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I don't disagree with most of what you've written, but to set the record straight: > In my experience this is why Amazon employs nearly 2 million people and is

by vitus 3y ago

I don't disagree with most of what you've written, but to set the record straight: > In my experience this is why Amazon employs nearly 2 million people and is hyperbolic in its growth over such a long time. Amazon employs millions of people to staff their warehouses, not to write software. From their 2021 report, of their 1.1 million employees, 760 thousand were "laborers & helpers". That doesn't even count the managers for those hundreds of thousands of employees (probably a good chunk of the 62 thousand "first/mid officials & mgrs"), customer service, etc. (Or temps / contractors, if that's fueling the "2 million" figure you cited -- their latest earnings report indicated they had 1.5 million employees.) https://assets.aboutamazon.com/ff/dc/30bf8e3d41c7b250651f337a29c7/2021-amazon-consolidated-eeo-1-report-2p.pdf https://assets.aboutamazon.com/ff/dc/30bf8e3d41c7b250651f337...

fnordpiglet 3y ago
Actually not true - it’s mostly grocery store employees. But that’s my point entirely - not that Amazon would employ 2mm software engineers but that Amazon created enough value that it could scale to millions of employees each of whom are marginally contributing. A person stocking shelves or packaging boxes is a person with a job that creates value. The software engineers being deployed smartly created enough value in a virtuous cycle to allow Amazon to productively employ millions of people. (And yes my 2mm is net of non full time employees while the I9 population is 1.5mm) If as a book seller they had built empires they would be struggling against Barnes and noble still.
- vitus 3y ago
  > Actually not true - it’s mostly grocery store employees. I would not have guessed that -- Whole Foods's website indicates 105k+ employees. Am I missing a whole other order of magnitude? https://media.wholefoodsmarket.com/about/ https://media.wholefoodsmarket.com/about/

by vitus 3y ago

fnordpiglet 3y ago

Actually not true - it’s mostly grocery store employees. But that’s my point entirely - not that Amazon would employ 2mm software engineers but that Amazon created enough value that it could scale to millions of employees each of whom are marginally contributing. A person stocking shelves or packaging boxes is a person with a job that creates value. The software engineers being deployed smartly created enough value in a virtuous cycle to allow Amazon to productively employ millions of people. (And yes my 2mm is net of non full time employees while the I9 population is 1.5mm) If as a book seller they had built empires they would be struggling against Barnes and noble still.

vitus 3y ago
> Actually not true - it’s mostly grocery store employees. I would not have guessed that -- Whole Foods's website indicates 105k+ employees. Am I missing a whole other order of magnitude? https://media.wholefoodsmarket.com/about/ https://media.wholefoodsmarket.com/about/