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Amazon 2020 Letter to Shareholders

131 points by thomasjudge 6y ago

nceqs3 6y ago
50M more prime members this year
- 1-6 6y ago
  After a while, you'll realize that it's not bad cancelling Prime membership and just adding the required minimum amount to cart to get free shipping. I've done that for over a year and the only membership I pay for now is Costco.
paulcole 6y ago
> let’s value the time savings at $10 per hour, which is conservative I’ll never understand this. Unless your time can be directly traded for money, it has no monetary value. I think it’s just a trick people use to talk themselves into spending money. So, in the context of this rah-rah Amazon email, maybe I do get it.
- infinityplus1 6y ago
  Opportunity cost can be a big thing. You could be working for money instead of doing something which doesn't increase your wealth.
  - dazc 6y ago
    Like driving around from store to store comparing products and, often, not even coming back with what you went looking for...
    - eplanit 6y ago
      It's amazing that now a whole generation has not had that experience (at least to a far, far lesser degree), and probably doesn't realize that that's how it was.
      - xyzzy123 6y ago
        There are some distinct but comparable Internet shopping experiences. Every so often I think about buying some thingy or other, then get lost in a rabbit hole comparing all the options and sifting through fake reviews. Sometimes I'll "come to", having wasted 45 minutes, close all the tabs, realising I never actually needed the thing anyway.
  - benjaminjosephw 6y ago
    Using money as a way to evaluate the worth of how you spend your time carries a huge set of biases with it. Should I put a monetary value on playing with my kids so I can justify it against making an extra sales call? As a metaphor an "opportunity costs" is helpful for thinking about the value of time but it becomes an ideology in itself if you take it literally.
    - xyzelement 6y ago
      > Should I put a monetary value on playing with my kids so I can justify it against making an extra sales call? I think we do that implicitly. You would probably love to play with your kid all day but you chose to make some sales calls so you have money to support the family. But you don't make all the sales calls you could make so that you have family time. So while sure we don't put a monetary number on our hours explicitly, we do have points at which selling our time is and isn't worth it.
  - paulcole 6y ago
    Most people can’t trade one hour of the time when they’re not working for $10.
  - mikepurvis 6y ago
    Could you, though? Even gig work at $10/hr is not exactly something most people are set up to just opt into for the tiny slices of their day that would otherwise be "trip to grocery store." I agree that the convenience of Amazon does create value for customers and that it makes sense to try to quantify that somehow; otoh that convenience also manifests negatively in things like unneeded purchases and comparison shopping paralysis. So I think the math on it is indeed a bit suspect.
    - gowld 6y ago
      Why take a trip to the grocery store for yourself, when you can shop for someone else, to make $10 that you can use to pay someone else to shop for you?
      - mikepurvis 6y ago
        Or the other side of it, which is to see shopping as an experience and part of life, rather than something purely transactional where you pay money and receive goods. Though I suppose as big box and discount retail has eaten the lunch of specialty stores, malls, and so on, many of those other benefits (discovery, browsing a curated selection of products, trying things out/on, conversing with a knowledgeable salesperson, etc) have faded somewhat. But on the far end of all this, I'd expect the only brick & mortar stores who are going to "make it" against online retail will be those who can not just promise and deliver on these extras, but also persuade their customers that the extras are worth paying for, whether that's via higher prices, a direct patronage model, or the ability to offer an exclusive paid product not available online.
- cmeacham98 6y ago
  > Unless your time can be directly traded for money I believe the common name for this transaction is "work".
  - paulcole 6y ago
    Yes, but the overwhelming majority of people have a work schedule. I can’t trade my time at 7PM for $10 unless I want to find a second job.
    - de_keyboard 6y ago
      Work is not perfectly elastic but time is still by and large tradeable for money. Maybe get on Uber?
      - Supermancho 6y ago
        > Work is not perfectly elastic but time is still by and large tradeable for money. Specific results are tradeable for money. I get paid far too much for what I do most of the time, with small windows of specialized action that justifies the waste. It's sloth and inefficacy (due to an inability to measure efficacy) that makes it look like time for money, when it's largely an accounting trick that is more like a payment schedule than a time-for-money.
  - staz 6y ago
    Very few people can choose directly to work more or less to gain accordingly. Even freelancer may have some leeway but it's quite limited.
    - tfehring 6y ago
      It’s harder when you’re salaried, but in service sector jobs the success rate from asking your manager for more or fewer hours is usually pretty decent IME. Less so if you’re asking for OT but only because that’s more expensive.
- busymom0 6y ago
  Successful busy people do value time for money. Elon Musk for example. He has very less free time with running multiple business and having so many kids. Would you want in an hour long line outside McDonald’s for example if they offered a free burger? If yes, then it means you think your time is worth the cost of that burger $3 per hour.
  - GoodJokes 6y ago
    “Successful people” is too general. I think you are talking about sociopaths.
  - tacitusarc 6y ago
