23 ms·

Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon

196 points by garraeth 6y ago

Loughla 6y ago
I guess now we'll see how much of the perceived shit show was actually his making, and how much was his leadership group. This should be interesting.
- noad 6y ago
  I have no idea what this means, can you get me up to speed on what this show was?
  - sah2ed 6y ago
    To get up to speed on Amazon's sub-par attitude to warehouse workers' welfare, prior to Bezos re-assuming day-to-day leadership, start here: 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22759575 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22759575 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22770092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22770092
    - jdm2212 6y ago
      Did Bezos care about warehouse worker safety when he ran things day to day? I thought there have been sporadic reports of warehouse worker mistreatment going back years, like that story about the one warehouse that had to have an ambulance parked outside to pick up workers who got heat stroke because it was cheaper than installing A/C. (No idea if that story's true. Just, this stuff has been circulating for a while. The new stories are no more or less credible, so I'm not changing my opinion of what's happening on the ground.)
      - GhettoMaestro 6y ago
        I'm calling horseshit on that story - prove me wrong. Why? Simple math and risk analysis. One death that can be proven to have been preventable (and more important, negligent) is going to cost multiples more than a stupid AC unit.
    - gowld 6y ago
      Please explain how it's "sub par", which is different from "bad".
- jdm2212 6y ago
  > perceived shit show Honest question: what are you talking about?
  - deelowe 6y ago
    Probably referring to the media reports about either the warehouse worker complaints or internal corporate politics.
    - jdm2212 6y ago
      Ah, makes sense. Thanks for clarifying. Those reports struck me more as "normal big company issues" than "shit show" but maybe I'm a bit jaded.
      - deelowe 6y ago
        They seem to be a bit sensationalized, but with the way news media works these days, everything is. So, it's hard to know what's real and what isn't these days.
- crazygringo 6y ago
  I don't think there's any "perceived shit show" from the perspective of investors or management. If you're referring to the treatment of warehouse workers over the past decade, Amazon pays them market rates, like pretty much every other business pays market rates. So Amazon can sell goods at the lowest price possible. It's not a "shit show", it's a business strategy that has paid off. If you're upset about how workers are treated, bring it up with Congress to set minimum wage and employee treatment laws that will apply to all businesses and warehouse fulfillment centers, not just Amazon.
  - londons_explore 6y ago
    > Amazon pays them market rates Actually substantially over market rates this year. Everyone wants to work in amazon when the alternative is walmart...
WoodenKatana 6y ago
Maybe this will bring him back to Earth and see that not everything is as good as in the bubble he lives by focusing on futuristic projects. It'd be nice to see an impact
sytelus 6y ago
This is quite significant given market is very bullish on Amazon (Goldman is just all over it). The expectations are set sky high to do well during these times. But if you look at things as consumer, it doesn't look so good. Personally, I've significantly less orders on Amazon these days because of huge delivery times. Sure, orders for "essentials" might have gone up but can that offset the gap? Also, sellers are very dissopointed with their items not getting delivered and many have started to look for alternate channels. Given all these, I wonder how things will pan out. Wall street expectations for Amazon to do well this quarter is sky high but behind the curtain things might have taken significant hit.
- arkades 6y ago
  Delivery times are up because of the volume of business. As essentials business falls down (or 'if', if people get used to using Amazon over their local store), delivery times will fall as well. This isn't a meaningful long-term criticism.
  - jonknee 6y ago
    I am skeptical of this because there are almost no essentials that are available to order.
  - toasterlovin 6y ago
    FWIW, I think that several things are getting confused in Amazon's messaging. A while back, Amazon shut down inbound shipments of non-essential items (since opened back up, but with quantity limitations on a case-by-case basis). I think people mis-interpreted this to mean that they were shutting down outbound shipments of non-essentials. But that was not the case. Then, as my sibling commenter mentions: you can't even buy essential items right now, so they can't be over capacity in general because of shipments of essential items. My take is that they are experiencing something akin to holiday season levels of sales, but that they're not staffed for that kind of volume, since it's spring. So they temporarily shut down inbound shipments of non-essentials so that they could free up warehouse staff for outbound shipments in general. If this is correct, then I think their delivery times are dependent on two things: 1. how quickly they can staff up for the increased volume, and/or 2. how quickly and to what degree retail spending shifts back to physical stores. But demand for essentials returning to normal will probably not make a difference.
WhyKill 6y ago
