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A conversation with Shel Kaphan, Amazon’s first employee (2016)
- guiambros 6y agoFor those interested, I just watched the excellent PBS Documentary "Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos". Available for free [1], and Shel Kaphan is one of the several former and current employees interviewed by the Frontline investigative reporters. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVVfJVj5z8s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVVfJVj5z8s
- headmelted 6y agoSpeaking as someone not from the States, do folks over there generally realise how exceptionally good of a resource PBS is? Been watching SpaceTime with Matt O’Dowd with my kids and it’s utterly terrific.
- s5300 6y agoNo. They don't. As a matter of fact, the U.S. (of which I'm a citizen) has a singular entity to thank for the fact PBS is here today. https://youtu.be/fKy7ljRr0AA https://youtu.be/fKy7ljRr0AA And, to add some insult, one of our two leading political parties is currently making fun of that entity. Things are great over here.
- petemc_ 6y agoSecond this, eons is also amazing.
- Rebelgecko 6y agoAnother one of the early Amazon employees (I think he was #3 or 4?) has talked about his experiences a bit in comments here on HN but I unfortunately don't remember his account name. It's interesting to see what early employees think of what Amazon has become, and their current relations (or lack thereof)with Jeff Bezos
- kornish 6y agoYou may be thinking of this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23423955 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23423955
- fractionalhare 6y agoYep - that commenter is Paul Davis, the same person mentioned in this article. He was the second employee.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y agoYo yo yo.
- kuharich 6y agoPast comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12437322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12437322
- saltedonion 6y agoIs there an audio version of this article? Seems like it was an interview?
- a1pulley 6y agoApparently Shel didn't negotiate "founder's stock." This excerpt is from [1]: So, you are kind of the forgotten founder? Most people think of Jeff Bezos as the creator of the company. “In fact, to be completely technically true about it, he is the founder. But I was talking to him about joining him on the venture before the company was incorporated. He basically was just arriving from the East Coast and setting up his house when I moved up from California. All that existed of Amazon was on paper at that point. Jeff was working on it full-time already, and his wife, Mackenzie, was writing checks every once in a while. But that was it. I didn’t get founder’s stock. It didn’t seem worth the argument at the time, although I kind of felt like, well, you know, I mean I was there at the beginning. And it was all going to work out the same way, one way or the other, regardless of the technicalities. And it just didn’t seem like something that I wanted to make a big deal about at the time.” [1] https://www.geekwire.com/2011/meet-shel-kaphan-amazoncom-employee-1/ https://www.geekwire.com/2011/meet-shel-kaphan-amazoncom-emp...
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y agoIt seems that being employee #1 is a sucker of a deal with a lot of the same downsides as being a founder without the huge upside of being a founder.
- juskrey 6y agoEmployee does not take any risk. He says in the interview he was working with number of failing startups before. They failed, but they've paid his fixed project or hourly salary nevertheless. Moreover, many of those people are willing to hire someone good who is available for temporary jobs, and hence paying very competitive rates, at the same time surviving on canned tuna themselves. I've been #1 techie in many failed protects. Not depending how you think about that business ideas and personalities behind them, all those people should be highly respected for putting their neck on the line.
- deanCommie 6y agoThat's a very absolutist view of risk. A founder may only be investing an amount in the venture that does not affect their own quality of life. They could have other wealth or means, and losing the entire investment would not be catastrophic. They might have a personal runway of several years before they have to give up and get a day job. Meanwhile, the early employee at a startup is far from without risk themselves. They are almost certainly not well paid (until the last decade of multi-Billion-dollar Unicorns, startups were NEVER known to pay well). They are also likely not making meaningful savings or even eating into them in the hope of hitting it big. They are almost certainly sacrificing a substantial part of their personal life just as the founder is, risking personal relationships and health.
- kirillzubovsky 6y agoIf you like that, check out this interview with Amazon’s second employee too. Lots of early startup lessons in there. https://www.raddadshow.com/episode/paul-davis https://www.raddadshow.com/episode/paul-davis
- ignoramous 6y ago> Lots of early startup lessons in there. If you'd please highlight some excerpts?
- kirillzubovsky 6y agoHeh. I will. The biggest irony is that I started Smash Notes to pull out excerpts from podcasts, but haven't gotten to this one yet. Take a look tomorrow night. I'll pick out a few juiciest bits by then.
- peterfield 6y ago+1 Interested. I have been using Ardour and JACK and lot - which are Paul Davis' creation - amzing tools.
- kirillzubovsky 6y agoHe talks about the software and how it’s taken him years to get traction and any real money from it, but now a decade later it’s doing quite well. This last year has doubled their sales as people were stuck at home!
- raldi 6y agoI'm confused about the part where Bezos was considering Washington and Nevada because he was looking for a state with no sales tax. As far as I can google, both of those states have had a substantial sales tax for many decades — Washington's is one of the highest in the country! What am I missing?
