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Jassy recently spoke to TIME about what drives him–and Amazon–to keep reaching. What a puff piece. I don't know if "TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2022"
by ilamont 5y ago
Jassy recently spoke to TIME about what drives him–and Amazon–to keep reaching.
What a puff piece. I don't know if "TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2022" is some sort of Forbes-stye pay to play or what, but FFS if you have an opportunity to talk to someone like Jassy, get to the heart of issues like antitrust, and dig deeper on claims like "Earth’s most customer-centric company" and "If we look at the feedback we get [from 3rd party sellers], it’s much more positive than it is negative".
ETA: Does anyone really think Amazon is the world's "most customer-centric company" now? It's a notorious online bazaar more known for fake reviews, bad customer service, copycat junk, and bringing down the respected brands it touches. Maybe it's a different vibe among AWS customers ... can anyone address?
- tempnow987 5y agoYeah, this is the big miss on amazon.com - total acceptance of scams it seems, even obvious ones not getting addressed. Comedy is the review / product switchouts - how is this not detectable.
- geodel 5y agoIn other news today Andy Jassy made $212mn in 2021. So perhaps puff pieces about himself are things that drive him.
- beaconstudios 5y agoat a company with a median salary of $29,000 - over 7000x. Wild.
- conductr 5y agoThe median doesn't bother me so much - because AFAIK they pay well for every job I've ever known about when you compare it to the market for that experience level (also I'm assuming part-time and gig work is driving that number down) - but, I don't think executives should be making that much and at what point do shareholders raise concerns? Maybe they have (?) but it seems to me that >$200M is probably 5-10x what he should have been paid and I'm sure many other execs are follow a similar multiple.
- beaconstudios 5y agoJust because market rates for manual labour are rock bottom, doesn't make it morally justifiable that amazon workers are paid slightly above that when the CEO gets paid 200 million dollars. To be clear: my primary concern is not that the CEO is paid too much, but that the gap between them is so great. As a company grows more profitable, that profit should be shared amongst the workers, not paid out as insane executive compensation.
- conductr 5y agoI get it. It's a common sentiment that I happen to disagree with. You could pay the CEO $20M and have the floor for labor at $200K and the gap is still absurd. I do believe that different jobs should command different pay and that markets should set those rates. I don't believe $200M is the market rate for a good CEO though. I believe the shareholders should get the profit as they grow (that's why they invested) and employees should be paid appropriately to their job/market. In all cases, employees should be treated well. I don't advocate taking advantage of the lower rung. Have some level of purchasing power, etc. But, there is always going to be a bottom wage where people "struggle" and the only fix is to climb to a higher level as an individual. Lifting the entire bottom just moves the needle and doesn't improve purchasing power as it just forces prices up as well. Out of curiosity, what is an acceptable gap between min/max compensation?
- wpietri 5y ago> there is always going to be a bottom wage where people "struggle" Oh? Why's that? And how long have you spent struggling at the bottom rung?
- conductr 5y agoWelp. I suppose I grew up in trailer parks, single alcoholic mom, food stamps, HUD paid rent, absent dad.... end up working my way through college without debt (FT job + FT course load).... what's your story? Because I know a lot of poor people and their psychology pretty well. My quoted "struggle" is because there is a distinction between real poor and bottom, in my mind. Bottom is just that and can be quite functional and the struggle comes from perception and comparing to other things/people. Sacrifice is necessary at this level. You can not get every new Apple product, etc. But that's been normalized and they feel they are struggling when they can't get the shiny things. They typically can afford housing but have to sacrifice on location, commute, schools, etc. The "$15 federal minimum wage" topic is a good example of the bottom. It's billed as a "living wage" because it's compared to current prices. However, if implemented, just moves the bottom upwards. Their position on the ladder does not change, rents go up and they still have the same affordability issues they do right now.
- deanCommie 5y ago> fake reviews, bad customer service, copycat junk, and bringing down the respected brands it touches. First of all, let's talk about the stuff that you didn't mention. Go try to return something with any other online seller, or get consistent shipping for anything in under 2 days, never mind for free. It's impossible. By all accounts, amazon's shipping and hassle-free returns are completely unmatched by any other retailer. Now, let's address the stuff that is definitely a problem: Fake reviews and copycat junk. No defense. AMazon has really slipped and needs to do a lot better. Counterpoint: At least between the fake reviews they also have real reviews. Most retailers have no reviews at all. Copycat junk is a hard problem, but at least the selection is there, and note the hassle-free returns. Finally, bad customer service, excuse me? Amazon has the best customer service for any company at their scale. Go try to talk to a person with Google. Impossible. AWS is unquestionably the most customer-obsessed cloud provider. Microsoft is too dumb. Google is too arrogant.