Amazon sucks now. I can't buy most of the specific items I use in my work, and when I do find something it's swimming in a sea of clone crap. The best thing it does still is books. Anything else is a mizxed bag. AMZ is just Ali Baba for people who can't wait for the ship.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  Not to mention their treatment of workers, whether it's in the warehouse or the ip restrictions on white collar employees.
  - aka1234 6y ago
    What IP restrictions? Must be different in other orgs. But I've never run into any IP restriction whatsoever.
    - Pfhreak 6y ago
      Search for the Game Development Policy for an example. You cannot develop games in your spare time with friends.
- agundy 6y ago
  Books aren’t even reliably great with certain knock offs and or different version/condition substitutions. No Starch Press has had issues With counterfeit printed books. https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch.html https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch...
  - amluto 6y ago
    Books also often arrive damaged due to the bizarre way they get packed.
    - bratsche 6y ago
      I agree. I stupidly ordered a copy of Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier from Amazon and it just arrived yesterday, and the back cover was all bent along the edge because they did a terrible job of packing it.
guylepage3 6y ago
Maybe he should set his sites lower and get some work done to fix Amazon Fresh. I have tried to order something everyday since Mar 12 and no time slots have been available.
- b3kart 6y ago
  I hear the same thing is happening with all grocery deliveries (at leat in the UK), Amazon Fresh isn't special in that regard. You probably know current times are rather exceptional.
- krazyk8s 6y ago
  I'm willing to give Amazon a pass on this one for the moment. I haven't been able to use any grocery delivery services in weeks. If there are time slots available they are getting filled pretty much immediately when they open up, and I've not been lucky enough to catch it.
  - burrows 6y ago
    Do they lack sufficient personnel (deshelvers, drivers) to increase delivery slots?
    - MattGaiser 6y ago
      Essentially. No company can hire enough of those right now.
      - burrows 6y ago
        Increasing pay is the obvious answer. Maybe the profit margin is too thin.
coder1001 6y ago
Is this a good or bad sign? What problems exist that only the founder can solve and require his involvement? or is that just what he wants to do?
- gowld 6y ago
  He's not just the founder. He's the CEO. His one and only necessary job function is to make critical decisions and actions when business is not usual.
- HenryKissinger 6y ago
  Probably the latter. Bezos wants a piece of the action.
- crazygringo 6y ago
  It's a good sign. In cases of normal business operation, normal corporate management, delegation, and accountability techniques generally work quite well. Decisions are extensively researched and weighed before being taken. Doing things right, not quickly, is the goal here. In times of urgent emergency, normal management techniques fail because they can't respond quickly enough. Not because they're inferior, but because they weren't designed for it. Therefore you need one person making big, hard decisions in a timely manner. There's probably nobody in the world who is better qualified to make big, hard, fast decisions for Amazon than Bezos, obviously. And considering his wealth is tied up in the company too, this is the smart, responsible choice for everyone involved.
  - coder1001 6y ago
    Thanks, appreciate the answer. Makes a lot of sense.
  - philwelch 6y ago
    I agree with you but for different reasons. > In cases of normal business operation, normal corporate management, delegation, and accountability techniques generally work quite well. Decisions are extensively researched and weighed before being taken. Doing things right, not quickly, is the goal here. In Amazon’s case, the opposite is heavily encouraged. Here is one of their “leadership principles”: > Bias for Action: Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking. Of course, there are other principles like “Dive Deep” and “Be Right A Lot” that balance this out, but Amazon is definitely tuned for speed of decision-making. If anything, I would take the opposite side of this change as the real indicator. In normal circumstances, Amazon does what it does well enough for Jeff to deep-dive into specifically interesting projects while the S-Team (the executives reporting to Jeff) are trusted to run the company day-to-day. We are in far from normal circumstances now.
ilamont 6y ago
The other issue which Bezos has less control over is delivery, especially in areas where its own logistics service is limited. A friend living in rural New Hampshire says Amazon will no longer deliver goods to people in his town, which indicates a last-mile delivery problem. Another friend in North Carolina said the U.S. Post Office stopped delivery to all of the buildings in his apartment complex because the leasing office was now closed. There are other situations in which delivery companies understandably don't want to follow pre-COVID procedures because it's no longer safe to do so.
justicezyx 6y ago
Not sure why comments change to the degrading quality of Amazon retail. The article is pretty obvious. The CEO needs to always focus on the most critical matter. Sometime it's long-term strategic investment, like Alexa. Some other time, it's a ongoing emergency that will have profound long-term impact. And Mr. Bezos is doing the right thing to align the company right now.
jdoliner 6y ago
Has anyone else noticed Amazon shipping them more of items than they ordered? I've recently had this happen in two separate orders, including receiving 3 SSDs when I'd just ordered 1, for a free $300 of SSD.
- geodel 6y ago
  Lucky you. We found empty packaging for Airpod in our baby toys delivery. I turned the cardboard box upside down a few times but no airpods unfortunately :-(
