6 ms·
Not to be difficult, but how many of those were invented in the past 27 years? Bell Labs is (barely even) a shadow of its former self. If you want to read a gr
by sib 6y ago
Not to be difficult, but how many of those were invented in the past 27 years? Bell Labs is (barely even) a shadow of its former self.
If you want to read a great book about when Bell Labs was really Bell Labs:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005GSZIWG/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005GSZIWG/
- vvanpo 6y agoJeff said > I don’t know of another company He didn't say contemporary company.
- denysvitali 6y agoWell, maybe he is right, he might not be aware of Bell Labs or he might have forgot about it before typing that email
- pwinnski 6y agoOr, and hear me out here, he might have lied. It's funny how many people on this page are having trouble acknowledging that this is a prevaricating puff piece. He wants to tell a story of his success, and leave in a way that doesn't tank the stock. So he lies a bit about the origin of the company, lies a bit more about their accomplishments, and so on.
- denysvitali 6y agoI should have added a /s I'm not protecting him, this is more like a PR stunt rather than a letter to his employees. Given the history, I can safely say that he might not care _that much_ as shown in this open letter
- arp242 6y agoThere are quite a few caveats with all of the items he lists: > We pioneered customer reviews, 1-Click, personalized recommendations, Prime’s insanely-fast shipping, Just Walk Out shopping, the Climate Pledge, Kindle, Alexa, marketplace, infrastructure cloud computing, Career Choice, and much more. 1-click was hardly an "invention" IMO, the Kindle was "just another e-book reader" (arguably the best, but they did not "invent" the concept), Alexa is a Siri clone, and so forth. Only "infrastructure cloud computing" is something there Amazon really took the lead and invented stuff. Not a small thing, but also hardly worthy of the bold claim in the article. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Sun, and many other companies seem to have done more invention than Amazon.
- cachvico 6y agoIndeed, 1-click remains the most egregious land grab of the web yet. "I'm going to patent shopping".
- garyrob 6y agoThey did NOT pioneer personalized recommendations. Believe me, I know, because out-of-the-blue I got a phone call from Jeff Bezos back in the day, who was interested in my pre-existing recommendation technology. They didn't have any. In the end they got it from a company called Net Perceptions. Eventually they built their own, but the technology was firmly established all over the place by then.
- goatinaboat 6y agoOnly "infrastructure cloud computing" is something there Amazon really took the lead and invented stuff. Not a small thing, but also hardly worthy of the bold claim in the article. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Sun, and many other companies seem to have done more invention than Amazon. Amazon’s secret sauce is in their operational efficiencies and logistics. AWS is great but utility computing conceptually it’s a mainframe bureau from the 1970s.
- rob74 6y ago> 1-click was hardly an "invention" IMO Well, it is according to the US Patent Office (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click#Patent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click#Patent), and unfortunately that's the only opinion that counts in this case (at least as far as the US is concerned)
- newswasboring 6y agoI think we should not discount "Prime's insanely fast shipping". That is an amalgamation of several innovations and has truly changed the world. Of course, all this if Amazon has actually invented that and I am not just misinformed.
- oldgradstudent 6y ago> truly changed the world. Some parts of the continental United States, mostly in large coastal cities.
- getlawgdon 6y agoBezons didn't say "recently." He said he didn't know of another." That includes any/all. And it is bloviation.