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I agree with all of these statements. JK IMHO set their e-commerce business back 3 years at least. He was the champion of a horrific monolith that was delivered
by kevstev 6y ago
I agree with all of these statements. JK IMHO set their e-commerce business back 3 years at least. He was the champion of a horrific monolith that was delivered years late.
Not quite sure what you are referring to in terms of making changes that would make e-commerce unprofitable for a long time.
Your last point I agree with as well- I often felt they were far too conservative- mid-upper management was often overpaid for their ability and thus it was in their best interest to not rock the boat too much and protect their fiefdoms and thus their jobs.
- thrwywmt 6y agoRE: eCommerce unprofitable comment At a crude level: To compete with Amazon means running eCommerce at a loss just like Amazon do. AWS subsidizes Amazon eCommerce, brick-and-mortar subsidizes Walmart eCommerce. It is more nuanced than that of course but at a high level that is a big challenge to profit. RE: JK. He surrounded himself with a handful of smart technical VPs and lots of dumb ones that he held close. The good ones eventually left and the dumb ones stayed. The replacements were a mixed bag. The tension between JK and the more successful business and technical unit (mobile) siloed under a rival executive was healthy for a while then when the axe fell on mobile, it was a disaster - lost a lot of good people.
- kevstev 6y agoHeh I had almost forgotten about "mobile" and that tension. My focus was always on fighting against Pangaea, which was related, but when they folded mobile I found it to be a reasonable decision- the time had past where having a separate org just for mobile apps didn't make sense in a responsive world. I just checked and there is still a "mobile alumni" group on FB, though it hasn't been active in 2 years.