  - gowld 6y ago
    Maybe an employee stole airpods and shipped the evidence out of the warehouse?
- JakeWesorick 6y ago
  Unhappy employees.
- sgillen 6y ago
  You may be a money mule! And you may want to report this, someone vulnerable could be racking up massive debt paying for free stuff. see : https://youtu.be/2IT2oAzTcvU?t=300 https://youtu.be/2IT2oAzTcvU?t=300
  - cbg0 6y ago
    It's actually very unlikely for this to be the case for the three SSDs. If what is presented in the video is actually happening, there would be no reason for the fraudster to pay for 3 SSDs with a stolen card and send them to the customer, because a higher transaction amount could pop off some alerts at the stolen card's bank, which is a pointless risk. You also have to take into account honest people which would try to notify the fraudulent seller or possibly the platform through which the item was bought, which is another unnecessary risk for a fraudster.
    - 6y ago
beart 6y ago
Who was running things in Jeff's absence?
- traskjd 6y ago
  There’s two CEOs below him. Andy Jassy for AWS and Jeff Wilkie for Amazon Retail.
whoevercares 6y ago
Buy Amazon. It’s seeing Black Friday traffic everyday and AWS can’t be feeling better then ever during this period
- libria 6y ago
  I think retail will be more consistent than AWS. IMO the economic impact to AWS is delayed a few months. Businesses are making personnel cuts now and will shore up ops costs by Q4 2020 if not sooner. From Q1 2021 it'll be hard to sell and onboard new service till the economy recovers.
  - mcintyre1994 6y ago
    There’s also the apparently massive use of Azure, if the companies currently jumping in there are looking to do huge cloud spend in a few months I’m not sure AWS will be the winner there. Though maybe this is all a big enough market for them both to see massive growth, I’m definitely just speculating.
jhallenworld 6y ago
I have been ordering random things on eBay and Amazon- it turns out that right at this moment, eBay shipping is faster than Amazon Prime.
- nostromo 6y ago
  Ebay is decentralized which is much more scalable than Amazon's centralized approach. Similar to you, I've noticed things on Ebay ship and arrive very quickly. AliExpress is somehow still cheaper than Amazon for cheap things that don't need to be high quality or perfect. You just have to wait two weeks for it to arrive -- which isn't much different than the wait for Amazon currently.
ethagknight 6y ago
My theory: Prime, and its 2-day shipping service, is a flat rate deal, priced according to 10.5 normal months and 1.5 batshit crazy delivery months. Since they can't charge on a demand basis for shipping like FedEx can, they've run into an internal train wreck where they can't afford to deliver all the orders the've received. So their bottleneck is actually a bottleneck of budgeted "delivery slots" for these Spring months, which they've excused as being "due to essential items only, can't keep up with demand." I've noticed something that I found extremely curious: I've ordered several random things in the last month from Amazon, and all have been severely delayed. These are not surge items: drumsticks, a guitar wall hanger, and an APC ups. All were Prime items, and all have been severely delayed, waiting weeks now. I get it, they are 'focusing on essential items' and my guitars will be fine to wait a while longer. However... I have not noticed many Prime delivery vans out in the neighborhood. During the holidays, Prime vans are everywhere. Today, they are not. Last mile shipping is one of those businesses that gets gloriously efficient with scale. Bezos announced that 100,000 person hire a few weeks back, which I assumed would be rehiring their holiday surge subcontractors. But few vans on the streets today. Finally, what essential items does Amazon have in stock that is overtaking their delivery supply chain?
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  I have a friend at Amazon and they say absenteeism among employees is through the roof. They can neither hire nor keep the employees they do have.
  - ethagknight 6y ago
    That would fall under the "they can't afford to deliver the orders they have" bucket if they can't find anyone that wants to do the proposed work. If true, Amazon is selling a service that isn't robust or flexible enough for such a season. Will be interesting to see how it shakes out.
    - ignoramous 6y ago
      > Will be interesting to see how it shakes out. Long term is probably a combination of autonomous robots, self-driving vehicles, and delivery drones. The current crisis might even accelerate its development and deployment.
fishingisfun 6y ago
i wonder where he shops for clothing
cwhiz 6y ago
I don’t know what is going on but their “essential items” excuse is totally bogus. There are no essential items in stock! Go try to buy toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap, etc. I can’t buy ANY of that and haven’t been able to for at least 4-6 weeks. And the “normal” products have shipping delays of 4+ weeks sometimes. And then other times, none. It seems totally random and nonsensical. I think they have serious labor issues that they are covering up. I’m just guessing here with absolutely no information. Just can’t make sense at what is going on.
noncoml 6y ago
