4 ms·

That does tell us something about the corporate structure though - whilst a lot of people think AWS would be better off being spun out, there's no way you hire

That does tell us something about the corporate structure though - whilst a lot of people think AWS would be better off being spun out, there's no way you hire the head of AWS as CEO of Amazon if you think that's the direction forward.

hrktb 6y ago
My mental image is that people want to spin off AWS for society’s benefits because Amazon grew too big and abuses the integration. Amazon squarely resisting this idea seems uncontroversal.
- airstrike 6y ago
  People argue companies like Walmart don't want to pay their rival Amazon for cloud hosting, but the truth is if AWS is the best cloud provider, it makes business sense to go with them
  - echelon 6y ago
    They can pay Microsoft.
    - hrktb 6y ago
      They do, as far as I know Microsoft has a pretty good hold on retail. Some go with GCP but Google is less “enterprisy” for their taste in a lot of ways.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Alupis 6y ago
    At the scale Walmart operates - 25th largest GDP in the world if considered as a nation[1], supporting over 2.2 Million employees[2], in over 27 countries[3] - it's simply more cost effective to do your tech in-house. Amazon is huge... but Walmart is truly massive... over double Amazon's size in just about every metric. They clearly have the resources to handle things on their own. [1] https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=034072126078025082000101009018110011042074022060000048106031112022115073078031068005055121001048121008111067082118030001026082122036021019014122114025103092002019003105087117003006102025105121013117126120031096095099079007084023115082014083069&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=0340721260780250... [2] https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/company-facts#:~:text=Opportunity-,Walmart%20employs%20more%20than%202.2%20million%20associates%20around%20the%20world,higher%20pay%20in%20Walmart%20U.S https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/company-facts#:~:text.... [3] https://corporate.walmart.com/askwalmart/in-which-countries-does-walmart-operate#:~:text=Today%2C%20Walmart%20operates%20more%20than,eCommerce%20websites%20in%2010%20countries https://corporate.walmart.com/askwalmart/in-which-countries-....
    - ac29 6y ago
      See, for example, Walmart Labs: https://careers.walmart.com/technology/technology-software-development/walmart-labs https://careers.walmart.com/technology/technology-software-d... (6000 employees in 2018, per wikipedia)
    - airstrike 6y ago
      It's a matter of corporate strategy... Amazon is like a combination of different entities, one of which is AWS, and AWS arguably does cloud better than anyone else Walmart doesn't have the same capabilities. Being larger doesn't mean they can do it.
    - dreamer7 6y ago
      Yet, Walmart seems to rely on GCP and Azure for atleast some of their cloud requirements
  - allanmacgregor 6y ago
    Been part of some of those conversations, some companies are wary of hosting with Amazon not due to paying their competitor but due to the amount of power they are putting on a direct competitor hands.
  - hrktb 6y ago
    Was in the industry for a stint, and the issue was not only about money going to Amazon. There was a serious fear for their usage data to be used as a window into their business (if not fear of more illegal and unethical access to their data) The case of Amazon using internal market place data to guide their own product strategy has already been made over and over, so the precedent exists.
    - iamacyborg 6y ago
      It does for marketplace but no aws as far as I know. Still makes sense that folks would be skeptical though.
simonebrunozzi 6y ago
It buys you time. You tell the antitrust: give us a few more months, we'll find a new CEO and then spin out the company. IMHO.
- granzymes 6y ago
  Has the government filed an antitrust suit against Amazon? It could take half a decade to go from filing to a (potential) final appeal at the Supreme Court.
onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
AWS is arguably worth more than Amazon.com - so it might be that AWS is going to spin out the website instead of the other way around.
paxys 6y ago
Antitrust aside, has there ever been a business reason to split up Amazon? I doubt anyone inside the company ever took that talk seriously.
- baskire 6y ago
  the market caps of each department spun out is likely greater than the current market cap of Amazon today. That is assuming the companies would all be as successful being spun out.
  - sobani 6y ago
    In a way that's the case with every company. Each part is more valuable on it's own, unless it's more valuable together with another part. :P btw, it looks like you have some sort of shadowban. I don't see any terrible comments among your last 20 or so, so you might want to ask @dang if he can look into your case.
    - newswasboring 6y ago
      Why do you say this person is under shadow ban? As far as I know if they are in shadowban only they can see their comments?
- dillondoyle 6y ago
  Their fast growing ad network can be seen as a conflict worth splitting out. Probably similar or maybe even clearer than Google since more people understand a store selling their own products than Google owning every single step (with huge non transparent and evidently according to TX colluded margins) in the ad transaction, in addition to all the user data, and their own products.