- eastdakota 6y agoWas about where consumer base/population was. In Amazon’s early years, you only paid taxes in state where you were located. If they’d setup shop in CA then they’d pay sales tax on all shipments to CA (~20% of early sales). By setting up outside CA/NY (their two earliest markets) they’d have a competitive pricing advantage over any competitors set up in either. Arguably, this regulatory “loophole” gave Amazon a huge head start. Think the article confuses sales and income/capital gains tax. Being in a small market was an advantage from a sales tax perspective. Being in WA or NV was advantage from income/capital gains tax perspective. The latter gave Amazon an advantage in hiring. And, later when successful, allowed Jeff and early employees to realize more wealth from their stock/options. Nevada, on both fronts, would have been as much of more efficient. But, I’m guessing, the difficulty of recruiting great technical talent (which was needed in the early days of Internet ecommerce) would have swamped those advantages.
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- vinhboy 6y agoWhat kind of person flies across the country to meet complete strangers, then ask those strangers to move with them to another state to start a business in a completely new frontier. What's like the percentage of people who takes on that kind of wild Hail Mary pass and win it all? Also I am curious, as single-track minded Software Engineers, how do we protect ourselves from the super smart and super driven Bezos of the world? And I don't mean that in a negative way. I am genuinely curious how we can stay competitive when we're working with that type of personality.
- switch11 6y agoyou can't software engineers are not very socially adept and can't read people who are predatory it's even worse with 'save the world' type software engineers * the only thing you can do is make sure you get some stock even then most predatory business side founders will make adjustments (the way Zuckerberg did) to take most of the stock for themselves also percentage of people who win taking that kind of Wild Hail MAry pass every startup is a wild Hail Mary pass So you will get some really crazy 'starting scenarios' Talk to anyone who started a successful company. There were always moments where chances of success went to 0.0001% and apart from the founder/founders/ a few employees who drank the Kool Aid, no one else thought there was any chance left
- vasco 6y ago> software engineers are not very socially adept and can't read people who are predatory There's no need to project this onto all software engineers, it works for a joke in big bang theory but even there they needed canned laughter.
- exdsq 6y agoZuckerberg was a developer which kind of breaks this argument...
- sokoloff 6y agoI’ll take on faith you don’t mean it negatively, but then what does it even mean to protect ourselves from the Bezos of the world? He offers you a role and terms: you take it, you don’t, or you counter. That process converges on you working there or not. I don’t worship at the altar of Bezos (though I have overall respect for him and his accomplishments), but I don’t see anything beyond my ability to say no that’s needed to protect myself.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- abhinav22 6y agoI am a mid-senior level employee at a non-tech semi startup. It sucks. The founder wants everybody to work at his pace, and since he’s your boss, you have to mostly. There isn’t much growth for pay increases or promotions since it’s not a large company, and job security isn’t the best because it’s a semi startup. And since the founder is paying you directly from his pockets, he really wants to extract a full pound of flesh for every dollar he gives you. He promised a few of the more senior employees a cut if we got external money, but when we got that, he didn’t give it to them and they both left to form their own company. Working in a small startup style company without negotiating a cut of the ownership via shares, is being a sucker - you do 80% of the work & intensity for the owner and are left with not much if it takes off, unless you can find a good enough company that promotes you as it grows larger, and not just replace you because they can afford somebody with more credentials. Some people may come back and say not to join such companies but pick wiser, but the harsh reality is that most of these startups founders are narcissistic and would sell you out for a dollar. This is a just a warning and insight to anyone thinking of joining these companies. For me, I can’t wait until the pandemic ends and I can find a better job elsewhere.
- yowlingcat 6y ago> Some people may come back and say not to join such companies but pick wiser, but the harsh reality is that most of these startups founders are narcissistic and would sell you out for a dollar. That may be the case but there is a world of difference between what you are describing and every hypergrowth Series B+ company with reputable top tier VCs I've worked at. Maybe part of the problem is the "non-tech semi startup" part -- tech startups, while still having founders who "would sell you out for a dollar" must nonetheless participate in a labor market which is biased in their counterparty's favor. Why is this the case? The counterparty can work at a FAANG/newly public company, a quant fund/finance, and so there are bidders from multiple industries who want the top tier talent. Are you a technical employee or a non-technical employee? If the latter, have you considered making a transition towards working in a tech startup for better mobility, if you want to work in startups at all? I have run into all kinds of shenanigans in my tech startup employee days, but the general quality of life at the good companies was the best I've ever had.
- deepGem 6y agoAt the time I thought, “Okay, I’m going to be building this website to run a bookstore and I haven’t done that before but it doesn’t sound so hard. When I’m done with that I’m not sure what I’ll do.” Love this attitude. As flippant as it seems, the statement speaks volumes about confidence and the ability to venture into unknown areas. Skills often overlooked while hiring.
- hobby-coder-guy 6y agoWhat volumes does it speak?