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Criticisms of Amazon need to overcome a fundamental problem: Amazon has been one the most innovative companies of all time. As a result it has grown explosivel

Criticisms of Amazon need to overcome a fundamental problem: Amazon has been one the most innovative companies of all time. As a result it has grown explosively and is beloved by customers. All with this policy in place. In other words, this policy appears to work. Or at the very least, it doesn’t hurt. If you don’t like it, don’t work there.

zanellato19 5y ago
This is ridiculous because there can be many, many reasons for Amazon being successful while still making a lot of mistakes. You are conflating cause and effect here, how can we know if Amazon couldn't be even more innovative if they didn't do this?
- xibalba 5y ago
  > Or at the very least, it doesn’t hurt. I think you missed this part of my comment. I don't conflate cause and effect. No do I conflate correlation and causation, which is what I think you meant to write. > be even more innovative So your premise is that the most innovative, productive company in the world could be more innovative?
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    Are you insinuating that there's some sort of cap on innovation?
    - xibalba 5y ago
      Yes. For instance, natural resources, financial & human resources, time, and physical reality come to mind.
      - netizen-936824 5y ago
        So if we consider every single (known) possible permutation of "ways to do something" do you really think that amazon is anywhere near the possible cap? I have my doubts, and this is even thinking we won't figure out some new way to bend physics to our will
  - mattzito 5y ago
    The two things could be completely unrelated. We have zero evidence that this policy has any impact, positive or negative. Seems odd to frame the two as related. Counterpoint - MSFT had stack ranking for years and stagnated until they ended the policy in 2013, followed by Nadella becoming CEO in 2014 and it’s hard to argue that MSFT hasn’t seen an incredible revival. One could draw a series of similar comparisons, from stack ranking had zero impact on the company performance, to stack ranking being the barrier to MSFT success, all the way to the removal of stack ranking actually CAUSED Nadella to be appointed CEO. We have just as much evidence for any of those possibilities.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      What has Microsoft innovated? As far as I can tell, they turned into a cloud provider after AWS paved the way and wrung out some extra revenue by turning Office into a subscription.
      - cnst 5y ago
        So the whole innovation amounts to simply being a cloud provider? I think a lot of people overestimate the importance of AWS. It's both funny and sad to see people think they need AWS for the most basic compute tasks that are easier and cheaper to accomplish without AWS. There's actually many blogs and distributed services that use zero AWS, and have higher availability than AWS, and which don't have to provide a status update telling their customers that "even Netflix is down", passing the buck. When Netflix is down, my site's up, so that's a really bad excuse however you look at it.
        lotsofpulp 5y ago
        I am using the dictionary definition of innovate. >To begin or introduce (something new) for the first time. >To begin or introduce something new. >To introduce novelties or changes; -- sometimes with in or on. I believe that qualifies AWS as an innovation, the context being comparing Amazon's innovative-ness to Microsoft's innovative-ness since they ended stack ranking.
    - 5y ago
  - wiedelphine 5y ago
    I mean surely questioning current ways of working is how you stay innovative and respond to a changing world? it feels odd to imply they have reached peak innovation and should just stay the same.
  - reducesuffering 5y ago
    So your premise is that everything “the most innovative, productive company in the world” does is absolutely perfect and can’t have a single shortcoming?
alisonkisk 5y ago
"Exit, Voice, and Loyalty" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty Perhaps if Amazon's illegal and abusive behaviors are kept in check, competitors would have survived and grown as well.
Communitivity 5y ago
Criticisms of Amazon do need to overcome a fundamental problem. Unfortunately, it's not this problem..or at least, that's not the biggest problem. Criticizing Amazon because of the policies held in Team X is like saying 'The U.S. talks way too fast' after visiting New York (caveat, long time New Yorker here). Each state is different in the US. In the same way, each team is different in Amazon: the Whispersync team is much different than the Amazon FedCloud team, and both are much different than the fulfillment team. Perhaps because it has grown so fast, and been so innovative, the company is not homogenous. So when you criticize policies..please criticize specific policies, and specific teams. I do not work for Amazon, am not a shareholder, but I do have several friends that work there, on different teams. Edited to add some thoughts on stack ranking... I have been at a company that did formal stack ranking. I was never in the lower tiers..but I hated it, because I saw all the stress and drama caused by it. It pit team members against each other and disincentivized team mates helping each other. Stack ranking is also the reason I didn't sign on with one particular company (not Amazon). I've also been at other companies that did what amounts to unofficial stack ranking: manager has a pool of $Xk to divide amongst pay raises on the team and must justify it by some kind of metrics. Neither are good for teams, for the people at your company. What isn't good for the people at your company is not good for your company. People are what any company is made on. Innovation, hard-charging business, can cover this to some extent for a while (perhaps a long while), but it always takes a toll in the end. Perhaps the best compensation structure I've seen (on paper) is at Fog Creek Software (now Glitch), in an article that's now 20 years old: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/30/fog-creek-compensation/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/30/fog-creek-compensa... I'm curious to see if Glitch uses that, how it worked in practice, and what the thoughts are about it now - 20 years later.
- cnst 5y ago
  The 6% URA goal is actually a company-wide directive from the S-team. In this example, we actually see an individual org within the company trying to push against the company-wide policy.
jgalt212 5y ago
Without AWS and the pandemic, is there an Amazon as we know today (regardless of its internal policies and culture)?
- xibalba 5y ago
  Hard to say. The problem with time series' is that you only get one realization ;) But I think reducing Amazon to an Ecomm/AWS duality goes too far. That said, I would bet that, yes, Amazon would still have been extremely innovative.
zaptheimpaler 5y ago
It's pretty easy lol - IBM was also once an innovative giant. What worked then might not work now, the culture then might not be the same as the culture now, and the world then was different from the world now. The riches they have now are the results of the innovating they did 5-10 years ago. The next 5 years is a different question.
LeanderK 5y ago
economy is not just there for itself, it serves the community. Innovation and growth is also not a goal for itself. If a company fails at a fundamental task, like providing fair working conditions, then discussions about consequences in a democracy are needed. Then one can formulate policies, elect leaders and change the game.