    This is like one of those things unimaginative economists say. Maybe there is no way to pay to cut in line. Maybe it's a small town I can't just drive somewhere else to get food, and I have low blood sugar, and I know I'll get to the front of the line faster than trying to find some other place to buy food. Maybe it's test sample of a new product they have and I'm trying to compete, and the only way to try it is to wait in the long line. I'm sure there's a dozen more creative explanations for your proposed situation. Just because I'm willing to spend time on something doesn't mean I think my time is worth less than the cost of paying not to spend it.
  - paulcole 6y ago
    > If yes, then it means you think your time is worth the cost of that burger $3 per hour. What I think my time is worth and what someone is willing to pay me for that time are 2 separate things.
- LandR 6y ago
  Yeah, I've heard friends say that they don't do DIY at their house, or fix basic things because the plumber / joiner / whoever earns less than them per hour. SO if they do it themeselves they are losing money... These people work 9-5 and are paid a salary. I don't get it. Do it after work? Or on a day off. Or weekend...
  - dazc 6y ago
    I could but don't want to spend my spare time changing the brakes on my car. It makes sense to pay someone who can do it efficiently and properly as part of his/her job.
    - dharmab 6y ago
      I DIY those jobs exactly because I want the job to be done properly.
      - MattRix 6y ago
        Many people don’t have the time or desire to become an expert at every little DIY task.
        dharmab 6y ago
        And those people are easily parted with their money :) You have to be making a very high income for DIY to not make sense. Paying someone skilled to do my brakes costs over $80/hr. And paying someone unskilled leads to showing up on /r/justrolledintotheshop later. Meanwhile with $600 or so of tools you can do all the basic maintenance for the rest of the car's lifetime (and re-use those tools for home improvement and other jobs). Something simple like brakes is a couple of hours and you can listen to a podcast or audiobook.
        MattRix 6y ago
        If I was going to do a lot of DIY stuff, the last thing I would do would be my brakes. I’ve got no problem paying for the professional there.
- davidrm 6y ago
  I partially agree with your comment, the math is fuzzy, and I'd say that saving 5 minutes per day is absolutely worthless, I don't care about that time, it's a rounding error. There's a cliff when doing this kind of math. But I prefer to invert this thought experiment - my time isn't worth $x because I intend to use that time for something I can invoice, it's the amount you'd _have_ to pay for my time in order to incentivize me not to spend it walking around the park, watching a movie or whatever but rather do some marketable work. So yes, I kind of know the value of my time, I'm willing to pay $x not to be bothered with some things, e.g. a washing machine. I don't care about spending +10 minutes when buying some item.
  - paulcole 6y ago
    > So yes, I kind of know the value of my time, I'm willing to pay $x not to be bothered with some things, e.g. a washing machine Yes but that’s an arbitrary value you’re assigning to your time not the the value someone else is willing to give you for your time.
- sbarre 6y ago
  I think trying to do actual money math on this is the wrong approach.. I totally get why they did in this letter, and I also think it's a laughable reach to talk about $126B in "value creation" in that way.. But at the same time, I do value my own time, in terms of being free to choose how I spend it. Ordering from Amazon (or online in general) has absolutely increased that freedom for me. Rather than having to find and drive to a store to get something (and I think 1 hour per trip is a good metric), I spend 3 minutes ordering it, and it arrives at my door the next day. Meanwhile I spend that hour doing other things that are more valuable to me. I may not acknowledge this each time, but in aggregate it certainly adds up. So it's not about making more money as much as it's about the value of reducing toil for yourself.
- throwaway98797 6y ago
  Time money is not one to one. You have time currency and you have financial currency. they are not divisible in the same way. they have some additive components though. If I spend 5 hours a week on house work like cleaning and then i use money to hire a person to do it for me i now have 5 hours of time currency. that time currency could be invested into enjoyment, learning, or for some direct financial currency creation. this how it works, your likely being overly litteral material making your life worse. as normal people will view you as obtuse vs the wise person you think you are.
- jkingsbery 6y ago
  The way I've started to look at it is: I don't expect I would be able to make $10 in that hour, but if I could skip doing chore X (cleaning, going to the store, whatever) and instead spend an hour going to the park with my wife and kids, or having lunch with them, or going for a run, that experience would be worth $10 (or probably more) to me. So it's not about trading time for money, it's about paying to trade an unpleasurable experience (e.g. standing in line at the grocery store) for a pleasurable one (drawing or having a hand stand competition with your kids).
- kgin 6y ago
  I’ve always wondered why people talk about their time like this. Unless I’m taking an hour off of work, that hour is not worth any specific amount of money.
troelsSteegin 6y ago
I'll offer a corollary to "Create More Than You Consume": Destroy less than you create.
- gowld 6y ago
  Amazon telling the public to consume less might be dangerous for its revenue.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    That's also any government trying to be "green" to address climate change, yet still issuing bonds assuming x% economic growth.
    - netrus 6y ago
      Don't you issue bonds at the market rate? What should a truly green government do instead?
