
Jeff Bezos has returned to day-to-day management of Amazon - garraeth
https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-returns-amazon-management-covid-19-2020-4
======
ethagknight
My theory: Prime, and its 2-day shipping service, is a flat rate deal, priced
according to 10.5 normal months and 1.5 batshit crazy delivery months. Since
they can't charge on a demand basis for shipping like FedEx can, they've run
into an internal train wreck where they can't afford to deliver all the orders
the've received. So their bottleneck is actually a bottleneck of budgeted
"delivery slots" for these Spring months, which they've excused as being "due
to essential items only, can't keep up with demand."

I've noticed something that I found extremely curious: I've ordered several
random things in the last month from Amazon, and all have been severely
delayed. These are not surge items: drumsticks, a guitar wall hanger, and an
APC ups. All were Prime items, and all have been severely delayed, waiting
weeks now. I get it, they are 'focusing on essential items' and my guitars
will be fine to wait a while longer. However...

I have not noticed many Prime delivery vans out in the neighborhood. During
the holidays, Prime vans are everywhere. Today, they are not. Last mile
shipping is one of those businesses that gets gloriously efficient with scale.
Bezos announced that 100,000 person hire a few weeks back, which I assumed
would be rehiring their holiday surge subcontractors. But few vans on the
streets today.

Finally, what essential items does Amazon have in stock that is overtaking
their delivery supply chain?

~~~
philjohn
I've noticed the opposite in the UK - saying they'll take up to a week to
deliver, and then the item turning up the next day, or the day after.

~~~
s0rce
Same experience here (SF Bay), some items with moderate delays are on time
(3-7 days), items with very long lead times (15-30 days) end up coming much
faster. Still happy to not have to go to the store.

~~~
edoceo
Same, Seattle, CPU, RAM and MB I ordered came a day early (last week). Was
surprised, it was a day before the scheduled arrival I got when order was
placed. Maybe just lucky.

------
WhyKill
Amazon sucks now. I can't buy most of the specific items I use in my work, and
when I do find something it's swimming in a sea of clone crap. The best thing
it does still is books. Anything else is a mizxed bag. AMZ is just Ali Baba
for people who can't wait for the ship.

~~~
admax88q
I find this odd. I read these sorts of comments every time Amazon in mentioned
on HN, how its literally only clones, fakes, and scams, and impossible to find
legitimate products anymore.

I have literally never received a fake/clone/scam off amazon, and I can't
explain that discrepancy. I personally only buy things that are sold or
fulfilled by amazon, never shipped by third party sellers, but surely everyone
else as savy as HN readers does the same? Why order things with brutal
shipping costs and times, only things fulfilled by amazon are quick.

~~~
SkyBelow
>I have literally never received a fake/clone/scam off amazon, and I can't
explain that discrepancy.

Shopping patterns?

I buy a lot of things, not just for myself but as gifts for a large family. I
have found some areas are so filled with scams that I no longer buy items from
those areas on Amazon. Other areas (which make up the majority) I have no
problem at all, at worst getting a slightly delayed or damaged box.

Any sort of name brand small electronic was a scam more times than not to the
point now I no longer order them off Amazon. But books, board games, or video
games have been 100% what I payed for. As far as I can tell I've never
received a fake Amiibo, though a few times I never had it delivered and had to
call for a refund. Even my few orders of used electronics have been good
(though I never did get around to converting my used PS Vita into an emulation
center).

Food is good too, but I rarely buy it and only for a few specific items as
most other things are far too overpriced. Mainly I order tea and I pay close
attention to who is filling the order.

Gardening supplies are probably the most mixed bag of the bunch. Often enough
I don't get the seeds I order but it can sometimes be fun to see what actually
does spout up.

Result: A few areas: 90%+ rip offs. A few other areas: 50/50\. Most areas:
100% good.

As a side note, on anything I buy I go read the 1 star reviews and skip if
they mention fakes or if there aren't any at all.

~~~
groby_b
The problem is that many 1-star reviews that are meaningful are being drowned
in the inane. ("I bought seeds, but they don't sprout if I don't add soil and
water" kind of inane).

