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The impressive thing about Amazon to me is that it thinks/acts for the longer term. I guess it's Bezos that's the driving force behind this (he funds the Long N

The impressive thing about Amazon to me is that it thinks/acts for the longer term. I guess it's Bezos that's the driving force behind this (he funds the Long Now 10,000 year clock project after all, so must have some interest in the long term). Very many things become possible when you think on long timescales. Things like space travel. I know Elon Musk is the poster boy for it at the moment, but it's comforting to me at least that In Bezos there's another 'moon-shotter' who thinks on the timescales required to actually achieve such long term goals. I know that's a bit of a tangential leap from retail stores to becoming an interplanetary species but the long term mindset behind achieving the two the same.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
There's good and bad to that. You want people thinking big and long term but you also don't want that to become more important than the short term and the small things. That abstracted, encompassing way of thinking doesn't really care if Amazon's delivered a bad product that isn't worthy of consumers this quarter because there's always a next, and what's one customer and one sale when you've got 2 billion customers, a media empire, and and missions to the moon? There's only so much focus any individual or company has. I guess in politics that would be political capital, there's probably something similar in business. If Bezos is the driving force behind Amazon, how does that scale as Amazon takes on more and more? And longer-term, does that carry over when he's not around anymore due to old age or a bus?
- PuffinBlue 9y ago
  Yes, you are right, it's always good to keep a weather eye on the here and now lest you lose the source of energy powering your long term plans.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Actually, I feel we could use much more long-term focus. Because right now, pretty much every single company is solely focused on "the short term and the small things", and the result isn't delivering good products and making consumers happy - the result is optimizing products and services to minimum possible quality, while gaming consumer reactions, in order to extract as much profit as soon as possible.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    Certainly agree with you in principle, but is Amazon really any different? I wouldn't want to give a family member or friend a Kindle Fire, because I Know that'd be locking them into a closed ecosystem with so so build quality. It's maybe pretentious and idealistic, but why is long-term thinking to lock people in? This is the very first Q/A on Amazon's own Fire review page: The first Gen Kindle fire had a faulty connection and will come loose overtime causing the device to no longer able to charge. It's a common problem but a hard fix, you have to take it apart and reattach the connection Wouldn't long-term thinking not overlook details like that? That seems like the result of getting a product to market fast and then making consumers pay for the improvement in the next model. Which is fine if you are the entity that plans to be around for a hundred years selling those iterations, but not so much fun for the customer with a device that won't charge.
    - wtetzner 9y ago
      > Wouldn't long-term thinking not overlook details like that? I suspect it depends on what the long term goals are. If quality is one of them, then over time, as they improve their processes in favor of quality, these kinds of quality problems should become less and less frequent.
    - zerocrates 9y ago
      Well, there's one form of long-term thinking like "let's build a device that lasts a long time," and another like "let's build a product line/customer base that lasts a long time." Amazon's mostly interested, it seems, in just giving people more ways to interact with them, more ways to consume their content, more reasons to subscribe to Prime, more ways to get locked in as you say. Having a long view is not necessarily equal or even in the ballpark of being consumer-friendly. I'm not sure that focusing mostly on making Fires cheap as dirt really means there's not long-term thinking going on. A buy-it-for-life tablet, of all things, probably isn't a great investment from anybody's perspective.
pathseeker 9y ago
Tons of large companies think long term. It might seem unique in the context of the tech world, but it's far from it. Thinking long term doesn't always translate into great advancements. Particularly with large companies it can just turn them into a force that just eats up all competitors and stagnates (e.g. Walmart). Remember, investing in ensuring competitors can't enter the market is also long term, but it's not good for society. I think what's important is investing money in moonshot projects, which is only one of the many ways that companies can think long term.
- Aunche 9y ago
  It's unfair to say that Walmart is stagnating. They aren't taking moonshots, but their eCommerce division is no joke.
  - zanny 9y ago
    It also doesn't hurt that Walmart effectively hit its moonshot. It murdered a million small businesses / local stores / mom & pops and in the process did make things a lot cheaper for many people. They optimized the supply chain of the traditional retail model to its limit (and then over it in legally questionable ways) and changed how people buy a lot of things forever. That being said, Walmart wasn't really innovating in doing it. It just did what everyone already knew worked but did it with less empathy and more scale. Its much the same way the current Amazon store site for regular things isn't innovative - they took something other people were doing and mixed in some scale and evil and came out on top in that regard. To Amazons benefit, it was/is innovative in web services, book sales, warehousing, etc. But as a retail store? Until recent years they just took the Walmart model gone digital and ran with it, and somewhere along the way took the Ebay model and pasted it in as well. It might also be to Amazons benefit that it was founded within months of the first ecommerce websites rather than some thousands of years after the first store chain or a hundred after the first integrated supply chain.
    - kudokatz 9y ago
      just out of curiosity, what drives you so strongly with themes of "lacking empathy" and "evil"?
piffey 9y ago
Blue Origin matches that -- it's likely a Bezos-driven thing. I toured their facilities recently and what impressed me most is that they're building a base for repeatable, safe-as-airplanes space travel versus the get-to-Mars approach of SpaceX. Each stage of their development and planned development is along a clear, slow timeline to reach that end goal.
- cryptoz 9y ago
  > that they're building a base for repeatable, safe-as-airplanes space travel versus the get-to-Mars approach of SpaceX. Er, SpaceX is "building a base for repeatable, safe-as-airplanes space travel". That's the whole point of BFR and point-to-point transportation on Earth with it as well. Safer than airplane travel is a must-have for space travel, SpaceX included. It's nice to know Blue Origin thinks like that too, but if you think that SpaceX doesn't have the same concern for safety, then I think you've drank too much BO kool-aid.
TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
The smart way to become an interplanetary species would be to throw money at physics research and AI. The technological payback from an automated grocery store is unlikely to help us get to Proxima Centauri. That sounds harsh, but I think there's a fallacy in believing that technological progress is cumulative, and each small step - no matter how tangential - gets you closer to the big goal. It's like arguing that if you keep developing steam engines you eventually get a modern airliner. In fact you only get a modern airliner with completely new technologies, including GPS, composites, fly-by-wire, digital airflow modelling, and so on. You can't build an A380 with Victorian sheet metal and rivets, no matter how many times you iterate. And there's something Victorian about Amazon's need to dominate and mechanise every possible consumer market. The single-pointed focus makes it smarter than legacy corps when it comes to retail, but it absolutely does not follow that this proves Amazon is smart enough to invent its way out-of-system.
- neuland 9y ago
  I don't know anything about physics research, but it would seem that there is a more nuanced balance between basic research and things that can be applied soon. Basic research requires a high risk tolerance and deep pockets, but a potentially huge return. For example, I can't imagine how much money Google has sunk into self-driving. And, it's now looking like they'll make it back thousands of times over. But, years ago, it could have failed after a 9 or 10 figure investment. To sustain that (outside of government funding), you have to be doing something else that pays the bills.
- zanny 9y ago
  At least with your given example you effectively cannot reach the scientific knowledge required to manufacture composites and especially turbines without already having a complete understanding of steam power. One is substantially less complicated both theoretically and implementation wise than the other. And, from a business perspective, if you don't grab the low hanging fruit now to stay competitive your competition will and you will find yourself obsoleted and bankrupt on your quest for airliners in the age before steam trains.