      - lotsofpulp 6y ago
        Not issue bonds at all. The only response that could have made a meaningful difference to climate change in a meaningful timeframe was curtailing consumption of fossil fuels and other sources of emissions. That would necessarily curtail consumption, and hence run counter to all the economic growth assumptions that governments have used to make various promises about expectations of future quality of life. Bottom line is it’s politically impossible to address climate change. The solution would have been to tax fossil fuels sufficiently so that it would reduce emissions to whatever levels we could have afforded, but that would have caused a lot of pain in the short term with people having to give up a lot of niceties of modern life.
  - throw_nbvc1234 6y ago
    Why not take it a step further. The US govt. telling all of its citizens to 'consume less', aka don't spend as much in the economy, could cause some level of danger to the country. Or more likely, to the elected officials reelection chances.
williesleg 6y ago
Stomping on the shoulders of workers while lobbying the left seems to be the winning strategy.
Wolfenstein98k 6y ago
Great read - great company.
framecowbird 6y ago
> Employees are able to take informal breaks throughout their shifts to stretch, get water, use the rest room, or talk to a manager, all without impacting their performance. This makes me so sad. This shouldn’t be doing something special for your employees that you get to boast about: it should be a basic human right. Talk about setting the bar low...
- maxehmookau 6y ago
  That was my first thought when I saw this too. I get that addressing bad PR is a sensible option sometimes but it is, in many cases, an outright lie as has been proven. Even if we assume everything written here is true, like you say, it's nothing to be proud of.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
    Not only are these things nothing to be proud of, they're standard operating procedure for every business I can think of, even ones with otherwise scandalous practices.
    - bbarnett 6y ago
      While essentially true, I find what leapt to my mind amusing. I pictured a mob enforcer, beating on a guy, but stopping @ 2 hours for his 15 minute break.
      - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
        Pretty sure the thugs at Guantanamo do just that.
        bbarnett 6y ago
        An amusing(yet sad) truth.
        6y ago
turnerc 6y ago
> We’re developing new automated staffing schedules that use sophisticated algorithms to rotate employees among jobs that use different muscle-tendon groups to decrease repetitive motion and help protect employees from MSD risks. Glossing over the "sophisticated algorithms" part, this is a welcome read and it seems to be a great way of limiting healthcare costs for new hires, but I am concerned at how "rotational" are such jobs surely manual warehouse work would be pretty similar in muscle groups used?
- ctvo 6y ago
  > but I am concerned at how "rotational" are such jobs surely manual warehouse work would be pretty similar in muscle groups used? It's outside of our imagination to assume there are different stations? Surely some walk more, some sort more things, some may even pick up heavy things. Edit: > Glossing over the "sophisticated algorithms" part I also want to point out that your quotes around sophisticated algorithms are unkind. Scheduling optimization base on N parameters isn't a trivial problem [0], definitely not something anyone would bat an eye at calling a sophisticated algorithm. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduling_(computing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduling_(computing)
  - turnerc 6y ago
    > It's outside of our imagination to assume there are different stations No but my naivety thought there would be more automation in place to reduce walking, sorting and picking up heavy things. Granted I have not worked in a fulfilment center and my impressions are solely based on amazon's own material but they put out jobs for operatives that just stand there all day sorting small packets, moving from this to sorting incoming large pallets sounds like it would do more damage! Edit: Thanks for the incorrect wikipedia page, how does compute resources come into play here? I'm not taking anything away from software that solves the nurses roster problem or applies simulated annealing, just merely quoting the source.
    - krapp 6y ago
      >but they put out jobs for operatives that just stand there all day sorting small packets, moving from this to sorting incoming large pallets sounds like it would do more damage Amazon's expectation is that every associate will be physically capable of doing any job necessary in the FC at a moments' notice, as business needs demand. I've seen complaints by associates that being sent to new roles like picking or palettes is painful, but unless they have an actual injury and medical waiver, Amazon doesn't make exceptions. I've stowed, picked, counted, run totes, wrapped boxes, stacked palettes, done many things in an Amazon warehouse, I know how they operate. Unless you're bleeding on the ground, you're expected to suck it up and deal. You have to remember, the purpose of automation isn't to decrease stresses on employees, it's to increase their productivity and the value that can be extracted from them per hour. When it's still cheaper and cost efficient to have a meat-robot do the work, they'll do that work.
JulianRaphael 6y ago
