unlikely, and odds are overwhelmingly for it ending tomorrow.

All companies have employees, and the law of large numbers tells us that it's unlikely they're a whole lot better at Amazon (at least not by chance). Larger the samples, large the similarity between samples.

Investors literally make a job from finding the best companies and giving them money, so they're not exactly a cause. They're hound dogs, looking for the best bet.

What's left? 1-2 early CEOs that set the course? Well, that was Bezos as well. And the owner is the one picking the CEO and approving what he does. An anyways, in large corporations the leadership is a bit more complex, with various mixtures of shareholders, board, chairman, CEO and so on. It's enough to say Bezos was "it".

Companies snowball - if you can get past a certain size, you can coast from there, buying out competitors and using other anti-competitive practices to keep on top.

Also, the law of large numbers definitely doesn't say that. It only says that the average over the value of a large number of samples from a random variable will grow closer to the expected value of the random variable as the number of samples grows to infinity.

This tells you that, over time, it's unlikely that Amazon will have only good employees (if the random variable is "employee quality", and the samples are employees that Amazon hires). However, employee impact is not uniformly distributed - having an amazing CEO, or amazing software architect, or amazing head of sales will have a bigger impact on the value of the company than a warehouse worker or a junior sofware engineer - especially early on. And there are nowhere near enough people in high-impact roles to warrant talking about the law of large numbers - we are maybe at best talking about a few hundred people.

I could go into how hiring is not at all like sampling from a random variable, as a good senior engineer or manager will likely be able to hire better-than-average subordinates, and this effect again snow-balls, so you only need to get lucky once to guarantee you get lucky more times afterwards.

Overall, my take is that Amazon was lucky early on to have a combination of high-performing individuals in many high-impact roles, who set the company up for success. Jeff Bezos is definitely one of these individuals, but nowhere close to the only one. However, he has made much more of the money from Amazon's success than all the other high-impact contributors combined.

Finally, even if your work is easily exchangeable with someone else's (i.e. even if you are an average worker) you still deserve your share of the value you produce for the company - not the minimum share that anyone else would agree to work for, as wages are usually done.

> You may want to short their stock then, because a 20 year lucky streak is incredibly unlikely, and odds are overwhelmingly for it ending tomorrow.

That's not a valid argument, and you are smart enough to know that. Something of the size of Amazon, with almost monopoly in many areas, won't suddenly fail tomorrow just because it was lucky to get where it is today.

You CAN become a billionaire with providing value to millions while contributing / actively worsening conditions for another section of the society.

You can understand the hate, it’s your choice not to because the outcome is a net positive to you.

What has Amazon done to the society that's worsening?

If you ask a Bay Area software engineer, they'd give some feel good answer about how they love overpriced mom & pop shops and Amazon is to blame for their demise.

But, to overwhelmingly large portion of customers of Amazon, the middle class, it has provided an unthinkable amount of value. If it didn't, they'd stop using it. It is doing even more in developing countries.

And we're just talking about Amazon store.

They are providing horrible working conditions for a good chunk of their workers - tight schedules that force some to wear diapers, lack of air conditioning, discouraging human interaction etc. As they expand their warehouses and needs, this keeps deteriorating, and affecting more and more workers, who often don't have an alternative.

You consistently want to look at the impact Amazon had on consumers, which may well be positive, while ignoring that they can only achieve this by exploiting their workers.

TBH, I don't really know with certainty how conditions are in an Amazon warehouse. I do have Outside View, which tells me that they have no problem finding employment, and I haven't heard of major reasons why Amazon in particular would trap employees (like company towns of old, with company stores and other predatory practices).

So I think it's pretty fair to say that the burden of proof is on you that Amazon is worse than industry average, since people are voting with their feet to work for them.

I will tell you one thing in advance: if you touch systemic issues (such as unemployment in general), then you're advocating for a freer market with less unions, because that's how you create jobs.

If you want to go by worker preference, then you should also do that with unions: the workers are trying to form unions, and have some mild success despite massive illegal opposition and repression from the company - so, they must be unhappy with the working conditions.

"happy" and "unhappy" are not quantifiable. It is emotional slopiness that is used to get anything anyone wants. Unionization is to get unfair employee advantage in a free society where they can instantly quit and go bus tables at a restaurant. Some unions are better than others, but they are all collectivist bargaining chips that is interfering with a free labor market.