aaron-lebo 9y ago

There's good and bad to that. You want people thinking big and long term but you also don't want that to become more important than the short term and the small things. That abstracted, encompassing way of thinking doesn't really care if Amazon's delivered a bad product that isn't worthy of consumers this quarter because there's always a next, and what's one customer and one sale when you've got 2 billion customers, a media empire, and and missions to the moon? There's only so much focus any individual or company has. I guess in politics that would be political capital, there's probably something similar in business. If Bezos is the driving force behind Amazon, how does that scale as Amazon takes on more and more? And longer-term, does that carry over when he's not around anymore due to old age or a bus?

PuffinBlue 9y ago
Yes, you are right, it's always good to keep a weather eye on the here and now lest you lose the source of energy powering your long term plans.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
Actually, I feel we could use much more long-term focus. Because right now, pretty much every single company is solely focused on "the short term and the small things", and the result isn't delivering good products and making consumers happy - the result is optimizing products and services to minimum possible quality, while gaming consumer reactions, in order to extract as much profit as soon as possible.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Certainly agree with you in principle, but is Amazon really any different? I wouldn't want to give a family member or friend a Kindle Fire, because I Know that'd be locking them into a closed ecosystem with so so build quality. It's maybe pretentious and idealistic, but why is long-term thinking to lock people in? This is the very first Q/A on Amazon's own Fire review page: The first Gen Kindle fire had a faulty connection and will come loose overtime causing the device to no longer able to charge. It's a common problem but a hard fix, you have to take it apart and reattach the connection Wouldn't long-term thinking not overlook details like that? That seems like the result of getting a product to market fast and then making consumers pay for the improvement in the next model. Which is fine if you are the entity that plans to be around for a hundred years selling those iterations, but not so much fun for the customer with a device that won't charge.
  - wtetzner 9y ago
    > Wouldn't long-term thinking not overlook details like that? I suspect it depends on what the long term goals are. If quality is one of them, then over time, as they improve their processes in favor of quality, these kinds of quality problems should become less and less frequent.
  - zerocrates 9y ago
    Well, there's one form of long-term thinking like "let's build a device that lasts a long time," and another like "let's build a product line/customer base that lasts a long time." Amazon's mostly interested, it seems, in just giving people more ways to interact with them, more ways to consume their content, more reasons to subscribe to Prime, more ways to get locked in as you say. Having a long view is not necessarily equal or even in the ballpark of being consumer-friendly. I'm not sure that focusing mostly on making Fires cheap as dirt really means there's not long-term thinking going on. A buy-it-for-life tablet, of all things, probably isn't a great investment from anybody's perspective.