This might be the most impactful letter Jeff has written so far. I admire Jeff for being a truly original leader and personally find a lot of his thinking inspiring. I know that HN fervently hates Jeff and Amazon - and Amazon definitely has to improve a thing or two - , but I'd challenge the haters to find another corporate leader who is not only willing to commit to such radical visions like becoming Earth's Best Employer and Earth's Safest Place to Work, but actually drive his leadership to deliver on these promises. The $15 minimum wage, the Climate Pledge (Amazon being the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world), and Jeff's personal investments of $10 billion to fight climate change are - in my opinion - proof that Jeff is not entirely the evil capitalist that folks on HN think he is. I'm sure that there will be people who will comment that the $15 minimum wage was only implemented because it will harm competitors, the Climate Pledge was created to appeal to ESG-driven investors, and his personal investments are just tax savings. But you have to acknowledge that he is trying to use his power and influence to have a positive impact on the world. I'd be really curious to hear from the folks on HN who are so deeply critical of Amazon and Jeff: do you see that he's at least trying and putting in money and effort? Or do you really believe that he is the devil manifest on Earth? If so, please cite one example of a living corporate leader running a company of Amazon's size who you consider to be a "good" leader. I'm genuinely curious.
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- curation 6y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2NSYyO749I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2NSYyO749I
  - JulianRaphael 6y ago
    Could you provide a bit of context? What's the point you're trying to make with this video? I'd argue that comparing work at Amazon to slave labour is doing a disservice to the victims of slavery and their descendants.
2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
I like that appeal to emotion early on about everyone's retirement and savings tied to AMZN stock. Shit- that's more evidence that they're too huge.
sergefaguet 6y ago
Unfortunately the majority of people who will read this thoughtful and inspiring letter will only see trivial stories about evil corporations. Stories they have been fed by the media and have accepted without thinking. Tech companies are the only inspiring institutions that remain in America today. Everything else - government, media, academia, military - is in decay and has lost all of its legitimacy. And amidst that sole set of institutions that inspire, thrive and lead us into the future, Amazon is one of the most inspiring. Jeff, thank you for helping prove that humans can create great things.
- nslice 6y ago
  Yes Amazon is one of those institutions that you only see once in a lifetime. While they have had faults, they've always 'relentlessly' worked to improve. There is no doubt that Amazon may succumb to the same late-stage effects that have decayed those mentioned organizations.
  - deleted 6y ago
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- cm2012 6y ago
  Someone once described Amazon as essentially a charity since they didn't take profits for shareholders in the first 20 years of their existence even though they could have. Even now they still reinvest most profits into capex.
  - decebalus1 6y ago
    Someone needs to read up on both the definition of charity and the definition of 'essentially'
  - quadrangle 6y ago
    "non-profit" would be at least appropriate for your point, "charity" definitely not. Those two terms are not actually synonyms. But even with non-charity non-profit, Bezos wouldn't be so wealthy. Still, that's not your point. Your point is that it operates in a way to advance its business activities rather than to distribute profits, and that's largely true.
marcod 6y ago
As someone who has lost a lot of my physical and mental health, when working at Amazon, color me skeptical. > "We are going to be Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work." That being said, if Amazon puts the same resources into this as they put into being customer-centric, it could happen, but I doubt I will be a part of that.
- throwaway343233 6y ago
  Hear hear. Amazon cost me my mental health and relationship. If they're treating us like this, I can't imagine how the folk working at FCs are treated. Amazon's "Customer Obsession" comes at the expense of their employees. Also the hypocrisy: > Despite what we’ve accomplished, it’s clear to me that we need a better vision for our employees’ success. ...We are going to be Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. Heh this is coming from a company who refused to release the data from their internal survey about WFH and then made the decision to force everyone come back to the office 5 times/week. I am sure that makes Amazon the best and safest place!
  - ignoramous 6y ago
    > Heh this is coming from a company who refused to release the data from their internal survey about WFH and then made the decision to force everyone come back to the office 5 times/week. Andy Jassy went on record during an interview at the 2020 re:Invent that hinted at this. His concerns were more around Amazon's inventiveness being lost if folks weren't in the same physical space as their peers. Given the way Amazon operates (a lot of their processes are around "reinvent, rinse, repeat" at pace leading to "go big or go home"), I believe, the leadership concluded that it couldn't be done with a remote-first culture off the cuff. The leadership probably needs more time to figure remote-work out rather than blanket approve for all teams. From what little I know, Amazon already has a model for "away teams" (distributed teams with some overlapping concerns across geographies) that fits processes required for remote-work within Amazon's operating model but I take it needs to be refined further for it to be applied across all of Amazon. tldr; Amazon isn't the kind of company to resist change; and so, I am positive that for teams that can function just as well remotely would be allowed to do so eventually whilst the leadership works on improving other processes that works given Amazon's scale, culture, and needs. Disclosure: ex-AWS.
Leary 6y ago
"let’s value the time savings at $10 per hour, which is conservative" For guys it may be $10 per hour, but for women who enjoy shopping this may be indeed negative!