zanellato19 5y ago

This is ridiculous because there can be many, many reasons for Amazon being successful while still making a lot of mistakes. You are conflating cause and effect here, how can we know if Amazon couldn't be even more innovative if they didn't do this?

xibalba 5y ago
> Or at the very least, it doesn’t hurt. I think you missed this part of my comment. I don't conflate cause and effect. No do I conflate correlation and causation, which is what I think you meant to write. > be even more innovative So your premise is that the most innovative, productive company in the world could be more innovative?
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  Are you insinuating that there's some sort of cap on innovation?
  - xibalba 5y ago
    Yes. For instance, natural resources, financial & human resources, time, and physical reality come to mind.
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      So if we consider every single (known) possible permutation of "ways to do something" do you really think that amazon is anywhere near the possible cap? I have my doubts, and this is even thinking we won't figure out some new way to bend physics to our will
- mattzito 5y ago
  The two things could be completely unrelated. We have zero evidence that this policy has any impact, positive or negative. Seems odd to frame the two as related. Counterpoint - MSFT had stack ranking for years and stagnated until they ended the policy in 2013, followed by Nadella becoming CEO in 2014 and it’s hard to argue that MSFT hasn’t seen an incredible revival. One could draw a series of similar comparisons, from stack ranking had zero impact on the company performance, to stack ranking being the barrier to MSFT success, all the way to the removal of stack ranking actually CAUSED Nadella to be appointed CEO. We have just as much evidence for any of those possibilities.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    What has Microsoft innovated? As far as I can tell, they turned into a cloud provider after AWS paved the way and wrung out some extra revenue by turning Office into a subscription.
    - cnst 5y ago
      So the whole innovation amounts to simply being a cloud provider? I think a lot of people overestimate the importance of AWS. It's both funny and sad to see people think they need AWS for the most basic compute tasks that are easier and cheaper to accomplish without AWS. There's actually many blogs and distributed services that use zero AWS, and have higher availability than AWS, and which don't have to provide a status update telling their customers that "even Netflix is down", passing the buck. When Netflix is down, my site's up, so that's a really bad excuse however you look at it.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        I am using the dictionary definition of innovate. >To begin or introduce (something new) for the first time. >To begin or introduce something new. >To introduce novelties or changes; -- sometimes with in or on. I believe that qualifies AWS as an innovation, the context being comparing Amazon's innovative-ness to Microsoft's innovative-ness since they ended stack ranking.
  - 5y ago
- wiedelphine 5y ago
  I mean surely questioning current ways of working is how you stay innovative and respond to a changing world? it feels odd to imply they have reached peak innovation and should just stay the same.
- reducesuffering 5y ago
  So your premise is that everything “the most innovative, productive company in the world” does is absolutely perfect and can’t have a single shortcoming?