Those who complain about Amazon should try eBay. I recently bought a relatively expensive item ($3k) that was being advertised as "New - Open box" one month old item. What I received was a 5 year old used item. Trying to return it was the most stressful online shopping experience I have ever had. One you open a return request, eBay gives the seller 5 working days to reply to your request. Seller took advantage of all 5. When I finally got a return label, the seller left the item waiting for pick up for 3 days, until finally picking it up. Once picked up, eBay gives seller another 5 working days to issue a refund. In the mean time there is no way to ask help from eBay. All they do is just close the case asking you to wait. So for a total of 3-4 weeks I have my money sitting in seller's PayPal account. At least with Amazon, retail* support is usually pretty good.
- nolok 6y ago
  ... And eBay/Paypal won their era's fight because they offered the better experience compared to the others, they were considered the safe and reliable one. Early web shopping really was wild. And not the good kind.
  - noncoml 6y ago
    And then came Amazon an roller-steam them all. And in my opinion it's because of their super buyer-friendly, stress free experience. Every time you would buy a book from them, and you were happy that they gave you the best possible price, they didn't give you hard time when the book was lost in the mail or you wanted to return it because the sent you the wrong book, or whatever, your trust in them would increase. Once you consumers trust you with buying A, selling them B, is just a matter of making it available through your store. I see a lot of online stores, operating the old way; with hidden discounts, dedicated seller-teams trying to sell stuff to you, pushing back when you want to return an item, etc. and can't help thinking how they are ever alive.
- ObsoleteNerd 6y ago
  I bought some N95 reusable children's masks from a reputable seller (5 digit feedback, 99.9% positive, all the "eBay verified/premium seller" crap)... 4 for $80. They ended up being BLATANTLY fake, basically 1mm craft foam cut out in the shape of a mask. I sent in macro photos and a full description demanding a refund, they said "nope, you opened them, they're used now". eBay sided with the seller. I've been on eBay since it first came to my country, I've bought/sold many hundreds of items, but eBay has noticeably become an utter mess in the last couple years, and their support is non-existent. I'll never use eBay again, for anything.
paxys 6y ago
The headline is pretty sensationalist. It's not like he is coming out of retirement. He is just updating his schedule to focus on immediate problems rather than longer term projects (like every other CEO in the world right now).
- Florin_Andrei 6y ago
  I mean, it's an all hands on deck, putting out fires, type of situation after all. So it makes sense for him to be more involved with the daily stuff.
Melting_Harps 6y ago
What a missed opportunity, Boeing is on its knees and shown it cannot compete with SpaceX, and Blue Origin has the best opportunity to displace SLS with New Glenn program once and for all. When else will you be able to kill a crony-Goliath like ULA, by their own incompetence no less, and gain the public's adoration for it as CEO? I get it, this is his golden goose and its undergoing huge stress and delays due to COVID; but for all the talk about why he got into tech and wanted to make Billions was essentially to get into Aerospace in the first place makes it seem like the vapid platitudes of Billionaire. I'm not surprised, just disappointed in Bezos. I guess we're going to have to live with ULA clogging up the system and spending billions more without producing results all while SpaceX is sending astronauts to ISS next month. I don't buy things from Amazon anymore, their supply chain optimization results in inhumane business practices, and despite having access to Prime I still prefer to stream shows on it elsewhere. The quality looks equally mediocre in comparison to Netflix on a 4k screen anyway.
- shaklee3 6y ago
  SpaceX isn't turning a profit, though, especially since the number of launched has been dropping precipitously in the last couple of years. Bezos is smart enough to know that there's no rush in this.
  - Melting_Harps 6y ago
    What? SpaceX has increased its manifest dramatically over the years, Starlink missions put it way over its previous highs, and 2020 is their record breaking year: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/12/spacex-record-breaking-2020-manifest/ https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/12/spacex-record-breaki... You cannot know if SpaceX operates at a profit or not, its a private company and funding is most certainly not an issue, so of course Cap-Ex isn't reigned in when you now have definitive domestic market share for resupply missions to ISS and US Military contracts, as well as a long wait-list for international customers as well fleshing out your future forms of revenue with Starlink and Starship (already in its 5th iteration in just 7 months!) missions and several Factories churning rockets and engines 24/7. I've seen it with my own eyes, and stood inches away from several prototype raptor engines all over the place. As awesome as Starship SN2 was, I really got my highest fanboy feeling looking at it.
blairanderson 6y ago
One of my client sells medical devices on amazon. They sold out their entire 2020 forecast by mid April. Amazon warehouses also got a little humility and flexibility towards warehouse workers. The shipping demands are real.
OrgNet 6y ago
Anyone else noticed that Amazon started to charge different prices to different users in the last year?
johnrgrace 6y ago
Jeff being back to day to day will make a difference. Ex-amazonian, I've seen a lot of people go work for them recently and more than a few are B, and at least one a C level players. OP1/OP2 presentations in front of Jeff will make a difference.
ChuckMcM 6y ago
This of course means someone who used to be doing day to day management is no longer in that role.