131 points by thomasjudge 6y ago

nceqs3 6y ago

50M more prime members this year

1-6 6y ago
After a while, you'll realize that it's not bad cancelling Prime membership and just adding the required minimum amount to cart to get free shipping. I've done that for over a year and the only membership I pay for now is Costco.

paulcole 6y ago

> let’s value the time savings at $10 per hour, which is conservative I’ll never understand this. Unless your time can be directly traded for money, it has no monetary value. I think it’s just a trick people use to talk themselves into spending money. So, in the context of this rah-rah Amazon email, maybe I do get it.

infinityplus1 6y ago
Opportunity cost can be a big thing. You could be working for money instead of doing something which doesn't increase your wealth.
- dazc 6y ago
  Like driving around from store to store comparing products and, often, not even coming back with what you went looking for...
  - eplanit 6y ago
    It's amazing that now a whole generation has not had that experience (at least to a far, far lesser degree), and probably doesn't realize that that's how it was.
    - xyzzy123 6y ago
      There are some distinct but comparable Internet shopping experiences. Every so often I think about buying some thingy or other, then get lost in a rabbit hole comparing all the options and sifting through fake reviews. Sometimes I'll "come to", having wasted 45 minutes, close all the tabs, realising I never actually needed the thing anyway.
- benjaminjosephw 6y ago
  Using money as a way to evaluate the worth of how you spend your time carries a huge set of biases with it. Should I put a monetary value on playing with my kids so I can justify it against making an extra sales call? As a metaphor an "opportunity costs" is helpful for thinking about the value of time but it becomes an ideology in itself if you take it literally.
  - xyzelement 6y ago
    > Should I put a monetary value on playing with my kids so I can justify it against making an extra sales call? I think we do that implicitly. You would probably love to play with your kid all day but you chose to make some sales calls so you have money to support the family. But you don't make all the sales calls you could make so that you have family time. So while sure we don't put a monetary number on our hours explicitly, we do have points at which selling our time is and isn't worth it.
- paulcole 6y ago
  Most people can’t trade one hour of the time when they’re not working for $10.
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  Could you, though? Even gig work at $10/hr is not exactly something most people are set up to just opt into for the tiny slices of their day that would otherwise be "trip to grocery store." I agree that the convenience of Amazon does create value for customers and that it makes sense to try to quantify that somehow; otoh that convenience also manifests negatively in things like unneeded purchases and comparison shopping paralysis. So I think the math on it is indeed a bit suspect.
  - gowld 6y ago
    Why take a trip to the grocery store for yourself, when you can shop for someone else, to make $10 that you can use to pay someone else to shop for you?
    - mikepurvis 6y ago
      Or the other side of it, which is to see shopping as an experience and part of life, rather than something purely transactional where you pay money and receive goods. Though I suppose as big box and discount retail has eaten the lunch of specialty stores, malls, and so on, many of those other benefits (discovery, browsing a curated selection of products, trying things out/on, conversing with a knowledgeable salesperson, etc) have faded somewhat. But on the far end of all this, I'd expect the only brick & mortar stores who are going to "make it" against online retail will be those who can not just promise and deliver on these extras, but also persuade their customers that the extras are worth paying for, whether that's via higher prices, a direct patronage model, or the ability to offer an exclusive paid product not available online.
cmeacham98 6y ago
> Unless your time can be directly traded for money I believe the common name for this transaction is "work".
- paulcole 6y ago
  Yes, but the overwhelming majority of people have a work schedule. I can’t trade my time at 7PM for $10 unless I want to find a second job.
  - de_keyboard 6y ago
    Work is not perfectly elastic but time is still by and large tradeable for money. Maybe get on Uber?
    - Supermancho 6y ago
      > Work is not perfectly elastic but time is still by and large tradeable for money. Specific results are tradeable for money. I get paid far too much for what I do most of the time, with small windows of specialized action that justifies the waste. It's sloth and inefficacy (due to an inability to measure efficacy) that makes it look like time for money, when it's largely an accounting trick that is more like a payment schedule than a time-for-money.
- staz 6y ago
  Very few people can choose directly to work more or less to gain accordingly. Even freelancer may have some leeway but it's quite limited.
  - tfehring 6y ago
    It’s harder when you’re salaried, but in service sector jobs the success rate from asking your manager for more or fewer hours is usually pretty decent IME. Less so if you’re asking for OT but only because that’s more expensive.
busymom0 6y ago
Successful busy people do value time for money. Elon Musk for example. He has very less free time with running multiple business and having so many kids. Would you want in an hour long line outside McDonald’s for example if they offered a free burger? If yes, then it means you think your time is worth the cost of that burger $3 per hour.
- GoodJokes 6y ago
