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I hate to break this to you, but the decline of company-employee loyalty started 40 years ago, and even before that it only existed as a result of unprecedented

I hate to break this to you, but the decline of company-employee loyalty started 40 years ago, and even before that it only existed as a result of unprecedented post-war prosperity and lack of global competition. This doesn't mean that it's all downside for employees though. Amazon grew a huge business and paid their corporate employees top of market with huge upside over the last 20 years due to their phenomenal growth. It was a very good deal for those who worked in Amazon corporate over the last 20 years—a lot of people got richer than their parents ever could have gotten in the previous generation of more stable corporate jobs. But make no mistake, Amazon is not a magic pot of gold, they still have a P&L like any other company. 17,000 employees are not cheap. Amazon grew from 800k employess to 1.3m and then 1.6m at the end of 2019, 2020 and 2021 in response to the pandemic. It is to be expected that their forecasts were not completely accurate in light of the generational event and tech sea change that the pandemic brought. The fact that people are scandalized by this is indicative of how insane the 12-year bull run for tech really was.

htag 4y ago
> they still have a P&L like any other company Amazon's quarterly reports have all been good so far (Q3 2022 is the latest). Sales are up 15% YoY, and they are profitable.
- imglorp 4y ago
  The coldest view would be the holiday buying surge is over and they can shed some excess to pad that margin until next fall.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  Wall St demands growth. Their revenue in 2019 was up 20%. Some of their investments are boat anchors pulling the companies profits down.
  - htag 4y ago
    15% in Q3 2022 is a larger dollar amount than 20% in Q3 2019...
- qqtt 4y ago
  Simple growth does not indicate that Amazon's quarterly reports are "all good" - Amazon like all other companies are valued based on their future earning potential. Amazon in particular has given very soft revenue and growth guidance compared to what they were earlier expecting, hence, they are one of the worst performing tech stocks right now. In absolute terms, both Amazon and Apple are first place for evaporating 800 billion dollars in market cap EACH over the last year. Amazon in particular has a longstanding problem of ops costs rising quickly giving the constant potential to eat into profit margins. If a company does not have a path to profitability, at the scale to justify it's market cap, it will continue to lose investor money. TL:DR; - reducing an earnings report to "sales grew, all good" is wildly misleading.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > In absolute terms, both Amazon and Apple are first place for evaporating 800 billion dollars in market cap EACH over the last year. In relative terms, Apple is in first place for the largest market cap in the world of any company, and Amazon is in fifth place. They're totally fine. Think of it this way: Amazon is still more than twice as valuable now as it was 5 years ago. Short-term investors will live by the sword or die by the sword, but long-term investors are fine. The main problem is that everyone went nutty during the pandemic. The pandemic valuations were nutty, and the pandemic hiring was nutty. You could call it "irrational exuberance". Now they're coming back to reality.
    - CydeWeys 4y ago
      > Short-term investors will live by the sword or die by the sword, but long-term investors are fine. Well, and also some of the employees there, regardless of their length of service. This whole thread is more from the POV of the tech workers getting laid off than investment performance.
- bumby 4y ago
  Net profit margin is down 21% and diluted EPS is down 10% though. Increased revenue with decreased profit/earnings would indicate a loss of efficiency. I imagine layoffs are one signal to shareholders that they’re trying to get that efficiency back.
daheza 4y ago
For reference check out the wiki for largest employers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers Amazons hiring growth has been insane.

htag 4y ago

> they still have a P&L like any other company Amazon's quarterly reports have all been good so far (Q3 2022 is the latest). Sales are up 15% YoY, and they are profitable.

imglorp 4y ago
The coldest view would be the holiday buying surge is over and they can shed some excess to pad that margin until next fall.
Spooky23 4y ago
Wall St demands growth. Their revenue in 2019 was up 20%. Some of their investments are boat anchors pulling the companies profits down.
- htag 4y ago
  15% in Q3 2022 is a larger dollar amount than 20% in Q3 2019...
qqtt 4y ago
Simple growth does not indicate that Amazon's quarterly reports are "all good" - Amazon like all other companies are valued based on their future earning potential. Amazon in particular has given very soft revenue and growth guidance compared to what they were earlier expecting, hence, they are one of the worst performing tech stocks right now. In absolute terms, both Amazon and Apple are first place for evaporating 800 billion dollars in market cap EACH over the last year. Amazon in particular has a longstanding problem of ops costs rising quickly giving the constant potential to eat into profit margins. If a company does not have a path to profitability, at the scale to justify it's market cap, it will continue to lose investor money. TL:DR; - reducing an earnings report to "sales grew, all good" is wildly misleading.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > In absolute terms, both Amazon and Apple are first place for evaporating 800 billion dollars in market cap EACH over the last year. In relative terms, Apple is in first place for the largest market cap in the world of any company, and Amazon is in fifth place. They're totally fine. Think of it this way: Amazon is still more than twice as valuable now as it was 5 years ago. Short-term investors will live by the sword or die by the sword, but long-term investors are fine. The main problem is that everyone went nutty during the pandemic. The pandemic valuations were nutty, and the pandemic hiring was nutty. You could call it "irrational exuberance". Now they're coming back to reality.
  - CydeWeys 4y ago
    > Short-term investors will live by the sword or die by the sword, but long-term investors are fine. Well, and also some of the employees there, regardless of their length of service. This whole thread is more from the POV of the tech workers getting laid off than investment performance.
bumby 4y ago
Net profit margin is down 21% and diluted EPS is down 10% though. Increased revenue with decreased profit/earnings would indicate a loss of efficiency. I imagine layoffs are one signal to shareholders that they’re trying to get that efficiency back.

daheza 4y ago

For reference check out the wiki for largest employers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers Amazons hiring growth has been insane.