9 ms·

Amazon War Story #1: Jeff Bezos (2011)

149 points by rhema 9y ago

rukittenme 9y ago
"for the last six and a half years, I have never once ragged on Amazon publicly." glad to see _nothing_ changed with this post. its not even a war story. tl;dr bezos likes direct communication because hes busy.
- sparky_z 9y ago
  I think you're misinterpreting the context here. This is a followup to a post where he did say some unflattering things about Amazon. It was intended as an internal communication, but he accidentally made it public. So this post is damage control. "Sorry guys, I don't do that sort of thing on purpose, here's a flattering story to even things out."
  - rukittenme 9y ago
    I see. I misread it as him posting unflattering things about Google.
    - hkmurakami 9y ago
      iirc he said negative things regarding AMZN within the GOOG platform rant G+ post, so your "misread" is sort of half correct.
pravinva 9y ago
There ought to be a #TooOld similar to #TooSoon
sp527 9y ago
Expecting a generalist software engineer to know data mining and machine learning (well) is about equivalent to expecting your primary doctor to be able to do cardiology and heart surgery.
- tibbetts 9y ago
  I expect a generalist doctor to have a good understanding of those things though she might not be in practice at specific surgical techniques. A primary care physician who doesn’t know those things is a specialist in primary care who will have difficult helping patients make decisions about more specialized care. Similarly a generalist software engineer should know what things are realistic and possible with data mining and machine learning. Just like they should know what is possible and realistic in cpu design or network protocols. They might not know all the latest tricks but they will be able to design and advise on systems which depend on these capabilities.
  - oblio 9y ago
    > Similarly a generalist software engineer should know what things are realistic and possible with data mining and machine learning. Just like they should know what is possible and realistic in cpu design or network protocols. They might not know all the latest tricks but they will be able to design and advise on systems which depend on these capabilities. I'm sorry to say this, but your expectations are insane. Or maybe I'm misinterpreting you. I know that a CPU has pipelines, multiple cores, an ALU, a MMU, a FPU, several levels of caches, etc., but I have no idea what's "possible or realistic" in CPU design. At least not in any way that I'd be able to argue toe to toe with an actual hardware engineer working on CPUs. I also know about network protocols, L1/L2/L3/L4(7), IP, TCP vs UDP, etc., but same thing, a real network engineer would wipe the floor with me regarding "possible and realistic" network protocols. Same for data mining or machine learning. Sure, if you held a gun to my head I could probably design something, but I definitely wouldn't feel confident going to production with it in any serious capacity unless I consulted some people who actually know the field. This field is way too broad for 1 person to cover everything at a decent level of competence. I think that people who think otherwise are deluding themselves. Or you're thinking about a generalist providing a shallow level of advice. Maybe that could apply, but I don't know who that would help...
  - saiya-jin 9y ago
    you sir are so much out of touch with real world (both in IT and medical care) it makes me wonder where do your misconceptions come from. Maybe just trolling? I don't think even some weird SF bubble would justify this huge offset. I am a software dev for last 13 years, with proper IT degree from university, working in Geneva, and neither me nor my colleagues would fulfill any of those criteria. What you expect doesn't matter a single bit to design, evolve and integrate core banking systems for example, and millions of other IT engineering jobs. My fiancee is a doctor in Swiss hospital and she could just laugh at your ridiculous expectations in medcare too. And that is Switzerland.
everdev 9y ago