- nebula8804 5y agoWhat I am confused by is the fact that competitors still haven't replicated at least some of these items in 2022. Looking at Target and Walmart. Their websites are downright terrible compared to Amazon. Stock indicators that have no basis in reality, having to constantly change stores to get proper search results. The overall search experience bringing up completely unrelated results. There is so much frustration. I want to move away from Amazon because I have been burned multiple times by knockoffs but the competitors are just so ridiculous. It can't possibly be that hard to at least copy some of these things is it? Elon Musk and his disciples always touts the idea that "the organizational deficiencies manifest themselves in the product". There must be some serious bloat or lack of talent at these other companies that has resulted in this situation.
- silicon2401 5y ago> Target Target and Best Buy are some of my main go-to's for avoiding Amazon, especially for video games or tech (obviously). They really do offer good experiences in general, but you're right, they can't compete on certain aspects and on other aspects, they're still more painful than they have to be
- dekhn 5y agomy customer experience with Amazon has almost always been excellent. They ship faster, cheaper stuff and when they get it wrong they just ship me the right thing and I don't ahve to ship the old one back (I hate to ship things). That said I am pretty good at reading reviews and identifying copycats. As for AWS my experience has been good as well.
- seabriez 5y agoEarlier I would agree, but more recently it's been a bit worse. The operator was very hard to understand and were less willing to do returns for issues. I was a bit concerned its getting worse, hope it's a one off experience.
- 30367286 5y agoI think TIME is gunning more for the supermarket checkout reader with this piece, a crowd that would find anti-trust and fake USB cables to be quite dry.
- fmajid 5y agoTIME is now owned by Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com fame, so that creates all sort of interesting conflicts of interest, but the CEO class doesn’t generally turn on its own.
- jasode 5y ago>What a puff piece. I don't know if "TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2022" is some sort of Forbes-stye pay to play or what, but FFS if you have an opportunity to talk to someone like Jassy, get to the heart of issues like antitrust, and dig deeper on claims The issue is that CEOs don't have to talk to journalists. Therefore, for journalists to have access to interview the CEO, the CEO has to cooperate. How do you get CEOs to say "yes" to your interview requests and not ignore you? By building a reputation of not running negative hit pieces and ambushing interviewees with uncomfortable questions. (Authors Walter Isaacson and Steven Levy would be an example of "friendly" interviewers. Kara Swisher would not.) So applying that to this thread's article, we see that the author John Simons had interviews with CEOs Tim Cook (Apple), David Solomon (Goldman Sachs), and Michael Dell (Dell): https://time.com/author/john-simons/ https://time.com/author/john-simons/ Those are all articles that paint the subjects in a good light. In other words, John Simons would have never been granted an interview with Andy Jassy at all if he was going to ask the tough questions you want him to ask. It's a "puff piece" due to the rules of engagement so-to-speak.
- laurent92 5y agoAre you saying that, by the nature of media having to be large corporations, they need to protect other large corporations and therefore paint an incorrect view of the world? My sole question is, how have they built such large audiences. Do people enjoy hearing corporate-loving stories? Or do people rely on well-designed documentaries, articles and websites to assess the accuracy of the contents, betting everything on the production value? Or are those newspapers surfing on ancient glory and wearing off some reputation? But if so, what builds a reputation, and which newspapers are currently building a reputation by having quite-accurate content?
- jasode 5y ago>Are you saying that, by the nature of media having to be large corporations, they need to protect other large corporations and therefore paint an incorrect view of the world? No, I'm not saying that at all. Media can run negative stories. I was explaining why _this_ particular story of this thread doesn't have the hard-hitting questions the gp was asking for. It's because the journalist was granted an interview by the CEO. The reality is that CEOs must volunteer themselves to be interviewed. And human nature dictates that they will not volunteer to be interrogated with uncomfortable questions. >Do people enjoy hearing corporate-loving stories? Readers also want to read corporate-hating stories ... but the CEO(s) will then have to be referred to in the 3rd person in that type of story instead of being asked questions in a 1-on-1 interview format. That's just the reality of how different types of stories are created. Understandably, CEOs don't like to cooperate when it's a hostile story. In rare cases, a notable person will sometimes volunteer themselves to be interviewed with "tough questions" ... such as disgraced bicyclist Lance Armstrong being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey. This is usually perceived as a public relations redemption tour to start rehabilitating their image.