196 points by garraeth 6y ago

I guess now we'll see how much of the perceived shit show was actually his making, and how much was his leadership group. This should be interesting.

noad 6y ago
I have no idea what this means, can you get me up to speed on what this show was?
- sah2ed 6y ago
  To get up to speed on Amazon's sub-par attitude to warehouse workers' welfare, prior to Bezos re-assuming day-to-day leadership, start here: 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22759575 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22759575 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22770092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22770092
  - jdm2212 6y ago
    Did Bezos care about warehouse worker safety when he ran things day to day? I thought there have been sporadic reports of warehouse worker mistreatment going back years, like that story about the one warehouse that had to have an ambulance parked outside to pick up workers who got heat stroke because it was cheaper than installing A/C. (No idea if that story's true. Just, this stuff has been circulating for a while. The new stories are no more or less credible, so I'm not changing my opinion of what's happening on the ground.)
    - GhettoMaestro 6y ago
      I'm calling horseshit on that story - prove me wrong. Why? Simple math and risk analysis. One death that can be proven to have been preventable (and more important, negligent) is going to cost multiples more than a stupid AC unit.
  - gowld 6y ago
    Please explain how it's "sub par", which is different from "bad".
jdm2212 6y ago
> perceived shit show Honest question: what are you talking about?
- deelowe 6y ago
  Probably referring to the media reports about either the warehouse worker complaints or internal corporate politics.
  - jdm2212 6y ago
    Ah, makes sense. Thanks for clarifying. Those reports struck me more as "normal big company issues" than "shit show" but maybe I'm a bit jaded.
    - deelowe 6y ago
      They seem to be a bit sensationalized, but with the way news media works these days, everything is. So, it's hard to know what's real and what isn't these days.
crazygringo 6y ago
I don't think there's any "perceived shit show" from the perspective of investors or management. If you're referring to the treatment of warehouse workers over the past decade, Amazon pays them market rates, like pretty much every other business pays market rates. So Amazon can sell goods at the lowest price possible. It's not a "shit show", it's a business strategy that has paid off. If you're upset about how workers are treated, bring it up with Congress to set minimum wage and employee treatment laws that will apply to all businesses and warehouse fulfillment centers, not just Amazon.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  > Amazon pays them market rates Actually substantially over market rates this year. Everyone wants to work in amazon when the alternative is walmart...

WoodenKatana 6y ago

Maybe this will bring him back to Earth and see that not everything is as good as in the bubble he lives by focusing on futuristic projects. It'd be nice to see an impact

sytelus 6y ago

This is quite significant given market is very bullish on Amazon (Goldman is just all over it). The expectations are set sky high to do well during these times. But if you look at things as consumer, it doesn't look so good. Personally, I've significantly less orders on Amazon these days because of huge delivery times. Sure, orders for "essentials" might have gone up but can that offset the gap? Also, sellers are very dissopointed with their items not getting delivered and many have started to look for alternate channels. Given all these, I wonder how things will pan out. Wall street expectations for Amazon to do well this quarter is sky high but behind the curtain things might have taken significant hit.

arkades 6y ago
Delivery times are up because of the volume of business. As essentials business falls down (or 'if', if people get used to using Amazon over their local store), delivery times will fall as well. This isn't a meaningful long-term criticism.
- jonknee 6y ago
  I am skeptical of this because there are almost no essentials that are available to order.
- toasterlovin 6y ago
  FWIW, I think that several things are getting confused in Amazon's messaging. A while back, Amazon shut down inbound shipments of non-essential items (since opened back up, but with quantity limitations on a case-by-case basis). I think people mis-interpreted this to mean that they were shutting down outbound shipments of non-essentials. But that was not the case. Then, as my sibling commenter mentions: you can't even buy essential items right now, so they can't be over capacity in general because of shipments of essential items. My take is that they are experiencing something akin to holiday season levels of sales, but that they're not staffed for that kind of volume, since it's spring. So they temporarily shut down inbound shipments of non-essentials so that they could free up warehouse staff for outbound shipments in general. If this is correct, then I think their delivery times are dependent on two things: 1. how quickly they can staff up for the increased volume, and/or 2. how quickly and to what degree retail spending shifts back to physical stores. But demand for essentials returning to normal will probably not make a difference.

WhyKill 6y ago

Amazon sucks now. I can't buy most of the specific items I use in my work, and when I do find something it's swimming in a sea of clone crap. The best thing it does still is books. Anything else is a mizxed bag. AMZ is just Ali Baba for people who can't wait for the ship.