Great read. Reminded me that somehow Google+ is still around. Google usually kills off poor performing apps.
- elicash 9y ago
  Discussion of that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15514990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15514990
TheDong 9y ago
This references his "google platform rant". The original discussion for that post can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3101876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3101876 Since the original was deleted, you can find it under the "Originally shared by" section in https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX
- peterwwillis 9y ago
  That rant was hilarious. Nearly everything he claims Google does right and Amazon does wrong, ends up screwing Google, and makes Amazon more profitable.
bambax 9y ago
> Jeff Bezos has all these incredibly intelligent, experienced domain experts surrounding him at huge meetings, and on a daily basis he thinks of shit that they never saw coming. This isn't a story about Bezos' genius. It's a story about bad corporate culture. What's really happening is that people are afraid to think in the presence of the boss -- not just afraid to express their thoughts, but afraid to have them. All the boss has to do in those meetings is state the obvious, and all the courtiers fall around in awe. And indeed it's explicit in this story as well: note the "jury of VPs" who wait for a clue from the boss to know whether they can laugh, and the people who come back from a meeting with the boss "licking their wounds" and going back to "a cave". Obviously Bezos is very smart; it's possible he's "the smartest guy in the room" most times; and it's likely he doesn't have a lot of patience for fools. But what this shows is people are terrified of him, and he likes it, or at least he doesn't do much to correct it.
- abrookewood 9y ago
  And yet they continue to go from strength to strength. I think you're right, and that the logical outcome should be poor company performance, but clearly that's not the case.
  - sneak 9y ago
    And yet they built Lightsail instead of fixing Beanstalk to actually compete with GAE/Heroku. The mind reels.
    - mcculley 9y ago
      What do you find wrong with Beanstalk that is addressed by GAE/Heroku?
      - sneak 9y ago
        Three clicks and my github commits on master trigger builds and deploys. Beanstalk requires manually setting up lambda functions and other nonsense to trigger stuff.
l33tbro 9y ago
What's probably crucial to understanding this favourable appraisal of Bezos is the "reply-all" gaffe that he mentions before the war story. After speaking candidly about Bezos as a control freak and a tyrant in the original post (1), it's no surprise he followed up with a gushing and face-saving post about his genius and prescience. (1) https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX
- saosebastiao 9y ago
  I don’t know. I have experienced Amazon and think it is a plague of a company. If it is not the worst company culture in the world, I shudder to think what could possibly supersede it. With that said, I still have a pretty high opinion of Bezos. I just think he made a handful of mistakes that may have accelerated his success at the expense of some long term stability (yes I think Amazon will eventually see a fiery implosion). Intelligent people still make mistakes.
throwaway36123 9y ago
I bet if jeff bezos walked in this person's home, kicked him out of his dining room and ate his dinner, he would have written an article just as positive.
nikofeyn 9y ago
i absolutely hate this story every time i see it. it's so filled with hyperbole and general fawning that it contains nothing useful. and i am sure bezos is indeed intelligent, but this story's climax is him pointing out something relatively mundane in what i am sure was a mundane presentation. and i still have the same question i did when i first saw this on hacker news. who is steve yegge and why should i care?
kuharich 9y ago
Prior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3138826 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3138826

