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Its important to note that every leader of a strong company has a financial interest in saying this, regardless of its validity. Growing companies need to "leav
by 015a 4y ago
Its important to note that every leader of a strong company has a financial interest in saying this, regardless of its validity. Growing companies need to "leave the hatches open" (so to speak) to, well, continue to grow; hire, attract talent, invest, raise pay, etc; which is exactly what strong companies don't want them to do. They benefit from pushing the narrative that the times are tough, from the privilege of having hatches to batten, because it hurts competitors, and lowers attrition even in the face of reduced pay raises.
I'm not asserting that the economy will be fine and dandy over the next six to twelve months; just that you can't trust a word these snakes say. After all; isn't it strange that Amazon aims to add more seasonal operations jobs to account for the holiday surge this year, than they did last year? [1] [2]
[1] https://www.retailtouchpoints.com/topics/store-operations/workforce-scheduling/amazon-add-150000-workers-holiday-2022-corporate-freeze-retail https://www.retailtouchpoints.com/topics/store-operations/wo...
[2] https://www.retailbrew.com/stories/2021/09/20/breaking-amazons-pandemic-hiring-spree https://www.retailbrew.com/stories/2021/09/20/breaking-amazo...
- meltyness 4y agoThat or fluffing up hedge funds looking to exit bearish positions where Mr. Bezos may or may not have some of his massive wealth parked. At some point the only way to continue growth is to buy a 24 hour news outlet and start letting the air out of everyone else's tires. Ask Microsoft.
- thr0wawayf00 4y agoSpot on, and the recent press around Amazon's warehouse churn tells you everything you need to know about how they view labor. They're legitimately at risk of churning through their entire candidate pool in some job functions within the next few years and they don't care at all.[0] 0: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/22/amazon-workers-shortage-leaked-memo-warehouse https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/22/amazon-wo...
- BuyMyBitcoins 4y agoPerhaps that explains the increasingly frenetic attempts from AWS recruiters to contact me.
- pcthrowaway 4y agoThe person you're responding to is talking about their warehouse workers, though it's possible something similar is happening with their engineers.
- the_only_law 4y agoSomething must be going on with their engineers. People who other FAANGs wouldn’t touch with a 20ft pole can get Amazon recruiters in their inbox.
- blaser-waffle 4y agoIt's an open secret it's a rough place to work, even as a programmer. The Seattle Times and others have articles about it. No shortage of people talking shit on Reddit, either; NDAs don't last forever.
- midoridensha 4y agoIt's not just the low-skill warehouse workers and delivery drivers; everything I've read about their IT/tech jobs sounds like an absolute horror show, along with an enormous amount of churn.
- anothernewdude 4y agoI mean, the main outcome of a weaker economy for me is less spending on AWS and at online stores.
- bee_rider 4y agoI'd also imagine that Amazon must be quite exposed to the current mismatch between the US demand and China's supply given their business model (I mean so's all of retail, but Amazon really amps it up to 11).
- blaser-waffle 4y agoRetail is getting hammered and a lot of industries have a glut of supply, esp. after COVID threw off global logistics. Demand went up like crazy for some items, and they went hard manufacturing em, and now that the world is mostly back to normal the demand dropped and inflation is crushing spending.
- voisin 4y agoAre you suggesting that Bezos believes growing competitors will voluntarily stop growing because he recommends they do so? I don’t buy it.
- kaashif 4y agoI think what they're saying is if you tell people there's an economic downturn, and they believe you, that creates the downturn. Employees will be reluctant to switch away from a stable big company job for fear of layoffs at startups. Investors will play it safe and avoid risky bets of the kind that could disrupt Amazon's businesses. And so on. Jeff may as well be saying "our competitors are uninvestable" but that would be too obvious and be discounted.
- sebazzz 4y agoBy the same account Bezos wouldn't say anything if an economic crisis is coming so their competitors wouldn't stop spending money and have less liquidity.
- up2isomorphism 4y agoNothing can “grow” with this kind of inflation and federal spending. Remember when you have 1T company you don’t think like a typical employee.