5 ms·

I flew up in First Class on Virgin to Seattle next to a key lead on the fire phone. We had a nice long talk about the project and what happened. He vehemently

I flew up in First Class on Virgin to Seattle next to a key lead on the fire phone. We had a nice long talk about the project and what happened. He vehemently defended the Fire Phone and touted its great and unique aspects while I examined it and admired the hard work he put in. 3D modeling, gyroscopic-driven interactions, an universal activity feed -- some interesting stuff was there... But there were some serious problems with it like forced promotions where users would would prefer instead functionality, useless gimmicks, and other silliness. Without fail everytime I pointed one out, the Lead looked down a bit bashfully and admitted Bezos had insisted on this nonsense. Bezos is an blind, egotistical CEO, forcing hardworking engineers to take the fall for his naive and frankly stupid decisions. His instincts in hardware and product without fail have been downright pathetic -- and now he will to blame those who work tirelessly under him for his own failure.

ryanhuff 11y ago
That's life. Companies make bets, hire people to execute, and when things don't work out, plans change and staffing sometimes need to adjust. No reason to bash Bezos for taking gambles. They certainly didn't risk the company.
- IBM 11y ago
  The entire bull case for AMZN is always "Amazon reinvests all their cash flow into the business" and "Bezos is focused on the long term". Why are they calling it quits already? The same is true for Google. So much lip service about moonshots and long term thinking and the new CFO comes in and talks about cost discipline and potentially capital return. Turns out dual class shares don't make you anymore 'long-term focused' than the next company.
  - mehwoot 11y ago
    The entire bull case for AMZN is always "Amazon reinvests all their cash flow into the business" and "Bezos is focused on the long term". Why are they calling it quits already? Because they are investing their cash in the business, not just spending it. Investing means knowing when an investment is doing poorly and not throwing good money after bad.
    - IBM 11y ago
      Are you telling me that Amazon has written off the smartphone business, one of the most quickly adopted pieces of technology since the original PC and which has made Apple one of the most profitable businesses in the world, as an idea not worth pursuing anymore?
      - manigandham 11y ago
        That's certainly possible. Is that so hard to believe? The Kindle worked out, the Fire phone didnt. Maybe its just the phone models since they're still working on other devices. They also just became more valuable than Walmart. It seems like they know what they're doing, including cutting losses.
        IBM 11y ago
        The Kindle worked out only after iteration. It was the same for Apple with the iPod and iPhone as well. Amazon has quit in the first inning because their phone wasn't an overnight success. If they were truly focused on the long-term they wouldn't be afraid to continue to invest in it.
        Crito 11y ago
        Kindle worked out right out of the gate. They dramatically underestimated the demand for the first Kindle. Certainly that first iteration looks like shit compared to modern iterations, but why would you expect otherwise? Arguably Bezos' unlikely success with Kindle made people give him the benefit of the doubt when they should not have. That was my take away anyway, from when I was working on Fire Phone (I left my team because of that project, and my experiences with it greatly contributed to my decision to leave the company).
      - Eric_WVGG 11y ago
        Why not? Microsoft is about to. The game is over. Apple won the money and Android/Google/Samsung/Xiaomi won the market-share.
      - 11y ago
sokoloff 11y ago
Even if everything you say up to the last clause is perfectly true, it doesn't follow that he blames them for the failure. He simply and objectively doesn't need them if the product they were skilled to do is a flop and has no future.
- droopyEyelids 11y ago
  It's an interesting example of how objectification and anthropormorphism can be the inverse of each other. We treat the business like a human, assuming it 'blames' people. The business treats humans like objects, throwing them in the garbage when they are no longer of use.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    The "he" in my text was intended to reference a human, Jeff Bezos, as the parent of my post did.
  - kbutler 11y ago
    Laying someone off is not throwing them in the garbage. It's saying, "We don't have work for you here now." It's painful, and it can be damaging to self-esteem, but at worst, it's throwing them in the recycling...
volaski 11y ago
Go read the book "Everything store" and come back. You're not the first one who's been saying stuff like this about him. While reading the book I was amazed how the entire history of the company is full of doubters saying he's doing it wrong and the company will fail. Yet time after time the doubters were proved wrong, and after two decades its growth is only accelerating. Sure he's not perfect and how the company treats employees is far from ideal, but he definitely is not a blind pathetic CEO.
- megablast 11y ago
  You could almost be talking about Steve Jobs there.
  - nine_k 11y ago
    It just so happened that Jobs's companies were mostly highly (sometimes obscenely) profitable, while Amazon stays very near profitless for last ~20 years, having to re-invest all its proceedings.
    - eachro 11y ago
      "having to"? Bezos chooses to.
    - manigandham 11y ago
      "Profit" is a very vague term in corporate finance. Just because they don't put the cash in the bank doesn't mean they're not a profitable company.
    - grogenaut 11y ago
      Yeah next went gangbusters
- haswell 11y ago
  In the end, this comes down to a question of ends justifying the means. I don't think anyone can argue with the fact that the company has done very well in many ways. So has Apple. We've learned that both Jobs and Bezos weren't/aren't very good people to work for. Maybe it's naive of me to think this way, but I'd like to think that companies can be wildly successful without being life sucking and horrible in the process.
bpodgursky 11y ago
His instincts on the Kindle paid off spectacularly, which is why his instincts on the phone were trusted.
batiudrami 11y ago
Perhaps it would be wise to remove his specific job working on the Fire phone? Wouldn't want him to get in trouble at work for comments like that, even if it was ill advised to say them to a stranger on a flight.
- hueving 11y ago
  He didn't put a specific job. Key lead could be anything in engineering or product management.
  - batiudrami 11y ago
    Ah, it's since been edited. It was more specific before.
- freyr 11y ago
  > Wouldn't want him to get in trouble at work for comments like that In the off chance that he wasn't one of the engineers who took the fall.
gjolund 11y ago
I've heard this from several engineers at amazon, it's one of the reasons I don't bother calling their recruiters back.
eli 11y ago
I think it really did have some really smart features -- the instant free on-phone tech support is brilliant -- but it was poorly marketed. I think it could have worked if they pitched it to first-time smartphone owners rather than tacking on a bunch of random things to attract the early adopter crowd.
CamperBob2 11y ago
Counterpoint: if you don't fail once in a while, it's probably not because you're awesome and infallible, but because you're not trying to do anything challenging and/or interesting. That applies to everybody on the totem pole, from interns to CEOs.