149 points by rhema 9y ago

"for the last six and a half years, I have never once ragged on Amazon publicly." glad to see _nothing_ changed with this post. its not even a war story. tl;dr bezos likes direct communication because hes busy.

sparky_z 9y ago
I think you're misinterpreting the context here. This is a followup to a post where he did say some unflattering things about Amazon. It was intended as an internal communication, but he accidentally made it public. So this post is damage control. "Sorry guys, I don't do that sort of thing on purpose, here's a flattering story to even things out."
- rukittenme 9y ago
  I see. I misread it as him posting unflattering things about Google.
  - hkmurakami 9y ago
    iirc he said negative things regarding AMZN within the GOOG platform rant G+ post, so your "misread" is sort of half correct.

pravinva 9y ago

There ought to be a #TooOld similar to #TooSoon

sp527 9y ago

Expecting a generalist software engineer to know data mining and machine learning (well) is about equivalent to expecting your primary doctor to be able to do cardiology and heart surgery.

tibbetts 9y ago
I expect a generalist doctor to have a good understanding of those things though she might not be in practice at specific surgical techniques. A primary care physician who doesn’t know those things is a specialist in primary care who will have difficult helping patients make decisions about more specialized care. Similarly a generalist software engineer should know what things are realistic and possible with data mining and machine learning. Just like they should know what is possible and realistic in cpu design or network protocols. They might not know all the latest tricks but they will be able to design and advise on systems which depend on these capabilities.
- oblio 9y ago
  > Similarly a generalist software engineer should know what things are realistic and possible with data mining and machine learning. Just like they should know what is possible and realistic in cpu design or network protocols. They might not know all the latest tricks but they will be able to design and advise on systems which depend on these capabilities. I'm sorry to say this, but your expectations are insane. Or maybe I'm misinterpreting you. I know that a CPU has pipelines, multiple cores, an ALU, a MMU, a FPU, several levels of caches, etc., but I have no idea what's "possible or realistic" in CPU design. At least not in any way that I'd be able to argue toe to toe with an actual hardware engineer working on CPUs. I also know about network protocols, L1/L2/L3/L4(7), IP, TCP vs UDP, etc., but same thing, a real network engineer would wipe the floor with me regarding "possible and realistic" network protocols. Same for data mining or machine learning. Sure, if you held a gun to my head I could probably design something, but I definitely wouldn't feel confident going to production with it in any serious capacity unless I consulted some people who actually know the field. This field is way too broad for 1 person to cover everything at a decent level of competence. I think that people who think otherwise are deluding themselves. Or you're thinking about a generalist providing a shallow level of advice. Maybe that could apply, but I don't know who that would help...
- saiya-jin 9y ago
  you sir are so much out of touch with real world (both in IT and medical care) it makes me wonder where do your misconceptions come from. Maybe just trolling? I don't think even some weird SF bubble would justify this huge offset. I am a software dev for last 13 years, with proper IT degree from university, working in Geneva, and neither me nor my colleagues would fulfill any of those criteria. What you expect doesn't matter a single bit to design, evolve and integrate core banking systems for example, and millions of other IT engineering jobs. My fiancee is a doctor in Swiss hospital and she could just laugh at your ridiculous expectations in medcare too. And that is Switzerland.

everdev 9y ago

Great read. Reminded me that somehow Google+ is still around. Google usually kills off poor performing apps.

elicash 9y ago
Discussion of that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15514990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15514990

TheDong 9y ago

This references his "google platform rant". The original discussion for that post can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3101876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3101876 Since the original was deleted, you can find it under the "Originally shared by" section in https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX

peterwwillis 9y ago
That rant was hilarious. Nearly everything he claims Google does right and Amazon does wrong, ends up screwing Google, and makes Amazon more profitable.

bambax 9y ago

> Jeff Bezos has all these incredibly intelligent, experienced domain experts surrounding him at huge meetings, and on a daily basis he thinks of shit that they never saw coming. This isn't a story about Bezos' genius. It's a story about bad corporate culture. What's really happening is that people are afraid to think in the presence of the boss -- not just afraid to express their thoughts, but afraid to have them. All the boss has to do in those meetings is state the obvious, and all the courtiers fall around in awe. And indeed it's explicit in this story as well: note the "jury of VPs" who wait for a clue from the boss to know whether they can laugh, and the people who come back from a meeting with the boss "licking their wounds" and going back to "a cave". Obviously Bezos is very smart; it's possible he's "the smartest guy in the room" most times; and it's likely he doesn't have a lot of patience for fools. But what this shows is people are terrified of him, and he likes it, or at least he doesn't do much to correct it.

abrookewood 9y ago
And yet they continue to go from strength to strength. I think you're right, and that the logical outcome should be poor company performance, but clearly that's not the case.
- sneak 9y ago
  And yet they built Lightsail instead of fixing Beanstalk to actually compete with GAE/Heroku. The mind reels.
  - mcculley 9y ago
    What do you find wrong with Beanstalk that is addressed by GAE/Heroku?
    - sneak 9y ago
      Three clicks and my github commits on master trigger builds and deploys. Beanstalk requires manually setting up lambda functions and other nonsense to trigger stuff.

l33tbro 9y ago

What's probably crucial to understanding this favourable appraisal of Bezos is the "reply-all" gaffe that he mentions before the war story. After speaking candidly about Bezos as a control freak and a tyrant in the original post (1), it's no surprise he followed up with a gushing and face-saving post about his genius and prescience. (1) https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX

saosebastiao 9y ago
I don’t know. I have experienced Amazon and think it is a plague of a company. If it is not the worst company culture in the world, I shudder to think what could possibly supersede it. With that said, I still have a pretty high opinion of Bezos. I just think he made a handful of mistakes that may have accelerated his success at the expense of some long term stability (yes I think Amazon will eventually see a fiery implosion). Intelligent people still make mistakes.

throwaway36123 9y ago

I bet if jeff bezos walked in this person's home, kicked him out of his dining room and ate his dinner, he would have written an article just as positive.

nikofeyn 9y ago

i absolutely hate this story every time i see it. it's so filled with hyperbole and general fawning that it contains nothing useful. and i am sure bezos is indeed intelligent, but this story's climax is him pointing out something relatively mundane in what i am sure was a mundane presentation. and i still have the same question i did when i first saw this on hacker news. who is steve yegge and why should i care?

kuharich 9y ago

Prior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3138826 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3138826