Let me be clear, I'd want good labor conditions and healthy work environments and condemn Amazon for failing in certain regards, but even that is blown out of proportion to support Unionization.

We should pass laws that provide safe working conditions. OHSA is the body that governs that.

That's how I see it as well, it's low income/poor people who actually benefit the most from amazon, because they both get higher paid jobs and lower prices.

I would be very very surprised if there is a majority of the people working for amazon that wants to form unions, I'm sure it's just a small minority.

The actual working class people probably really don't want middle class people to "fight" for them in this way, and be used as puppets in their virtue signalling competition.

Actually, I think that's a pretty conversation starter. Can you please tell me who is suffering from Amazon existing? Who has a net negative outcome from that?

Perhaps all the employees that died last year when they weren't allowed to go home during huge storms? Or was the suffering of those families worth it, as long as Amazon keeps profits up?

I am glad you find it as an opening conversation.

> Can you please tell me who is suffering from Amazon existing? Who has a net negative outcome from that?

What have you done to find out how Amazon affects different groups?

Did Bezos personally package your goods? Did he personally deliver at your door?

No? Then why is he the one getting all the benefits of "creating value"? Why shouldn't the people doing those jobs get a fair share?

That's why the "billionaire hate", and support for the unionization efforts.

I thought it was obvious. Every employee at Amazon is working at will. We're not living in the era of slavery. They are getting paid a fair wage to the point where they accept the job voluntarily as responsible adults. Their salary / equity is proportional to the value they create for Amazon. An Amazon warehouse employee creates very little value. They absolutely do not deserve millions in compensation for picking items from shelves.

Amazon is putting food on the table and enabling a million employees to raise families. Pay rents. Pay bills.

The entire equation whether you look from the employee side or customer side, has made the world better, the scale of which is difficult to imagine.

Bezos's wealth was not stolen from anyone or sitting in cash in his house. The entire pie got larger. His wealth is in the company that provided value to millions and they paid for the service voluntarily. It is important to note that there was no coercion involved.

Companies like Amazon make the world a better place. Otherwise we'd still be living in 1/1000th of the GDP of pre-industrial era with 90% people living in poverty. Every person that works, whether owns or a business or has a job, creates value, thereby increasing the size of the pie and lifting people out of poverty.

> The entire equation whether you look from the employee side or customer side, has made the world better, the scale of which is difficult to imagine.

If I bring you the ingredients for a pie (say, worth 10 dollars), then pay you 10 dollars to bake it, then turn around and sell that pie for $1000, would you be happy with this arrangement? Would you say that you got a fair deal? After all, the pie is now larger, and I put food on the table for you, and I contributed to the $1000 directly, as you wouldn't have had the connections necessary to sell it for that amount yourself.

Absolutely. If you can sell a $1000 item that costs $10 to make, you should deserve the profit. You paid a worker a fair wage (without coercion, otherwise that'd be slavery) and you solved an important problem for the customer. The problem for the customer was so severe that they couldn't find a solution and would pay you $1000. It was worth more to the customer than $1000 or they'd not pay for it. Through fair trade, you made value on customer side and on employee side. Doing anything else, like giving undeserved additional bonus to the employee is unjust and unfair. Or giving a discount to the customer would be unjust to yourself.

If the employee had anything to do with sales and marketing a $1000 thing, they should deserve a proportional cut. If they were simply emptying garbage cans in your office, then they should too get a fair and just wage that is proportional to the value they provide.

You could counter with unfair trade and I'd agree with you. Crony capitalism is not what I am referring to. Nor am I referring to anywhere coercion or force is used.

It's hard to not imply some variant of coercion or force is at play, when it's either work for these big shady companies or starve to death, though.

Goal post moved again. The problem statement from OP didn't have any such clause.

> If you can sell a $1000 item that costs $10 to make, you should deserve the profit.

Why are you viewing it like that, and not "if you can make a $1000 pie for $20 worth of materials, you deserve the profit"? What if the worker could have sold the pie directly for $900, but wasn't given the opportunity because they couldn't access the $10 of materials for whatever reason?

By what possible reason are you putting the entire profit on the person contracting the work?

> What if the worker could have sold the pie directly for $900

I'd be the first one to suppor that! Absolutely. Go for it. Workers should bypass middlemen if they don't add any value. They have the moral right to act in their self interest. Not only is this important, but it is necessary. Tesla going direct sales by bypassing Dealerships? Best thing ever. Everyone benefits. We see that all the time and it is a feature of a healthy capitalist society.