pathseeker 9y ago

Tons of large companies think long term. It might seem unique in the context of the tech world, but it's far from it. Thinking long term doesn't always translate into great advancements. Particularly with large companies it can just turn them into a force that just eats up all competitors and stagnates (e.g. Walmart). Remember, investing in ensuring competitors can't enter the market is also long term, but it's not good for society. I think what's important is investing money in moonshot projects, which is only one of the many ways that companies can think long term.

Aunche 9y ago
It's unfair to say that Walmart is stagnating. They aren't taking moonshots, but their eCommerce division is no joke.
- zanny 9y ago
  It also doesn't hurt that Walmart effectively hit its moonshot. It murdered a million small businesses / local stores / mom & pops and in the process did make things a lot cheaper for many people. They optimized the supply chain of the traditional retail model to its limit (and then over it in legally questionable ways) and changed how people buy a lot of things forever. That being said, Walmart wasn't really innovating in doing it. It just did what everyone already knew worked but did it with less empathy and more scale. Its much the same way the current Amazon store site for regular things isn't innovative - they took something other people were doing and mixed in some scale and evil and came out on top in that regard. To Amazons benefit, it was/is innovative in web services, book sales, warehousing, etc. But as a retail store? Until recent years they just took the Walmart model gone digital and ran with it, and somewhere along the way took the Ebay model and pasted it in as well. It might also be to Amazons benefit that it was founded within months of the first ecommerce websites rather than some thousands of years after the first store chain or a hundred after the first integrated supply chain.
  - kudokatz 9y ago
    just out of curiosity, what drives you so strongly with themes of "lacking empathy" and "evil"?

piffey 9y ago

Blue Origin matches that -- it's likely a Bezos-driven thing. I toured their facilities recently and what impressed me most is that they're building a base for repeatable, safe-as-airplanes space travel versus the get-to-Mars approach of SpaceX. Each stage of their development and planned development is along a clear, slow timeline to reach that end goal.

cryptoz 9y ago
> that they're building a base for repeatable, safe-as-airplanes space travel versus the get-to-Mars approach of SpaceX. Er, SpaceX is "building a base for repeatable, safe-as-airplanes space travel". That's the whole point of BFR and point-to-point transportation on Earth with it as well. Safer than airplane travel is a must-have for space travel, SpaceX included. It's nice to know Blue Origin thinks like that too, but if you think that SpaceX doesn't have the same concern for safety, then I think you've drank too much BO kool-aid.

TheOtherHobbes 9y ago

The smart way to become an interplanetary species would be to throw money at physics research and AI. The technological payback from an automated grocery store is unlikely to help us get to Proxima Centauri. That sounds harsh, but I think there's a fallacy in believing that technological progress is cumulative, and each small step - no matter how tangential - gets you closer to the big goal. It's like arguing that if you keep developing steam engines you eventually get a modern airliner. In fact you only get a modern airliner with completely new technologies, including GPS, composites, fly-by-wire, digital airflow modelling, and so on. You can't build an A380 with Victorian sheet metal and rivets, no matter how many times you iterate. And there's something Victorian about Amazon's need to dominate and mechanise every possible consumer market. The single-pointed focus makes it smarter than legacy corps when it comes to retail, but it absolutely does not follow that this proves Amazon is smart enough to invent its way out-of-system.

neuland 9y ago
I don't know anything about physics research, but it would seem that there is a more nuanced balance between basic research and things that can be applied soon. Basic research requires a high risk tolerance and deep pockets, but a potentially huge return. For example, I can't imagine how much money Google has sunk into self-driving. And, it's now looking like they'll make it back thousands of times over. But, years ago, it could have failed after a 9 or 10 figure investment. To sustain that (outside of government funding), you have to be doing something else that pays the bills.
zanny 9y ago
At least with your given example you effectively cannot reach the scientific knowledge required to manufacture composites and especially turbines without already having a complete understanding of steam power. One is substantially less complicated both theoretically and implementation wise than the other. And, from a business perspective, if you don't grab the low hanging fruit now to stay competitive your competition will and you will find yourself obsoleted and bankrupt on your quest for airliners in the age before steam trains.