3 ms·
This is completely unsurprising. I worked for a company like this as well. It’s easy to ignore investors when you’ve had an upward trajectory year after year.
by refurb 4y ago
This is completely unsurprising.
I worked for a company like this as well. It’s easy to ignore investors when you’ve had an upward trajectory year after year. They’ll put up with almost anything when the stock price keeps going up.
But as soon as your growth slows or stops, reality hits like a ton of bricks.
Investors have lots of place to put their money. If Amazon cant deliver what these investors want, they’ll put their money elsewhere.
Amazon is free to ignore them, they’ll just have to deal with the consequences of that.
I mean, as an employee, would you stick around for less compensation? No, most people would find a better paying job.
- tiedieconderoga 4y agoAmazon was in a somewhat unique position where they could ignore their investors, because they were raking in plenty of money. Choosing to reinvest that money in the business caused some consternation, but the consistent revenue and growth let them ride out periodic misadventures and hits to the stock price. It turned out to be a good move in the long run, because they weren't bluffing about their business fundamentals.
- gumby 4y ago> Amazon is free to ignore them, they’ll just have to deal with the consequences of that. The consequences aren’t necessarily that significant: mainly the cost of raising further cash from the markets, which doesn’t look like Amazon will have to do for many years, if not decades.
- mavelikara 4y ago> The consequences aren’t necessarily that significant: mainly the cost of raising further cash from the markets, which doesn’t look like Amazon will have to do for many years, if not decades. Many people who decide on these things, though, are mostly compensated in stock. They need a good price to sell their stock at.
- triceratops 4y agoIf the stock price doesn't go up Amazon (and every other company compensating with RSUs) will have to fund raises out of their own pockets. Yes I'm aware stock-based compensation is also an expense. But as I understand it, that expense = the initial value of the grant. So if the stock price goes up it's like the employee got a handsome raise funded entirely by Wall Street.
- mandevil 4y agoAmazon (at least used to, when I last looked at joining them) had a cash compensation max of around 175k-200k for essentially all engineers, with all comp greater than that coming as equity (with, according to what I heard, a 15% per-year assumed increase in the stock price factored into your comp package). So the employees really do care about the value of the stock, since a very large % of their comp comes from that going up.
- coredog64 4y agoAmazon revised the bands last year (at the height of pandemic comp craziness), so it’s now theoretically possible to get something like $300k in base. But the second half is correct. Amazon comp assumes 15% IRR. This wasn’t true for 2022, and it’s not true for 2023, leading to lots of complaints on Blind.
- mh8h 4y agoAmazon also sets compensation targets, and if the stock price goes high enough for the employee to reach the compensation targets without new stock grants, no new stock grant is given. So there is no motivation to stay for long, even when the stock is doing well.