There's either a massive influx of stupidity, or this is deliberately useless
one-stars to drown out useful ones.

------
noncoml
Those who complain about Amazon should try eBay.

I recently bought a relatively expensive item ($3k) that was being advertised
as "New - Open box" one month old item.

What I received was a 5 year old used item. Trying to return it was the most
stressful online shopping experience I have ever had.

One you open a return request, eBay gives the seller 5 working days to reply
to your request. Seller took advantage of all 5.

When I finally got a return label, the seller left the item waiting for pick
up for 3 days, until finally picking it up.

Once picked up, eBay gives seller another 5 working days to issue a refund.

In the mean time there is no way to ask help from eBay. All they do is just
close the case asking you to wait.

So for a total of 3-4 weeks I have my money sitting in seller's PayPal
account.

At least with Amazon, retail* support is usually pretty good.

~~~
ObsoleteNerd
I bought some N95 reusable children's masks from a reputable seller (5 digit
feedback, 99.9% positive, all the "eBay verified/premium seller" crap)... 4
for $80. They ended up being BLATANTLY fake, basically 1mm craft foam cut out
in the shape of a mask. I sent in macro photos and a full description
demanding a refund, they said "nope, you opened them, they're used now".

eBay sided with the seller.

I've been on eBay since it first came to my country, I've bought/sold many
hundreds of items, but eBay has noticeably become an utter mess in the last
couple years, and their support is non-existent. I'll never use eBay again,
for anything.

~~~
noncoml
> 5 digit feedback, 99.9% positive, all the "eBay verified/premium seller"

Yeap, it's all smoke and mirrors.

Also it's ridiculously easy to ask them to remove any negative feedback.

------
sytelus
This is quite significant given market is very bullish on Amazon (Goldman is
just all over it). The expectations are set sky high to do well during these
times. But if you look at things as consumer, it doesn't look so good.
Personally, I've significantly less orders on Amazon these days because of
huge delivery times. Sure, orders for "essentials" might have gone up but can
that offset the gap? Also, sellers are very dissopointed with their items not
getting delivered and many have started to look for alternate channels.

Given all these, I wonder how things will pan out. Wall street expectations
for Amazon to do well this quarter is sky high but behind the curtain things
might have taken significant hit.

~~~
jdm2212
This is sort of a "no one goes there anymore, it's too crowded" criticism.
Huge delivery times are because they're getting so many orders (which means so
much revenue, which means so much profit).

~~~
ardy42
> This is sort of a "no one goes there anymore, it's too crowded" criticism.
> Huge delivery times are because they're getting so many orders (which means
> so much revenue, which means so much profit).

Is that completely true? I thought the delays were at least partially due to
staffing problems (e.g. increased absenteeism, worker social distancing).

~~~
ahmedalsudani
That might be the case now but the initial cause was a big spike since people
couldn’t or didn’t want to go to stores.

------
paxys
The headline is pretty sensationalist. It's not like he is coming out of
retirement. He is just updating his schedule to focus on immediate problems
rather than longer term projects (like every other CEO in the world right
now).

~~~
Florin_Andrei
I mean, it's an all hands on deck, putting out fires, type of situation after
all. So it makes sense for him to be more involved with the daily stuff.

------
ilamont
The other issue which Bezos has less control over is delivery, especially in
areas where its own logistics service is limited.

A friend living in rural New Hampshire says Amazon will no longer deliver
goods to people in his town, which indicates a last-mile delivery problem.

Another friend in North Carolina said the U.S. Post Office stopped delivery to
all of the buildings in his apartment complex because the leasing office was
now closed.

There are other situations in which delivery companies understandably don't
want to follow pre-COVID procedures because it's no longer safe to do so.