However, if the middlemen actually add value and there is a moat through IP, capital, assets or salesmanship, etc; they absolutely deserve the wealth they generate. Interfering in anyway here is asking for a bleak society where productivity plummets, enterprise is lost and there is no innovation. We're seeing this in certain industries with heavy regulation.

Undeserved middlemen that clog up the economy should be overthrown and eliminated through means of enterprise. Not through regulation.

Sometimes I wonder if we're on a startup forum. I hope we have some overlap in agreement. I would encourage you to study examples of how economic freedom benefits all and how it has led to unparalleled progress and lifting people out of poverty. And also how collectivist, use of force and coercion, regulations, marxist ideas, lead to increase in poverty. (Cambodia, NK vs. SK, Hong Kong and Taiwan, 19th century and mid 20th century USA, West vs East Germany, the fall of USSR, stagnancy of Cuban economy, etc).

> I thought it was obvious. Every employee at Amazon is working at will. We're not living in the era of slavery. They are getting paid a fair wage to the point where they accept the job voluntarily as responsible adults.

This is where you're wrong. Most people accept these jobs out of need, and possibly desperation. They don't have much say in the matter. If it weren't for some unions and laws, they would probably exploit the employees even more if they could.

You are taking a huge problem with how society currently works, and reducing it down to individual responsibility. That's not a very nice way to look at your peers.

It's also weird to be so pro-free-market, but than balk at the thought of employees using their choice to then create unions.

> I really don't understand billionaire hate.

Same here, I really could not care less if some guy has 10 sports cars in a basement somewhere, so what? It seems so incredibly childish and petty to walk around and be angry about that.

And when having a few billionaires comes with the benefit of more jobs, higher salaries and better economy for me and everyone else, then it seems great to me.

How can people prefer an equal society where everyone's poor just to be relieved from their childish jealousy? It's not going ever be fixed anyway, because nature and life is always unfair.

No one is having "childish jealousy", they just want fair treatment and a chance at a good life. No one "prefers a society where everyone's poor", that's just childish and off-putting straw men by you.

Please explain how having a few billionaires "comes with the benefit of more jobs" and stuff for everyone else. How is it better to share the crumbles, instead of the whole bread? Perplexing.

> they just want fair treatment

There is no such thing as fair, it's impossible to even define what that would be, and that's the whole point of the free market, that it solves this problem. The more you use these outdated political catch phrases, the more impractical and meaningless things become. Life is unfair, nature is unfair.

> No one "prefers a society where everyone's poor", that's just childish and off-putting straw men by you.

This is demonstrably what happens as we have seen during 100 years of large scale experiments involving millions of people. If you keep pushing socialist politics from the 1970s I'm just going to suspect that the same bad things will happen, as happened then. When there is such a massive body of evidence, why should anyone suddenly start thinking "oh yeah, I bet it works this time, let's try that again"?

> Please explain how having a few billionaires "comes with the benefit of more jobs" and stuff for everyone else.

Because it's the only way to make people pull in the same direction, to create value in a positive bottom line.

> How is it better to share the crumbles, instead of the whole bread? Perplexing.

Because there will be no bread to begin with, if you share the whole bread, because nobody wants to bake a bread when they are forced to give away the whole thing.

If you look at the state of the lower middle class and below today, and think capitalism has done wonders, you're delusional.

Countries with fewer billionaires and more socialistic policies are much, much better to live in today I'd say. Just compare US with EU for instance. So not sure how you can assert that the opposite "demonstrately happens".

Don't you think people would "pull harder" if they themselves actually saw the fruit of their labor? We're talking about people's livelihoods here, and you still talk about "bottom lines".. I'm not sure if you're trolling or actually hold these views?

Redistribution politics are always destructive and temporary in nature. The EU has not discovered some way to invent free stuff out of thin air. If you push redistribution politics you will cause stagnation and lower productivity.

You can think that's "chill" but sooner or later the outside world will run away from you and you will be outcompeted.

Just look at what happened now to the german car industry, they are so proud of their strong unions, but they get outcompeted by tesla instead who is now building car factories in germany. It almost got killed by the unions in the same way detroit was in the US when the japanese caught up.

Nice sweet union deals with lifetime guarantees of great benefits, mean nothing when the whole company disappears, and the country goes into a recession. It's just putting your head in the sand for a while and pretending that you have found the perfect position where opportunity will last forever.

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