4 ms·

He earned it? And what about all the people who work and worked at Amazon and built all of it?

eloff 6y ago
Yes he did, he took the risks, not them. He quit his high paying job and risked his financial future by opting to start Amazon. He sacrificed endless amounts of free time and sanity to build an empire. That's why he owns a large piece of it. You could argue that maybe the employees should have a greater share in the company, and that could be correct. Many of the early employees no doubt did. But at the end of the day, they choose to work at Amazon over somewhere else. But they didn't take the risk, if it hadn't worked out they would've moved on to the next thing without batting an eye. A good economic system must reward successful risk taking, otherwise nobody would do it, and nobody would have jobs. Whether it needs to reward it this much is another question entirely. We do have a mechanism for redistributing wealth to maintain to a fair society, called taxes. It just doesn't work at all if you don't earn income, but instead accumulate wealth via capital growth like Jeff Bezos. Some countries have a small tax on wealth, e.g. 0.5% of total wealth, per year. I'm not sure how well that works.
- dingaling 6y ago
  > if it hadn't worked out they would've moved on to the next thing without batting an eye. As would Mr Bezos; that's the point of a limited-liability corporation, he's only liable for the amount of money that he invested.
TbobbyZ 6y ago
What about them? They signed a contract when choosing to work for Amazon. They can negotiate their compensation before signing. They can renegotiate after signing. If they don’t like what Amazon offers, they can go somewhere else. It boggles my mind how much credit is given to the workers when it was Bezos who: knew how to hire the right people, started the company, provided the compensation and benefits, and has taken on the most risk.
- eloff 6y ago
  Well, he might have taken the most risk, but let's be real, it was everyone else who did the work. The CEO is the one who makes the most important/difficult/risky decisions and the company's fortunes rise or fall depending on how good is his or her judgement. That's called leverage. That's why CEOs and founders are so highly compensated, they can earn their entire paycheck with one good decision. Funnily enough they don't always personally lose if they make bad decisions at the helm.
  - TbobbyZ 6y ago
    I don’t understand the value of your first sentence. It’s obvious Bezos didn’t build it by himself. No one who believes in capitalism believes that.
    - TremendousJudge 6y ago
      yet you think the workers are getting "too much credit"?
- TremendousJudge 6y ago
  First of all, many (most) of the people who work at Amazon are not engineers or managers in a position to "negotiate", and don't have "somewhere else" to go to work and get the money they need to eat. They cannot "renegotiate after signing", which in these situations is something traditionally done via worker unions, which Bezos has worked very, very hard to disable. Second, without the workers who, according to you, don't deserve any credit, Amazon (the entire thing) wouldn't exist. These "right people" Bezos hired were workers, and hiring them is not what built the company. "Starting a company" is not exactly hard work. And he didn't personally provide the compensation and benefits out of his own pocket (besides the first 300K "from Jeff Bezos and his family" according to Quora), it was always investors' money, or the money generated by Amazon itself (who was running thanks to these people being compensated). None of these things are usually talked about, it's just Bezos and Amazon on the news. Do you really think that "the workers" are getting too much credit, when they never get none?

Yes he did, he took the risks, not them. He quit his high paying job and risked his financial future by opting to start Amazon. He sacrificed endless amounts of free time and sanity to build an empire. That's why he owns a large piece of it. You could argue that maybe the employees should have a greater share in the company, and that could be correct. Many of the early employees no doubt did. But at the end of the day, they choose to work at Amazon over somewhere else. But they didn't take the risk, if it hadn't worked out they would've moved on to the next thing without batting an eye. A good economic system must reward successful risk taking, otherwise nobody would do it, and nobody would have jobs. Whether it needs to reward it this much is another question entirely. We do have a mechanism for redistributing wealth to maintain to a fair society, called taxes. It just doesn't work at all if you don't earn income, but instead accumulate wealth via capital growth like Jeff Bezos. Some countries have a small tax on wealth, e.g. 0.5% of total wealth, per year. I'm not sure how well that works.

dingaling 6y ago
> if it hadn't worked out they would've moved on to the next thing without batting an eye. As would Mr Bezos; that's the point of a limited-liability corporation, he's only liable for the amount of money that he invested.

TbobbyZ 6y ago

What about them? They signed a contract when choosing to work for Amazon. They can negotiate their compensation before signing. They can renegotiate after signing. If they don’t like what Amazon offers, they can go somewhere else. It boggles my mind how much credit is given to the workers when it was Bezos who: knew how to hire the right people, started the company, provided the compensation and benefits, and has taken on the most risk.

eloff 6y ago
Well, he might have taken the most risk, but let's be real, it was everyone else who did the work. The CEO is the one who makes the most important/difficult/risky decisions and the company's fortunes rise or fall depending on how good is his or her judgement. That's called leverage. That's why CEOs and founders are so highly compensated, they can earn their entire paycheck with one good decision. Funnily enough they don't always personally lose if they make bad decisions at the helm.
- TbobbyZ 6y ago
  I don’t understand the value of your first sentence. It’s obvious Bezos didn’t build it by himself. No one who believes in capitalism believes that.
  - TremendousJudge 6y ago
    yet you think the workers are getting "too much credit"?
TremendousJudge 6y ago
First of all, many (most) of the people who work at Amazon are not engineers or managers in a position to "negotiate", and don't have "somewhere else" to go to work and get the money they need to eat. They cannot "renegotiate after signing", which in these situations is something traditionally done via worker unions, which Bezos has worked very, very hard to disable. Second, without the workers who, according to you, don't deserve any credit, Amazon (the entire thing) wouldn't exist. These "right people" Bezos hired were workers, and hiring them is not what built the company. "Starting a company" is not exactly hard work. And he didn't personally provide the compensation and benefits out of his own pocket (besides the first 300K "from Jeff Bezos and his family" according to Quora), it was always investors' money, or the money generated by Amazon itself (who was running thanks to these people being compensated). None of these things are usually talked about, it's just Bezos and Amazon on the news. Do you really think that "the workers" are getting too much credit, when they never get none?