------
jdoliner
Has anyone else noticed Amazon shipping them more of items than they ordered?
I've recently had this happen in two separate orders, including receiving 3
SSDs when I'd just ordered 1, for a free $300 of SSD.

~~~
sgillen
You may be a money mule! And you may want to report this, someone vulnerable
could be racking up massive debt paying for free stuff. see :
[https://youtu.be/2IT2oAzTcvU?t=300](https://youtu.be/2IT2oAzTcvU?t=300)

~~~
cbg0
It's actually very unlikely for this to be the case for the three SSDs. If
what is presented in the video is actually happening, there would be no reason
for the fraudster to pay for 3 SSDs with a stolen card and send them to the
customer, because a higher transaction amount could pop off some alerts at the
stolen card's bank, which is a pointless risk.

You also have to take into account honest people which would try to notify the
fraudulent seller or possibly the platform through which the item was bought,
which is another unnecessary risk for a fraudster.

~~~
sgillen
I mean obviously you could be right about that. In the case I linked though
basically the exact same thing happened, the speaker ordered some coffee and
received that plus a free nespresso machine!

It’s possible that the credit card wasn’t stolen but was opened using a stolen
identity, so any alerts could go straight to the fraudster.

The other problem is that there are not many incentives for the platform to do
anything about this, proving fraud is hard because this thing can happen
through legitimate mistakes. Both the vendor and platform got paid, and the
buyer got what they paid for plus some. In the case above the fraud was
reported but no one did anything.

The advantage for the fraudster would be hopefully repeat business / positive
reviews that generate more business. Admittedly this makes less sense for SSDs
compared to coffee.

------
cwhiz
I don’t know what is going on but their “essential items” excuse is totally
bogus. There are no essential items in stock! Go try to buy toilet paper,
paper towels, hand soap, etc. I can’t buy ANY of that and haven’t been able to
for at least 4-6 weeks.

And the “normal” products have shipping delays of 4+ weeks sometimes. And then
other times, none. It seems totally random and nonsensical.

I think they have serious labor issues that they are covering up. I’m just
guessing here with absolutely no information. Just can’t make sense at what is
going on.

------
justicezyx
Not sure why comments change to the degrading quality of Amazon retail.

The article is pretty obvious. The CEO needs to always focus on the most
critical matter. Sometime it's long-term strategic investment, like Alexa.
Some other time, it's a ongoing emergency that will have profound long-term
impact.

And Mr. Bezos is doing the right thing to align the company right now.

------
coder1001
Is this a good or bad sign?

What problems exist that only the founder can solve and require his
involvement? or is that just what he wants to do?

~~~
crazygringo
It's a good sign.

In cases of normal business operation, normal corporate management,
delegation, and accountability techniques generally work quite well. Decisions
are extensively researched and weighed before being taken. Doing things right,
not quickly, is the goal here.

In times of urgent emergency, normal management techniques fail because they
can't respond quickly enough. Not because they're inferior, but because they
weren't designed for it. Therefore you need _one_ person making big, hard
decisions in a timely manner.

There's probably nobody in the world who is better qualified to make big,
hard, fast decisions for Amazon than Bezos, obviously. And considering his
wealth is tied up in the company too, this is the smart, responsible choice
for everyone involved.

~~~
philwelch
I agree with you but for different reasons.

> In cases of normal business operation, normal corporate management,
> delegation, and accountability techniques generally work quite well.
> Decisions are extensively researched and weighed before being taken. Doing
> things right, not quickly, is the goal here.

In Amazon’s case, the opposite is heavily encouraged. Here is one of their
“leadership principles”:

> Bias for Action: Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are
> reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.

Of course, there are other principles like “Dive Deep” and “Be Right A Lot”
that balance this out, but Amazon is definitely tuned for speed of decision-
making.

If anything, I would take the opposite side of this change as the real
indicator. In normal circumstances, Amazon does what it does well enough for
Jeff to deep-dive into specifically interesting projects while the S-Team (the
executives reporting to Jeff) are trusted to run the company day-to-day. We
are in far from normal circumstances now.

------
Melting_Harps
What a missed opportunity, Boeing is on its knees and shown it cannot compete
with SpaceX, and Blue Origin has the best opportunity to displace SLS with New
Glenn program once and for all. When else will you be able to kill a crony-
Goliath like ULA, by their own incompetence no less, and gain the public's
adoration for it as CEO?

I get it, this is his golden goose and its undergoing huge stress and delays
due to COVID; but for all the talk about why he got into tech and wanted to
make Billions was essentially to get into Aerospace in the first place makes
it seem like the vapid platitudes of Billionaire.

I'm not surprised, just disappointed in Bezos. I guess we're going to have to
live with ULA clogging up the system and spending billions more without
producing results all while SpaceX is sending astronauts to ISS next month.

I don't buy things from Amazon anymore, their supply chain optimization
results in inhumane business practices, and despite having access to Prime I
still prefer to stream shows on it elsewhere. The quality looks equally
mediocre in comparison to Netflix on a 4k screen anyway.

