7 ms·

Great another too big to fail!?

by etaty 10y ago

wmeredith 10y ago
Hardly. Walmart employs north of 2m.
- luckystartup 10y ago
  Wow. That's an enormous number of people. There are 54 countries with smaller populations. Still, this is nothing to sneeze at. It looks like Amazon is now the 8th largest employer in the US [1]. Walmart is number 2, after the Federal government. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers_in_t...
  - gowld 10y ago
    Someone edited Amazon's count but didn't change the ranks, and ignored the "2015" marker.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  Wal-Mart just fired a second warning shot across Amazon's bow with its announcement of free 2-day shipping (for orders above $35, on specified items) without any annual fee. Many stores are adding drive-through pick-up lanes, too. I imagine the plan is for customers to order online, then either drive to their local store to pick it up immediately, or just wait a day or two for it to come to them. As Wal-Mart focuses on low prices for those things that people predictably buy in high volume, Amazon would likely be left with the long tail of niche goods that are not worthwhile for a general retailer because the volume is not high enough. Wal-Mart's competitive advantage is largely in its supply chain management system and market penetration. Unless Amazon can quickly get robotic picker/packers online, and fire all those warehouse workers, Wal-Mart could eat the sandwich, chips, and juice box out of Amazon's lunch, leaving them with just the pickle and some strange marzipan-cayenne candy.
  - zzzzzzzza 10y ago
    walmart is doomed by their management. the cultural difference between bezos and bentonville arkansas... how many of the people on wal mart's leadership team have a good understanding of what sql is? possibly 1. Amazon? possibly 50% or more. it makes a real difference in the long run. not sql in particular but knowing exactly what's running your business...
    - thomasthomas 10y ago
      more of an innovators dilemma problem imo. even if execs knew everything there is to know about CS its near impossible to change the ethos of a ~500billion revenue company
      - zzzzzzzza 10y ago
        exactly
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      Realistically, in the C-level suite, only the CTO of a company actually needs to know what SQL is. Wal-Mart employs a huge number of software professionals. Wal-Mart already has a system in place to ship tens of thousands of different SKUs to within 10 miles of a huge number of consumers, at a low retail price. Amazon's system can handle millions of SKUs, but only to (maybe) somewhere within the same country as a consumer, relying on shipping businesses to move the product the remaining 0-2000 miles to the consumer. And in many cases, the cost of shipping (and warehousing) is already baked into the sale price, so that "free shipping" is actually "don't pay more for shipping than you're already implicitly paying." When Wal-Mart says "free shipping", they are likely eating the cost for that last 10-50 miles, just to undermine Amazon, and may later invest in a delivery truck or two at select store locations to eventually cut out UPS, FedEx, and USPS. Or they might just be saving money already, because you no longer need to be served by cashiers and store security as you shop in-store.
    - jldugger 10y ago
      I don't know the executive team or anything, but it would seem their ecommerce President seems to meet your criteria. But Walmart was actually renowned for their early adoption of technology and prediction. Long before HN or the deep learning trend pieces walmart was pitching their analytics team's findings: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/business/yourmoney/what-walmart-knows-about-customers-habits.html http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/business/yourmoney/what-wa...
- rajacombinator 10y ago
  And neither company has anywhere close to the gross notional exposure of the TBTF megabanks. Even if WM and AMZN vaporized overnight it would be absolutely nothing compared to he carnage that say, an overnight JPM bankruptcy, would cause. The nature of WM and AMZN businesses also doesn't expose them to rapid destruction risks.

Great another too big to fail!?

by etaty 10y ago

Great another too big to fail!?

wmeredith 10y ago

Hardly. Walmart employs north of 2m.

luckystartup 10y ago
Wow. That's an enormous number of people. There are 54 countries with smaller populations. Still, this is nothing to sneeze at. It looks like Amazon is now the 8th largest employer in the US [1]. Walmart is number 2, after the Federal government. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers_in_t...
- gowld 10y ago
  Someone edited Amazon's count but didn't change the ranks, and ignored the "2015" marker.
logfromblammo 10y ago
Wal-Mart just fired a second warning shot across Amazon's bow with its announcement of free 2-day shipping (for orders above $35, on specified items) without any annual fee. Many stores are adding drive-through pick-up lanes, too. I imagine the plan is for customers to order online, then either drive to their local store to pick it up immediately, or just wait a day or two for it to come to them. As Wal-Mart focuses on low prices for those things that people predictably buy in high volume, Amazon would likely be left with the long tail of niche goods that are not worthwhile for a general retailer because the volume is not high enough. Wal-Mart's competitive advantage is largely in its supply chain management system and market penetration. Unless Amazon can quickly get robotic picker/packers online, and fire all those warehouse workers, Wal-Mart could eat the sandwich, chips, and juice box out of Amazon's lunch, leaving them with just the pickle and some strange marzipan-cayenne candy.
- zzzzzzzza 10y ago
  walmart is doomed by their management. the cultural difference between bezos and bentonville arkansas... how many of the people on wal mart's leadership team have a good understanding of what sql is? possibly 1. Amazon? possibly 50% or more. it makes a real difference in the long run. not sql in particular but knowing exactly what's running your business...
  - thomasthomas 10y ago
    more of an innovators dilemma problem imo. even if execs knew everything there is to know about CS its near impossible to change the ethos of a ~500billion revenue company
    - zzzzzzzza 10y ago
      exactly
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    Realistically, in the C-level suite, only the CTO of a company actually needs to know what SQL is. Wal-Mart employs a huge number of software professionals. Wal-Mart already has a system in place to ship tens of thousands of different SKUs to within 10 miles of a huge number of consumers, at a low retail price. Amazon's system can handle millions of SKUs, but only to (maybe) somewhere within the same country as a consumer, relying on shipping businesses to move the product the remaining 0-2000 miles to the consumer. And in many cases, the cost of shipping (and warehousing) is already baked into the sale price, so that "free shipping" is actually "don't pay more for shipping than you're already implicitly paying." When Wal-Mart says "free shipping", they are likely eating the cost for that last 10-50 miles, just to undermine Amazon, and may later invest in a delivery truck or two at select store locations to eventually cut out UPS, FedEx, and USPS. Or they might just be saving money already, because you no longer need to be served by cashiers and store security as you shop in-store.
  - jldugger 10y ago
    I don't know the executive team or anything, but it would seem their ecommerce President seems to meet your criteria. But Walmart was actually renowned for their early adoption of technology and prediction. Long before HN or the deep learning trend pieces walmart was pitching their analytics team's findings: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/business/yourmoney/what-walmart-knows-about-customers-habits.html http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/business/yourmoney/what-wa...
rajacombinator 10y ago
And neither company has anywhere close to the gross notional exposure of the TBTF megabanks. Even if WM and AMZN vaporized overnight it would be absolutely nothing compared to he carnage that say, an overnight JPM bankruptcy, would cause. The nature of WM and AMZN businesses also doesn't expose them to rapid destruction risks.