Pfhreak 6y ago
Not to mention their treatment of workers, whether it's in the warehouse or the ip restrictions on white collar employees.
- aka1234 6y ago
  What IP restrictions? Must be different in other orgs. But I've never run into any IP restriction whatsoever.
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    Search for the Game Development Policy for an example. You cannot develop games in your spare time with friends.
agundy 6y ago
Books aren’t even reliably great with certain knock offs and or different version/condition substitutions. No Starch Press has had issues With counterfeit printed books. https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch.html https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch...
- amluto 6y ago
  Books also often arrive damaged due to the bizarre way they get packed.
  - bratsche 6y ago
    I agree. I stupidly ordered a copy of Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier from Amazon and it just arrived yesterday, and the back cover was all bent along the edge because they did a terrible job of packing it.

guylepage3 6y ago

Maybe he should set his sites lower and get some work done to fix Amazon Fresh. I have tried to order something everyday since Mar 12 and no time slots have been available.

b3kart 6y ago
I hear the same thing is happening with all grocery deliveries (at leat in the UK), Amazon Fresh isn't special in that regard. You probably know current times are rather exceptional.
krazyk8s 6y ago
I'm willing to give Amazon a pass on this one for the moment. I haven't been able to use any grocery delivery services in weeks. If there are time slots available they are getting filled pretty much immediately when they open up, and I've not been lucky enough to catch it.
- burrows 6y ago
  Do they lack sufficient personnel (deshelvers, drivers) to increase delivery slots?
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    Essentially. No company can hire enough of those right now.
    - burrows 6y ago
      Increasing pay is the obvious answer. Maybe the profit margin is too thin.

coder1001 6y ago

Is this a good or bad sign? What problems exist that only the founder can solve and require his involvement? or is that just what he wants to do?

gowld 6y ago
He's not just the founder. He's the CEO. His one and only necessary job function is to make critical decisions and actions when business is not usual.
HenryKissinger 6y ago
Probably the latter. Bezos wants a piece of the action.
crazygringo 6y ago
It's a good sign. In cases of normal business operation, normal corporate management, delegation, and accountability techniques generally work quite well. Decisions are extensively researched and weighed before being taken. Doing things right, not quickly, is the goal here. In times of urgent emergency, normal management techniques fail because they can't respond quickly enough. Not because they're inferior, but because they weren't designed for it. Therefore you need one person making big, hard decisions in a timely manner. There's probably nobody in the world who is better qualified to make big, hard, fast decisions for Amazon than Bezos, obviously. And considering his wealth is tied up in the company too, this is the smart, responsible choice for everyone involved.
- coder1001 6y ago
  Thanks, appreciate the answer. Makes a lot of sense.
- philwelch 6y ago
  I agree with you but for different reasons. > In cases of normal business operation, normal corporate management, delegation, and accountability techniques generally work quite well. Decisions are extensively researched and weighed before being taken. Doing things right, not quickly, is the goal here. In Amazon’s case, the opposite is heavily encouraged. Here is one of their “leadership principles”: > Bias for Action: Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking. Of course, there are other principles like “Dive Deep” and “Be Right A Lot” that balance this out, but Amazon is definitely tuned for speed of decision-making. If anything, I would take the opposite side of this change as the real indicator. In normal circumstances, Amazon does what it does well enough for Jeff to deep-dive into specifically interesting projects while the S-Team (the executives reporting to Jeff) are trusted to run the company day-to-day. We are in far from normal circumstances now.

ilamont 6y ago

The other issue which Bezos has less control over is delivery, especially in areas where its own logistics service is limited. A friend living in rural New Hampshire says Amazon will no longer deliver goods to people in his town, which indicates a last-mile delivery problem. Another friend in North Carolina said the U.S. Post Office stopped delivery to all of the buildings in his apartment complex because the leasing office was now closed. There are other situations in which delivery companies understandably don't want to follow pre-COVID procedures because it's no longer safe to do so.

justicezyx 6y ago

Not sure why comments change to the degrading quality of Amazon retail. The article is pretty obvious. The CEO needs to always focus on the most critical matter. Sometime it's long-term strategic investment, like Alexa. Some other time, it's a ongoing emergency that will have profound long-term impact. And Mr. Bezos is doing the right thing to align the company right now.

jdoliner 6y ago

Has anyone else noticed Amazon shipping them more of items than they ordered? I've recently had this happen in two separate orders, including receiving 3 SSDs when I'd just ordered 1, for a free $300 of SSD.