~~~
shaklee3
SpaceX isn't turning a profit, though, especially since the number of launched
has been dropping precipitously in the last couple of years. Bezos is smart
enough to know that there's no rush in this.

~~~
Melting_Harps
What? SpaceX has increased its manifest dramatically over the years, Starlink
missions put it way over its previous highs, and 2020 is their record breaking
year:

[https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/12/spacex-record-
breaki...](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/12/spacex-record-
breaking-2020-manifest/)

You cannot know if SpaceX operates at a profit or not, its a private company
and funding is most certainly not an issue, so of course Cap-Ex isn't reigned
in when you now have definitive domestic market share for resupply missions to
ISS and US Military contracts, as well as a long wait-list for international
customers as well fleshing out your future forms of revenue with Starlink and
Starship (already in its 5th iteration in just 7 months!) missions and several
Factories churning rockets and engines 24/7.

I've seen it with my own eyes, and stood inches away from several prototype
raptor engines all over the place. As awesome as Starship SN2 was, I really
got my highest fanboy feeling looking at it.

~~~
shaklee3
Launching their own payloads is not the same as launching those from a paying
customer. They do not make any money off launching their own satellites until
those satellites are profitable. We can known if SpaceX turns a profit based
on their employees and funding they've been raising.

Just because you saw one in real life doesn't mean it's special compared to
any of the other companies doing launches. Sure, they have lower cost, but you
need paying customers to pay the 7,000 employees you have. They have a total
of _2_ paying customers (NASA) in 2020, 11 in 2019, and 20 in 2018. Do you see
the trend now?

~~~
Melting_Harps
> They do not make any money off launching their own satellites until those
> satellites are profitable. We can known if SpaceX turns a profit based on
> their employees and funding they've been raising.

Product development takes time, and aerospace is a tightly regulated affair
that the FAA has way too much control over, and still the fact remains that
reusing first stages, and fairings drops the cost dramatically. So, what you
are extrapolating is hardly going to give you a very definitive view in
profitability.

Also, why wouldn't you take as much funding as you want when you're in the
development of other Value added services to add to your core program,
especially when you've become the darling of the Aerospace Industry and anyone
with money is falling over themselves to give you funding? That just seems
like a horrible argument and doesn't detract from anything SpaceX is doing.

The reason its significant is because how quickly they can iterate a design in
real-time due the their vertical integration, Merlins seemed like they were
were a choke point for future mission success from Falcon 1 to 9 so they
overcame it using that methodology [1], so they realized moving over to Raptor
was going to be fundamental to keep up with Starship's try/fail iteration as
well.

But just so its clear, I saw 5 just standing in front of the office at the
Starship factory. At Hawthrone they have a bunch parts overflowing out the
factory, a bunch of shrouds and shield prototypes were just propped up against
the walls into the parking lot when I was there. And its clear to me that
they're prioritizing their resources/funds where it matters most when you're
trying to go for Market Share: innovation. But what makes you think they don't
have investment in outside ventures that make them not just solvent, but
profitable? Do you have access to their book keeping? What you're saying seem
altogether academic, and nothing more than conjecture.

Correction: NASA and the US DoD, the latter essentially having unlimited
budgets and the former have granted them exclusive access to the ISS for
resupply and transportation. Satelite missions from other private corps do pay
bills but they're not as frequent and also have a lengthy lead-time with years
of development and costs--I'm sure COVID will have disrupted it even further
in ways we cannot discern until we go back online.

I'd say if anything it shows how economies of scale can incentivize a company,
if successful, to be able to create more supply then demand when they take the
risks and iterate as much as the SpaceX Team has. Those boosters, fairing and
engines are still being cranked out in earnest at HQ while the rest of the
World has shutdown.

I'm sure if you saw Facebook's satellite mission succeed you'd be clamoring
about how great the company is because now they have a 'real pipeline
developed' to serve the needs of FAANG.

Honestly, the only trend I see is the ever greater lift capability because of
R/D funding being where it was supposed to. I'm less convinced about their
civilian transport usecase, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

Other than that, they beat Nation States (specifically the only 2 super powers
left in the World 20th/21st Century) out of an Industry that only they had
access to despite how rigged the system is through creative destruction and
left all of their competitors for dead in the wake of their disruption. Its a
successful model anyway you cut it.

But, lets assume for one second you are right and its not profitable: lets not
forget that the World's richest Man is the CEO of a (exploitative) company
that has never turned a profit in it's entire existence and yet it has become
evidently what the World relies on during pandemics for delivery of goods.
(With nearly a trillion in Market share in 2019.) Which is what my reply, and
this thread, was actually about, mind you.

So my final question is: what have you actually proven?

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Merlin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Merlin)