ryanhuff 11y ago

That's life. Companies make bets, hire people to execute, and when things don't work out, plans change and staffing sometimes need to adjust. No reason to bash Bezos for taking gambles. They certainly didn't risk the company.

IBM 11y ago
The entire bull case for AMZN is always "Amazon reinvests all their cash flow into the business" and "Bezos is focused on the long term". Why are they calling it quits already? The same is true for Google. So much lip service about moonshots and long term thinking and the new CFO comes in and talks about cost discipline and potentially capital return. Turns out dual class shares don't make you anymore 'long-term focused' than the next company.
- mehwoot 11y ago
  The entire bull case for AMZN is always "Amazon reinvests all their cash flow into the business" and "Bezos is focused on the long term". Why are they calling it quits already? Because they are investing their cash in the business, not just spending it. Investing means knowing when an investment is doing poorly and not throwing good money after bad.
  - IBM 11y ago
    Are you telling me that Amazon has written off the smartphone business, one of the most quickly adopted pieces of technology since the original PC and which has made Apple one of the most profitable businesses in the world, as an idea not worth pursuing anymore?
    - manigandham 11y ago
      That's certainly possible. Is that so hard to believe? The Kindle worked out, the Fire phone didnt. Maybe its just the phone models since they're still working on other devices. They also just became more valuable than Walmart. It seems like they know what they're doing, including cutting losses.
      - IBM 11y ago
        The Kindle worked out only after iteration. It was the same for Apple with the iPod and iPhone as well. Amazon has quit in the first inning because their phone wasn't an overnight success. If they were truly focused on the long-term they wouldn't be afraid to continue to invest in it.
        Crito 11y ago
        Kindle worked out right out of the gate. They dramatically underestimated the demand for the first Kindle. Certainly that first iteration looks like shit compared to modern iterations, but why would you expect otherwise? Arguably Bezos' unlikely success with Kindle made people give him the benefit of the doubt when they should not have. That was my take away anyway, from when I was working on Fire Phone (I left my team because of that project, and my experiences with it greatly contributed to my decision to leave the company).
    - Eric_WVGG 11y ago
      Why not? Microsoft is about to. The game is over. Apple won the money and Android/Google/Samsung/Xiaomi won the market-share.
    - 11y ago

