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I understand capitalism, but I appreciate the effort. Someone reading might not understand the basics. Jeff Bezos finds $1 billion every year to pour into Blue

by Kye 6y ago

I understand capitalism, but I appreciate the effort. Someone reading might not understand the basics. Jeff Bezos finds $1 billion every year to pour into Blue Origin. He said in an interview that he couldn't think of anything to do with his money other than rockets. I assume this is from his scheduled stock sales, but it's liquid nonetheless and Amazon's stock price survives. 1 billion a year split over his ~650k employees is about $1500 a year. This would be a life-changing amount for a lot of those employees. I made big changes on less and set the stage for even more. Amazon has so captured the market that most of it would come back to him anyway, but it ensures some of it flows through the bottom. And it would get people off his ass about it. Win-win.

sokoloff 6y ago
I can pretty much stake my life on a substantial part of the outcome of that being “why did he only do $1BB?! He’s the world’s richest man (that we can count anyway); he could have easily doubled that and given all his employees an extra $3000!”
lotsofpulp 6y ago
That $1B into Blue Origin is also paying other people. I also think very few people in the US would be able to make life changing decisions with $1,500, but that’s conjecture and neither here nor there. The point is the solution is legislation affecting all businesses. It’s a waste of resources to focus on individual businesses. Also, I’m not sure which market Amazon has captured. A quick search shows share of online retail revenue at 25% to 35%, and only 6% of all retail. If Amazon ceased operations today, it would be trivial to switch to Walmart/Target/Bestbuy/Costco/Alibaba/eBay/Home Depot/Lowes. Shipping times might suffer for a little bit while the logistics get reallocated, but there’s no moat around Amazon’s retail website or warehouses.
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  > I also think very few people in the US would be able to make life changing decisions with $1,500, but that’s conjecture and neither here nor there. Americans have just received $1200-$2400 in coronavirus stimulus checks, and so we can look at the outcomes and see if it changed their lives. As it happened, it mostly went to reduce debt and into savings. Helpful, but not life changing.

by Kye 6y ago

sokoloff 6y ago

I can pretty much stake my life on a substantial part of the outcome of that being “why did he only do $1BB?! He’s the world’s richest man (that we can count anyway); he could have easily doubled that and given all his employees an extra $3000!”

lotsofpulp 6y ago

That $1B into Blue Origin is also paying other people. I also think very few people in the US would be able to make life changing decisions with $1,500, but that’s conjecture and neither here nor there. The point is the solution is legislation affecting all businesses. It’s a waste of resources to focus on individual businesses. Also, I’m not sure which market Amazon has captured. A quick search shows share of online retail revenue at 25% to 35%, and only 6% of all retail. If Amazon ceased operations today, it would be trivial to switch to Walmart/Target/Bestbuy/Costco/Alibaba/eBay/Home Depot/Lowes. Shipping times might suffer for a little bit while the logistics get reallocated, but there’s no moat around Amazon’s retail website or warehouses.

xyzzyz 6y ago
> I also think very few people in the US would be able to make life changing decisions with $1,500, but that’s conjecture and neither here nor there. Americans have just received $1200-$2400 in coronavirus stimulus checks, and so we can look at the outcomes and see if it changed their lives. As it happened, it mostly went to reduce debt and into savings. Helpful, but not life changing.