  “Successful people” is too general. I think you are talking about sociopaths.
- tacitusarc 6y ago
  This is like one of those things unimaginative economists say. Maybe there is no way to pay to cut in line. Maybe it's a small town I can't just drive somewhere else to get food, and I have low blood sugar, and I know I'll get to the front of the line faster than trying to find some other place to buy food. Maybe it's test sample of a new product they have and I'm trying to compete, and the only way to try it is to wait in the long line. I'm sure there's a dozen more creative explanations for your proposed situation. Just because I'm willing to spend time on something doesn't mean I think my time is worth less than the cost of paying not to spend it.
- paulcole 6y ago
  > If yes, then it means you think your time is worth the cost of that burger $3 per hour. What I think my time is worth and what someone is willing to pay me for that time are 2 separate things.
LandR 6y ago
Yeah, I've heard friends say that they don't do DIY at their house, or fix basic things because the plumber / joiner / whoever earns less than them per hour. SO if they do it themeselves they are losing money... These people work 9-5 and are paid a salary. I don't get it. Do it after work? Or on a day off. Or weekend...
- dazc 6y ago
  I could but don't want to spend my spare time changing the brakes on my car. It makes sense to pay someone who can do it efficiently and properly as part of his/her job.
  - dharmab 6y ago
    I DIY those jobs exactly because I want the job to be done properly.
    - MattRix 6y ago
      Many people don’t have the time or desire to become an expert at every little DIY task.
      - dharmab 6y ago
        And those people are easily parted with their money :) You have to be making a very high income for DIY to not make sense. Paying someone skilled to do my brakes costs over $80/hr. And paying someone unskilled leads to showing up on /r/justrolledintotheshop later. Meanwhile with $600 or so of tools you can do all the basic maintenance for the rest of the car's lifetime (and re-use those tools for home improvement and other jobs). Something simple like brakes is a couple of hours and you can listen to a podcast or audiobook.
        MattRix 6y ago
        If I was going to do a lot of DIY stuff, the last thing I would do would be my brakes. I’ve got no problem paying for the professional there.
davidrm 6y ago
I partially agree with your comment, the math is fuzzy, and I'd say that saving 5 minutes per day is absolutely worthless, I don't care about that time, it's a rounding error. There's a cliff when doing this kind of math. But I prefer to invert this thought experiment - my time isn't worth $x because I intend to use that time for something I can invoice, it's the amount you'd _have_ to pay for my time in order to incentivize me not to spend it walking around the park, watching a movie or whatever but rather do some marketable work. So yes, I kind of know the value of my time, I'm willing to pay $x not to be bothered with some things, e.g. a washing machine. I don't care about spending +10 minutes when buying some item.
- paulcole 6y ago
  > So yes, I kind of know the value of my time, I'm willing to pay $x not to be bothered with some things, e.g. a washing machine Yes but that’s an arbitrary value you’re assigning to your time not the the value someone else is willing to give you for your time.
sbarre 6y ago
I think trying to do actual money math on this is the wrong approach.. I totally get why they did in this letter, and I also think it's a laughable reach to talk about $126B in "value creation" in that way.. But at the same time, I do value my own time, in terms of being free to choose how I spend it. Ordering from Amazon (or online in general) has absolutely increased that freedom for me. Rather than having to find and drive to a store to get something (and I think 1 hour per trip is a good metric), I spend 3 minutes ordering it, and it arrives at my door the next day. Meanwhile I spend that hour doing other things that are more valuable to me. I may not acknowledge this each time, but in aggregate it certainly adds up. So it's not about making more money as much as it's about the value of reducing toil for yourself.
throwaway98797 6y ago
Time money is not one to one. You have time currency and you have financial currency. they are not divisible in the same way. they have some additive components though. If I spend 5 hours a week on house work like cleaning and then i use money to hire a person to do it for me i now have 5 hours of time currency. that time currency could be invested into enjoyment, learning, or for some direct financial currency creation. this how it works, your likely being overly litteral material making your life worse. as normal people will view you as obtuse vs the wise person you think you are.
jkingsbery 6y ago
The way I've started to look at it is: I don't expect I would be able to make $10 in that hour, but if I could skip doing chore X (cleaning, going to the store, whatever) and instead spend an hour going to the park with my wife and kids, or having lunch with them, or going for a run, that experience would be worth $10 (or probably more) to me. So it's not about trading time for money, it's about paying to trade an unpleasurable experience (e.g. standing in line at the grocery store) for a pleasurable one (drawing or having a hand stand competition with your kids).
kgin 6y ago
I’ve always wondered why people talk about their time like this. Unless I’m taking an hour off of work, that hour is not worth any specific amount of money.

troelsSteegin 6y ago

I'll offer a corollary to "Create More Than You Consume": Destroy less than you create.