geodel 6y ago
Lucky you. We found empty packaging for Airpod in our baby toys delivery. I turned the cardboard box upside down a few times but no airpods unfortunately :-(
- gowld 6y ago
  Maybe an employee stole airpods and shipped the evidence out of the warehouse?
JakeWesorick 6y ago
Unhappy employees.
sgillen 6y ago
You may be a money mule! And you may want to report this, someone vulnerable could be racking up massive debt paying for free stuff. see : https://youtu.be/2IT2oAzTcvU?t=300 https://youtu.be/2IT2oAzTcvU?t=300
- cbg0 6y ago
  It's actually very unlikely for this to be the case for the three SSDs. If what is presented in the video is actually happening, there would be no reason for the fraudster to pay for 3 SSDs with a stolen card and send them to the customer, because a higher transaction amount could pop off some alerts at the stolen card's bank, which is a pointless risk. You also have to take into account honest people which would try to notify the fraudulent seller or possibly the platform through which the item was bought, which is another unnecessary risk for a fraudster.
  - 6y ago

beart 6y ago

Who was running things in Jeff's absence?

traskjd 6y ago
There’s two CEOs below him. Andy Jassy for AWS and Jeff Wilkie for Amazon Retail.

whoevercares 6y ago

Buy Amazon. It’s seeing Black Friday traffic everyday and AWS can’t be feeling better then ever during this period

libria 6y ago
I think retail will be more consistent than AWS. IMO the economic impact to AWS is delayed a few months. Businesses are making personnel cuts now and will shore up ops costs by Q4 2020 if not sooner. From Q1 2021 it'll be hard to sell and onboard new service till the economy recovers.
- mcintyre1994 6y ago
  There’s also the apparently massive use of Azure, if the companies currently jumping in there are looking to do huge cloud spend in a few months I’m not sure AWS will be the winner there. Though maybe this is all a big enough market for them both to see massive growth, I’m definitely just speculating.

jhallenworld 6y ago

I have been ordering random things on eBay and Amazon- it turns out that right at this moment, eBay shipping is faster than Amazon Prime.

nostromo 6y ago
Ebay is decentralized which is much more scalable than Amazon's centralized approach. Similar to you, I've noticed things on Ebay ship and arrive very quickly. AliExpress is somehow still cheaper than Amazon for cheap things that don't need to be high quality or perfect. You just have to wait two weeks for it to arrive -- which isn't much different than the wait for Amazon currently.

ethagknight 6y ago

My theory: Prime, and its 2-day shipping service, is a flat rate deal, priced according to 10.5 normal months and 1.5 batshit crazy delivery months. Since they can't charge on a demand basis for shipping like FedEx can, they've run into an internal train wreck where they can't afford to deliver all the orders the've received. So their bottleneck is actually a bottleneck of budgeted "delivery slots" for these Spring months, which they've excused as being "due to essential items only, can't keep up with demand." I've noticed something that I found extremely curious: I've ordered several random things in the last month from Amazon, and all have been severely delayed. These are not surge items: drumsticks, a guitar wall hanger, and an APC ups. All were Prime items, and all have been severely delayed, waiting weeks now. I get it, they are 'focusing on essential items' and my guitars will be fine to wait a while longer. However... I have not noticed many Prime delivery vans out in the neighborhood. During the holidays, Prime vans are everywhere. Today, they are not. Last mile shipping is one of those businesses that gets gloriously efficient with scale. Bezos announced that 100,000 person hire a few weeks back, which I assumed would be rehiring their holiday surge subcontractors. But few vans on the streets today. Finally, what essential items does Amazon have in stock that is overtaking their delivery supply chain?

MattGaiser 6y ago
I have a friend at Amazon and they say absenteeism among employees is through the roof. They can neither hire nor keep the employees they do have.
- ethagknight 6y ago
  That would fall under the "they can't afford to deliver the orders they have" bucket if they can't find anyone that wants to do the proposed work. If true, Amazon is selling a service that isn't robust or flexible enough for such a season. Will be interesting to see how it shakes out.
  - ignoramous 6y ago
    > Will be interesting to see how it shakes out. Long term is probably a combination of autonomous robots, self-driving vehicles, and delivery drones. The current crisis might even accelerate its development and deployment.

fishingisfun 6y ago

i wonder where he shops for clothing

cwhiz 6y ago

I don’t know what is going on but their “essential items” excuse is totally bogus. There are no essential items in stock! Go try to buy toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap, etc. I can’t buy ANY of that and haven’t been able to for at least 4-6 weeks. And the “normal” products have shipping delays of 4+ weeks sometimes. And then other times, none. It seems totally random and nonsensical. I think they have serious labor issues that they are covering up. I’m just guessing here with absolutely no information. Just can’t make sense at what is going on.