hrktb 6y ago

My mental image is that people want to spin off AWS for society’s benefits because Amazon grew too big and abuses the integration. Amazon squarely resisting this idea seems uncontroversal.

airstrike 6y ago
People argue companies like Walmart don't want to pay their rival Amazon for cloud hosting, but the truth is if AWS is the best cloud provider, it makes business sense to go with them
- echelon 6y ago
  They can pay Microsoft.
  - hrktb 6y ago
    They do, as far as I know Microsoft has a pretty good hold on retail. Some go with GCP but Google is less “enterprisy” for their taste in a lot of ways.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Alupis 6y ago
  At the scale Walmart operates - 25th largest GDP in the world if considered as a nation[1], supporting over 2.2 Million employees[2], in over 27 countries[3] - it's simply more cost effective to do your tech in-house. Amazon is huge... but Walmart is truly massive... over double Amazon's size in just about every metric. They clearly have the resources to handle things on their own. [1] https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=034072126078025082000101009018110011042074022060000048106031112022115073078031068005055121001048121008111067082118030001026082122036021019014122114025103092002019003105087117003006102025105121013117126120031096095099079007084023115082014083069&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=0340721260780250... [2] https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/company-facts#:~:text=Opportunity-,Walmart%20employs%20more%20than%202.2%20million%20associates%20around%20the%20world,higher%20pay%20in%20Walmart%20U.S https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/company-facts#:~:text.... [3] https://corporate.walmart.com/askwalmart/in-which-countries-does-walmart-operate#:~:text=Today%2C%20Walmart%20operates%20more%20than,eCommerce%20websites%20in%2010%20countries https://corporate.walmart.com/askwalmart/in-which-countries-....
  - ac29 6y ago
    See, for example, Walmart Labs: https://careers.walmart.com/technology/technology-software-development/walmart-labs https://careers.walmart.com/technology/technology-software-d... (6000 employees in 2018, per wikipedia)
  - airstrike 6y ago
    It's a matter of corporate strategy... Amazon is like a combination of different entities, one of which is AWS, and AWS arguably does cloud better than anyone else Walmart doesn't have the same capabilities. Being larger doesn't mean they can do it.
  - dreamer7 6y ago
    Yet, Walmart seems to rely on GCP and Azure for atleast some of their cloud requirements
- allanmacgregor 6y ago
  Been part of some of those conversations, some companies are wary of hosting with Amazon not due to paying their competitor but due to the amount of power they are putting on a direct competitor hands.
- hrktb 6y ago
  Was in the industry for a stint, and the issue was not only about money going to Amazon. There was a serious fear for their usage data to be used as a window into their business (if not fear of more illegal and unethical access to their data) The case of Amazon using internal market place data to guide their own product strategy has already been made over and over, so the precedent exists.
  - iamacyborg 6y ago
    It does for marketplace but no aws as far as I know. Still makes sense that folks would be skeptical though.

simonebrunozzi 6y ago

It buys you time. You tell the antitrust: give us a few more months, we'll find a new CEO and then spin out the company. IMHO.

granzymes 6y ago
Has the government filed an antitrust suit against Amazon? It could take half a decade to go from filing to a (potential) final appeal at the Supreme Court.

onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago

AWS is arguably worth more than Amazon.com - so it might be that AWS is going to spin out the website instead of the other way around.

paxys 6y ago

Antitrust aside, has there ever been a business reason to split up Amazon? I doubt anyone inside the company ever took that talk seriously.

baskire 6y ago
the market caps of each department spun out is likely greater than the current market cap of Amazon today. That is assuming the companies would all be as successful being spun out.
- sobani 6y ago
  In a way that's the case with every company. Each part is more valuable on it's own, unless it's more valuable together with another part. :P btw, it looks like you have some sort of shadowban. I don't see any terrible comments among your last 20 or so, so you might want to ask @dang if he can look into your case.
  - newswasboring 6y ago
    Why do you say this person is under shadow ban? As far as I know if they are in shadowban only they can see their comments?
dillondoyle 6y ago
Their fast growing ad network can be seen as a conflict worth splitting out. Probably similar or maybe even clearer than Google since more people understand a store selling their own products than Google owning every single step (with huge non transparent and evidently according to TX colluded margins) in the ad transaction, in addition to all the user data, and their own products.