- adoxyz 5y agoAmazon has certainly regressed significantly over the last few years. So much so, that in 2022, we're not renewing our Amazon Prime. It expires in June and after that we're done. The amount of fake products, fake reviews, and overall just not knowing what you're going to get has gotten really old. Yes, you can return it easily, but I'd much rather get what I need the first time around.
- joseph 5y agoI let Prime lapse maybe a year ago. I realized I'd been paying for HBO on Prime for years even though I had never used it. It was my own fault, I should have realized that the charge for "Prime video" on my credit card statement every month was not for regular Prime TV. But after that, I was never again going to let Amazon sneakily charge me for things, and it wasn't the first time they'd done it, so I deleted all my payment methods. After getting rid of Prime, my life hasn't changed for the worse one bit. I do still order from Amazon sometimes, but I always order the $25 minimum to get free shipping and then delete my payment method immediately.
- wpietri 5y agoYeah, I dropped my prime a couple of years back and haven't missed it. Now Amazon has gone from my first stop to my last, after manufacturers and specialty stores. Amazon was a huge improvement back when it was new, but in my experience most retailers have caught up, while Amazon has been getting worse.
- omegalulw 5y ago> Does anyone really think Amazon is the world's "most customer-centric company" now? Absolutely, their customer support is stellar, across countries. The problem of fake reviews and junk products is indeed a real problem. But I would argue that this by itself doesn't imply that Amazon doesn't care about it's customers, rather that it is a general problem that's largely unsolved in most (BIG) online marketplaces where manual curation of inventory is not feasible due to scale.
- kingcharles 5y agoAmazon has so many big problems that are easily solved though, that I don't understand them. 1) Their search is less than useless. Even eBay has a better search. 2) They allow sellers to switch out products and leave the old reviews.
- StreamBright 5y ago3, Forwarding calls to scam providers. 4, Letting packages be stolen and cancelling the accounts of legitimate users. 5, Displaying goods that are completely fake, including books. Just what I have on the top of my head. I have not used Amazon in the US for 6 years now due to these. I had used it for almost everything before.
- lozenge 5y ago1) They are selling ad slots ("sponsored results") on their searches, which increases overheads for their suppliers and lets them take a bigger margin. 2) The inflated review counts increase sales. It's also a form of social proof - "if 5,000 people like it, maybe it isn't a bad product, it's just what I can expect for the price I paid."
- JaimeThompson 5y agoAmazon makes money from selling ads so it is in their best interest to make the non-ad search worse.
- belval 5y ago
- dv_dt 5y agoAmazon is on a customer-centric decline. One example of that is the amazon app now requires that you accept product advertisement notification spam if you want to be hooked to AmazonSmile.
- mitchdoogle 5y agoAmazon's service for it's retail arm is excellent, easy to talk to customer service and easy to return things. Their delivery estimates are spot on, and their delivery times are unmatched by any other online retailer. I haven't use AWS that much, but when I have it has been straightforward, with good documentation, and it seems I have more control over things with AWS than other cloud providers I've tried.
- silicon2401 5y ago> Does anyone really think Amazon is the world's "most customer-centric company" now? As much as I hate a lot of things about Amazon, their customer support is hard to beat. I go out of my way to avoid amazon: I buy musical gear from sweetwater, books through a local bookstore (you can often have your local bookstore order books for you; pretty win-win), outdoors gear through REI, etc. Sweetwater actually has unbelievable customer support, that's probably the most enjoyable shopping experience I've ever had. _but_, when it comes to convenience and peace of mind, Amazon is really hard to beat. I can take for granted that if I have any issue whatsoever, I can practically press a button and get a refund, a replacement, a return, maybe 5 or 10 bucks if the issue isn't easy to solve, etc. Not to mention their shipping and credit card. I wish I didn't feel that way. I openly plead every other retailer to do what they can to help me not give Amazon money. Unfortunately it's tough
- shagmin 5y agoThe big tech companies like to have big audacious mission statements. I personally don't have any experiences with Amazon that have soured my attitude towards them, and have found customer service to be just fine.