gowld 6y ago
Amazon telling the public to consume less might be dangerous for its revenue.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  That's also any government trying to be "green" to address climate change, yet still issuing bonds assuming x% economic growth.
  - netrus 6y ago
    Don't you issue bonds at the market rate? What should a truly green government do instead?
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      Not issue bonds at all. The only response that could have made a meaningful difference to climate change in a meaningful timeframe was curtailing consumption of fossil fuels and other sources of emissions. That would necessarily curtail consumption, and hence run counter to all the economic growth assumptions that governments have used to make various promises about expectations of future quality of life. Bottom line is it’s politically impossible to address climate change. The solution would have been to tax fossil fuels sufficiently so that it would reduce emissions to whatever levels we could have afforded, but that would have caused a lot of pain in the short term with people having to give up a lot of niceties of modern life.
- throw_nbvc1234 6y ago
  Why not take it a step further. The US govt. telling all of its citizens to 'consume less', aka don't spend as much in the economy, could cause some level of danger to the country. Or more likely, to the elected officials reelection chances.

williesleg 6y ago

Stomping on the shoulders of workers while lobbying the left seems to be the winning strategy.

Wolfenstein98k 6y ago

Great read - great company.

framecowbird 6y ago

> Employees are able to take informal breaks throughout their shifts to stretch, get water, use the rest room, or talk to a manager, all without impacting their performance. This makes me so sad. This shouldn’t be doing something special for your employees that you get to boast about: it should be a basic human right. Talk about setting the bar low...

maxehmookau 6y ago
That was my first thought when I saw this too. I get that addressing bad PR is a sensible option sometimes but it is, in many cases, an outright lie as has been proven. Even if we assume everything written here is true, like you say, it's nothing to be proud of.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  Not only are these things nothing to be proud of, they're standard operating procedure for every business I can think of, even ones with otherwise scandalous practices.
  - bbarnett 6y ago
    While essentially true, I find what leapt to my mind amusing. I pictured a mob enforcer, beating on a guy, but stopping @ 2 hours for his 15 minute break.
    - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
      Pretty sure the thugs at Guantanamo do just that.
      - bbarnett 6y ago
        An amusing(yet sad) truth.
        6y ago

turnerc 6y ago

> We’re developing new automated staffing schedules that use sophisticated algorithms to rotate employees among jobs that use different muscle-tendon groups to decrease repetitive motion and help protect employees from MSD risks. Glossing over the "sophisticated algorithms" part, this is a welcome read and it seems to be a great way of limiting healthcare costs for new hires, but I am concerned at how "rotational" are such jobs surely manual warehouse work would be pretty similar in muscle groups used?

ctvo 6y ago
> but I am concerned at how "rotational" are such jobs surely manual warehouse work would be pretty similar in muscle groups used? It's outside of our imagination to assume there are different stations? Surely some walk more, some sort more things, some may even pick up heavy things. Edit: > Glossing over the "sophisticated algorithms" part I also want to point out that your quotes around sophisticated algorithms are unkind. Scheduling optimization base on N parameters isn't a trivial problem [0], definitely not something anyone would bat an eye at calling a sophisticated algorithm. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduling_(computing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduling_(computing)
- turnerc 6y ago
  > It's outside of our imagination to assume there are different stations No but my naivety thought there would be more automation in place to reduce walking, sorting and picking up heavy things. Granted I have not worked in a fulfilment center and my impressions are solely based on amazon's own material but they put out jobs for operatives that just stand there all day sorting small packets, moving from this to sorting incoming large pallets sounds like it would do more damage! Edit: Thanks for the incorrect wikipedia page, how does compute resources come into play here? I'm not taking anything away from software that solves the nurses roster problem or applies simulated annealing, just merely quoting the source.
  - krapp 6y ago
    >but they put out jobs for operatives that just stand there all day sorting small packets, moving from this to sorting incoming large pallets sounds like it would do more damage Amazon's expectation is that every associate will be physically capable of doing any job necessary in the FC at a moments' notice, as business needs demand. I've seen complaints by associates that being sent to new roles like picking or palettes is painful, but unless they have an actual injury and medical waiver, Amazon doesn't make exceptions. I've stowed, picked, counted, run totes, wrapped boxes, stacked palettes, done many things in an Amazon warehouse, I know how they operate. Unless you're bleeding on the ground, you're expected to suck it up and deal. You have to remember, the purpose of automation isn't to decrease stresses on employees, it's to increase their productivity and the value that can be extracted from them per hour. When it's still cheaper and cost efficient to have a meat-robot do the work, they'll do that work.