alisonkisk 5y ago

"Exit, Voice, and Loyalty" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty Perhaps if Amazon's illegal and abusive behaviors are kept in check, competitors would have survived and grown as well.

Communitivity 5y ago

Criticisms of Amazon do need to overcome a fundamental problem. Unfortunately, it's not this problem..or at least, that's not the biggest problem. Criticizing Amazon because of the policies held in Team X is like saying 'The U.S. talks way too fast' after visiting New York (caveat, long time New Yorker here). Each state is different in the US. In the same way, each team is different in Amazon: the Whispersync team is much different than the Amazon FedCloud team, and both are much different than the fulfillment team. Perhaps because it has grown so fast, and been so innovative, the company is not homogenous. So when you criticize policies..please criticize specific policies, and specific teams. I do not work for Amazon, am not a shareholder, but I do have several friends that work there, on different teams. Edited to add some thoughts on stack ranking... I have been at a company that did formal stack ranking. I was never in the lower tiers..but I hated it, because I saw all the stress and drama caused by it. It pit team members against each other and disincentivized team mates helping each other. Stack ranking is also the reason I didn't sign on with one particular company (not Amazon). I've also been at other companies that did what amounts to unofficial stack ranking: manager has a pool of $Xk to divide amongst pay raises on the team and must justify it by some kind of metrics. Neither are good for teams, for the people at your company. What isn't good for the people at your company is not good for your company. People are what any company is made on. Innovation, hard-charging business, can cover this to some extent for a while (perhaps a long while), but it always takes a toll in the end. Perhaps the best compensation structure I've seen (on paper) is at Fog Creek Software (now Glitch), in an article that's now 20 years old: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/30/fog-creek-compensation/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/30/fog-creek-compensa... I'm curious to see if Glitch uses that, how it worked in practice, and what the thoughts are about it now - 20 years later.

cnst 5y ago
The 6% URA goal is actually a company-wide directive from the S-team. In this example, we actually see an individual org within the company trying to push against the company-wide policy.

jgalt212 5y ago

Without AWS and the pandemic, is there an Amazon as we know today (regardless of its internal policies and culture)?

xibalba 5y ago
Hard to say. The problem with time series' is that you only get one realization ;) But I think reducing Amazon to an Ecomm/AWS duality goes too far. That said, I would bet that, yes, Amazon would still have been extremely innovative.

zaptheimpaler 5y ago

It's pretty easy lol - IBM was also once an innovative giant. What worked then might not work now, the culture then might not be the same as the culture now, and the world then was different from the world now. The riches they have now are the results of the innovating they did 5-10 years ago. The next 5 years is a different question.

LeanderK 5y ago

economy is not just there for itself, it serves the community. Innovation and growth is also not a goal for itself. If a company fails at a fundamental task, like providing fair working conditions, then discussions about consequences in a democracy are needed. Then one can formulate policies, elect leaders and change the game.