sokoloff 11y ago

Even if everything you say up to the last clause is perfectly true, it doesn't follow that he blames them for the failure. He simply and objectively doesn't need them if the product they were skilled to do is a flop and has no future.

droopyEyelids 11y ago
It's an interesting example of how objectification and anthropormorphism can be the inverse of each other. We treat the business like a human, assuming it 'blames' people. The business treats humans like objects, throwing them in the garbage when they are no longer of use.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  The "he" in my text was intended to reference a human, Jeff Bezos, as the parent of my post did.
- kbutler 11y ago
  Laying someone off is not throwing them in the garbage. It's saying, "We don't have work for you here now." It's painful, and it can be damaging to self-esteem, but at worst, it's throwing them in the recycling...

volaski 11y ago

Go read the book "Everything store" and come back. You're not the first one who's been saying stuff like this about him. While reading the book I was amazed how the entire history of the company is full of doubters saying he's doing it wrong and the company will fail. Yet time after time the doubters were proved wrong, and after two decades its growth is only accelerating. Sure he's not perfect and how the company treats employees is far from ideal, but he definitely is not a blind pathetic CEO.

megablast 11y ago
You could almost be talking about Steve Jobs there.
- nine_k 11y ago
  It just so happened that Jobs's companies were mostly highly (sometimes obscenely) profitable, while Amazon stays very near profitless for last ~20 years, having to re-invest all its proceedings.
  - eachro 11y ago
    "having to"? Bezos chooses to.
  - manigandham 11y ago
    "Profit" is a very vague term in corporate finance. Just because they don't put the cash in the bank doesn't mean they're not a profitable company.
  - grogenaut 11y ago
    Yeah next went gangbusters
haswell 11y ago
In the end, this comes down to a question of ends justifying the means. I don't think anyone can argue with the fact that the company has done very well in many ways. So has Apple. We've learned that both Jobs and Bezos weren't/aren't very good people to work for. Maybe it's naive of me to think this way, but I'd like to think that companies can be wildly successful without being life sucking and horrible in the process.

bpodgursky 11y ago

His instincts on the Kindle paid off spectacularly, which is why his instincts on the phone were trusted.

batiudrami 11y ago

Perhaps it would be wise to remove his specific job working on the Fire phone? Wouldn't want him to get in trouble at work for comments like that, even if it was ill advised to say them to a stranger on a flight.

hueving 11y ago
He didn't put a specific job. Key lead could be anything in engineering or product management.
- batiudrami 11y ago
  Ah, it's since been edited. It was more specific before.
freyr 11y ago
> Wouldn't want him to get in trouble at work for comments like that In the off chance that he wasn't one of the engineers who took the fall.

gjolund 11y ago

I've heard this from several engineers at amazon, it's one of the reasons I don't bother calling their recruiters back.

eli 11y ago

I think it really did have some really smart features -- the instant free on-phone tech support is brilliant -- but it was poorly marketed. I think it could have worked if they pitched it to first-time smartphone owners rather than tacking on a bunch of random things to attract the early adopter crowd.

CamperBob2 11y ago

Counterpoint: if you don't fail once in a while, it's probably not because you're awesome and infallible, but because you're not trying to do anything challenging and/or interesting. That applies to everybody on the totem pole, from interns to CEOs.