noncoml 6y ago

Those who complain about Amazon should try eBay. I recently bought a relatively expensive item ($3k) that was being advertised as "New - Open box" one month old item. What I received was a 5 year old used item. Trying to return it was the most stressful online shopping experience I have ever had. One you open a return request, eBay gives the seller 5 working days to reply to your request. Seller took advantage of all 5. When I finally got a return label, the seller left the item waiting for pick up for 3 days, until finally picking it up. Once picked up, eBay gives seller another 5 working days to issue a refund. In the mean time there is no way to ask help from eBay. All they do is just close the case asking you to wait. So for a total of 3-4 weeks I have my money sitting in seller's PayPal account. At least with Amazon, retail* support is usually pretty good.

nolok 6y ago
... And eBay/Paypal won their era's fight because they offered the better experience compared to the others, they were considered the safe and reliable one. Early web shopping really was wild. And not the good kind.
- noncoml 6y ago
  And then came Amazon an roller-steam them all. And in my opinion it's because of their super buyer-friendly, stress free experience. Every time you would buy a book from them, and you were happy that they gave you the best possible price, they didn't give you hard time when the book was lost in the mail or you wanted to return it because the sent you the wrong book, or whatever, your trust in them would increase. Once you consumers trust you with buying A, selling them B, is just a matter of making it available through your store. I see a lot of online stores, operating the old way; with hidden discounts, dedicated seller-teams trying to sell stuff to you, pushing back when you want to return an item, etc. and can't help thinking how they are ever alive.
ObsoleteNerd 6y ago
I bought some N95 reusable children's masks from a reputable seller (5 digit feedback, 99.9% positive, all the "eBay verified/premium seller" crap)... 4 for $80. They ended up being BLATANTLY fake, basically 1mm craft foam cut out in the shape of a mask. I sent in macro photos and a full description demanding a refund, they said "nope, you opened them, they're used now". eBay sided with the seller. I've been on eBay since it first came to my country, I've bought/sold many hundreds of items, but eBay has noticeably become an utter mess in the last couple years, and their support is non-existent. I'll never use eBay again, for anything.

paxys 6y ago

The headline is pretty sensationalist. It's not like he is coming out of retirement. He is just updating his schedule to focus on immediate problems rather than longer term projects (like every other CEO in the world right now).

Florin_Andrei 6y ago
I mean, it's an all hands on deck, putting out fires, type of situation after all. So it makes sense for him to be more involved with the daily stuff.

Melting_Harps 6y ago

What a missed opportunity, Boeing is on its knees and shown it cannot compete with SpaceX, and Blue Origin has the best opportunity to displace SLS with New Glenn program once and for all. When else will you be able to kill a crony-Goliath like ULA, by their own incompetence no less, and gain the public's adoration for it as CEO? I get it, this is his golden goose and its undergoing huge stress and delays due to COVID; but for all the talk about why he got into tech and wanted to make Billions was essentially to get into Aerospace in the first place makes it seem like the vapid platitudes of Billionaire. I'm not surprised, just disappointed in Bezos. I guess we're going to have to live with ULA clogging up the system and spending billions more without producing results all while SpaceX is sending astronauts to ISS next month. I don't buy things from Amazon anymore, their supply chain optimization results in inhumane business practices, and despite having access to Prime I still prefer to stream shows on it elsewhere. The quality looks equally mediocre in comparison to Netflix on a 4k screen anyway.

shaklee3 6y ago
SpaceX isn't turning a profit, though, especially since the number of launched has been dropping precipitously in the last couple of years. Bezos is smart enough to know that there's no rush in this.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago
  What? SpaceX has increased its manifest dramatically over the years, Starlink missions put it way over its previous highs, and 2020 is their record breaking year: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/12/spacex-record-breaking-2020-manifest/ https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/12/spacex-record-breaki... You cannot know if SpaceX operates at a profit or not, its a private company and funding is most certainly not an issue, so of course Cap-Ex isn't reigned in when you now have definitive domestic market share for resupply missions to ISS and US Military contracts, as well as a long wait-list for international customers as well fleshing out your future forms of revenue with Starlink and Starship (already in its 5th iteration in just 7 months!) missions and several Factories churning rockets and engines 24/7. I've seen it with my own eyes, and stood inches away from several prototype raptor engines all over the place. As awesome as Starship SN2 was, I really got my highest fanboy feeling looking at it.

blairanderson 6y ago

One of my client sells medical devices on amazon. They sold out their entire 2020 forecast by mid April. Amazon warehouses also got a little humility and flexibility towards warehouse workers. The shipping demands are real.

OrgNet 6y ago

Anyone else noticed that Amazon started to charge different prices to different users in the last year?

johnrgrace 6y ago

Jeff being back to day to day will make a difference. Ex-amazonian, I've seen a lot of people go work for them recently and more than a few are B, and at least one a C level players. OP1/OP2 presentations in front of Jeff will make a difference.

ChuckMcM 6y ago

This of course means someone who used to be doing day to day management is no longer in that role.