3 ms·

The right tail of Amazon shareholders' wealth is much longer than the right tail of Amazon employees' wealth, since it includes the richest (and 21st richest) p

The right tail of Amazon shareholders' wealth is much longer than the right tail of Amazon employees' wealth, since it includes the richest (and 21st richest) person in the world. The best paid employee in the world probably doesn't work for Amazon, and they are also much less rich compared to the median employee than the richest person is compared to the median wealth holder.

extra88 5y ago
I don't know what your point is. I was making a distinction between "average employee" which can be distorted by having vastly wealthier individuals amongst their number, and "median employee,' which is not. I hope Amazon does have a large cadre of well-paid employees but they're vastly outnumbered by the warehouse workers, delivery staff, etc. I was responding to someone speculating that because a lot of Amazon stock is presumably held by pensions and other institutional investors, the value of those stocks goes to very average people who are not wealthy (by U.S. standards). I think that even if a lot of Amazon stock is held that way, if you have a job for which you receive a pension or contribute to a retirement fund that's worth a damn, you're not wealthy but you're probably wealthier than the bottom half of Amazon employees.
- ingleswood 5y ago
  My point is that the 'average employee', as compared to the 'median employee', is probably distorted much less than 'average shareholder' compared to 'median shareholder'. Therefore I don't agree with you that while the average employee might be richer than the average shareholder, the median employee might be poorer than the median shareholder. If the average employee is richer than the average shareholder (which I doubt), then the median employee is probably much, much more richer than the median shareholder.
  - extra88 5y ago
    Thanks for the clarification. Part of my thinking assumes Bezos himself counts as an Amazon employee so all by himself he heavily affects the difference between average and median employee (he might be the only billionaire employee, Andy Jassy is presumably one of the wealthiest employees and he's below $500m). Since Bezos is also a shareholder (I assume the largest individual shareholder), he also distorts that average. However, since I assume there are orders of magnitude more shareholders (through their stake in pension and retirement funds) than working for Amazon, all those additional data points smooths the difference out more.

extra88 5y ago

I don't know what your point is. I was making a distinction between "average employee" which can be distorted by having vastly wealthier individuals amongst their number, and "median employee,' which is not. I hope Amazon does have a large cadre of well-paid employees but they're vastly outnumbered by the warehouse workers, delivery staff, etc. I was responding to someone speculating that because a lot of Amazon stock is presumably held by pensions and other institutional investors, the value of those stocks goes to very average people who are not wealthy (by U.S. standards). I think that even if a lot of Amazon stock is held that way, if you have a job for which you receive a pension or contribute to a retirement fund that's worth a damn, you're not wealthy but you're probably wealthier than the bottom half of Amazon employees.

ingleswood 5y ago
My point is that the 'average employee', as compared to the 'median employee', is probably distorted much less than 'average shareholder' compared to 'median shareholder'. Therefore I don't agree with you that while the average employee might be richer than the average shareholder, the median employee might be poorer than the median shareholder. If the average employee is richer than the average shareholder (which I doubt), then the median employee is probably much, much more richer than the median shareholder.
- extra88 5y ago
  Thanks for the clarification. Part of my thinking assumes Bezos himself counts as an Amazon employee so all by himself he heavily affects the difference between average and median employee (he might be the only billionaire employee, Andy Jassy is presumably one of the wealthiest employees and he's below $500m). Since Bezos is also a shareholder (I assume the largest individual shareholder), he also distorts that average. However, since I assume there are orders of magnitude more shareholders (through their stake in pension and retirement funds) than working for Amazon, all those additional data points smooths the difference out more.