JulianRaphael 6y ago

This might be the most impactful letter Jeff has written so far. I admire Jeff for being a truly original leader and personally find a lot of his thinking inspiring. I know that HN fervently hates Jeff and Amazon - and Amazon definitely has to improve a thing or two - , but I'd challenge the haters to find another corporate leader who is not only willing to commit to such radical visions like becoming Earth's Best Employer and Earth's Safest Place to Work, but actually drive his leadership to deliver on these promises. The $15 minimum wage, the Climate Pledge (Amazon being the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world), and Jeff's personal investments of $10 billion to fight climate change are - in my opinion - proof that Jeff is not entirely the evil capitalist that folks on HN think he is. I'm sure that there will be people who will comment that the $15 minimum wage was only implemented because it will harm competitors, the Climate Pledge was created to appeal to ESG-driven investors, and his personal investments are just tax savings. But you have to acknowledge that he is trying to use his power and influence to have a positive impact on the world. I'd be really curious to hear from the folks on HN who are so deeply critical of Amazon and Jeff: do you see that he's at least trying and putting in money and effort? Or do you really believe that he is the devil manifest on Earth? If so, please cite one example of a living corporate leader running a company of Amazon's size who you consider to be a "good" leader. I'm genuinely curious.

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curation 6y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2NSYyO749I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2NSYyO749I
- JulianRaphael 6y ago
  Could you provide a bit of context? What's the point you're trying to make with this video? I'd argue that comparing work at Amazon to slave labour is doing a disservice to the victims of slavery and their descendants.

2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago

I like that appeal to emotion early on about everyone's retirement and savings tied to AMZN stock. Shit- that's more evidence that they're too huge.

sergefaguet 6y ago

Unfortunately the majority of people who will read this thoughtful and inspiring letter will only see trivial stories about evil corporations. Stories they have been fed by the media and have accepted without thinking. Tech companies are the only inspiring institutions that remain in America today. Everything else - government, media, academia, military - is in decay and has lost all of its legitimacy. And amidst that sole set of institutions that inspire, thrive and lead us into the future, Amazon is one of the most inspiring. Jeff, thank you for helping prove that humans can create great things.

nslice 6y ago
Yes Amazon is one of those institutions that you only see once in a lifetime. While they have had faults, they've always 'relentlessly' worked to improve. There is no doubt that Amazon may succumb to the same late-stage effects that have decayed those mentioned organizations.
- deleted 6y ago
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cm2012 6y ago
Someone once described Amazon as essentially a charity since they didn't take profits for shareholders in the first 20 years of their existence even though they could have. Even now they still reinvest most profits into capex.
- decebalus1 6y ago
  Someone needs to read up on both the definition of charity and the definition of 'essentially'
- quadrangle 6y ago
  "non-profit" would be at least appropriate for your point, "charity" definitely not. Those two terms are not actually synonyms. But even with non-charity non-profit, Bezos wouldn't be so wealthy. Still, that's not your point. Your point is that it operates in a way to advance its business activities rather than to distribute profits, and that's largely true.

marcod 6y ago

As someone who has lost a lot of my physical and mental health, when working at Amazon, color me skeptical. > "We are going to be Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work." That being said, if Amazon puts the same resources into this as they put into being customer-centric, it could happen, but I doubt I will be a part of that.

throwaway343233 6y ago
Hear hear. Amazon cost me my mental health and relationship. If they're treating us like this, I can't imagine how the folk working at FCs are treated. Amazon's "Customer Obsession" comes at the expense of their employees. Also the hypocrisy: > Despite what we’ve accomplished, it’s clear to me that we need a better vision for our employees’ success. ...We are going to be Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work. Heh this is coming from a company who refused to release the data from their internal survey about WFH and then made the decision to force everyone come back to the office 5 times/week. I am sure that makes Amazon the best and safest place!
- ignoramous 6y ago
  > Heh this is coming from a company who refused to release the data from their internal survey about WFH and then made the decision to force everyone come back to the office 5 times/week. Andy Jassy went on record during an interview at the 2020 re:Invent that hinted at this. His concerns were more around Amazon's inventiveness being lost if folks weren't in the same physical space as their peers. Given the way Amazon operates (a lot of their processes are around "reinvent, rinse, repeat" at pace leading to "go big or go home"), I believe, the leadership concluded that it couldn't be done with a remote-first culture off the cuff. The leadership probably needs more time to figure remote-work out rather than blanket approve for all teams. From what little I know, Amazon already has a model for "away teams" (distributed teams with some overlapping concerns across geographies) that fits processes required for remote-work within Amazon's operating model but I take it needs to be refined further for it to be applied across all of Amazon. tldr; Amazon isn't the kind of company to resist change; and so, I am positive that for teams that can function just as well remotely would be allowed to do so eventually whilst the leadership works on improving other processes that works given Amazon's scale, culture, and needs. Disclosure: ex-AWS.

Leary 6y ago

"let’s value the time savings at $10 per hour, which is conservative" For guys it may be $10 per hour, but for women who enjoy shopping this may be indeed negative!