~~~
shaklee3
I don't think you read my comment. Well before covid hit, their launch cadence
was dropping dramatically. They still have DoD and NASA missions, but those
aren't enough (look at the manifest) to sustain a company of that size.

~~~
Melting_Harps
> I don't think you read my comment.

I read it, I just don't see how that's anymore than conjecture.

This was my response to that:

> the latter [DoD] essentially having unlimited budgets

The DoD also being a a customer that not only has an unlimited budget, but
pays in advance, and gives you essential work status during Global shutdowns
is more than enough to make it sustainable. NASA's involvement for missions to
the Moon and Mars will also have a significant ramp up when this next mission
gets the media attention it deserves and a viable Starship itertation is
created.

Believe me, I actually hate they have such deep Military and Government ties,
because of my pwn personal ideology/ethics/morals but the fact remains its
sustainable and is objectively a brilliant strategy: its pragmatic as it is
effective and uses the latter to determine its trajectory and business model.

I really have heard your (cyclical) argument, I disagree and I don't think
we're doing much other than arguing the same points for what seems like
arguments sake, so I'll leave it at that.

------
johnrgrace
Jeff being back to day to day will make a difference. Ex-amazonian, I've seen
a lot of people go work for them recently and more than a few are B, and at
least one a C level players.

OP1/OP2 presentations in front of Jeff will make a difference.

------
blairanderson
One of my client sells medical devices on amazon.

They sold out their entire 2020 forecast by mid April.

Amazon warehouses also got a little humility and flexibility towards warehouse
workers.

The shipping demands are real.

------
jhallenworld
I have been ordering random things on eBay and Amazon- it turns out that right
at this moment, eBay shipping is faster than Amazon Prime.

~~~
nostromo
Ebay is decentralized which is much more scalable than Amazon's centralized
approach.

Similar to you, I've noticed things on Ebay ship and arrive very quickly.

AliExpress is somehow still cheaper than Amazon for cheap things that don't
need to be high quality or perfect. You just have to wait two weeks for it to
arrive -- which isn't much different than the wait for Amazon currently.

------
OrgNet
Anyone else noticed that Amazon started to charge different prices to
different users in the last year?

------
ChuckMcM
This of course means someone who used to be doing day to day management is no
longer in that role.

------
beart
Who was running things in Jeff's absence?

~~~
traskjd
There’s two CEOs below him. Andy Jassy for AWS and Jeff Wilkie for Amazon
Retail.

------
fishingisfun
i wonder where he shops for clothing

------
whoevercares
Buy Amazon. It’s seeing Black Friday traffic everyday and AWS can’t be feeling
better then ever during this period

~~~
libria
I think retail will be more consistent than AWS. IMO the economic impact to
AWS is delayed a few months. Businesses are making personnel cuts now and will
shore up ops costs by Q4 2020 if not sooner.

From Q1 2021 it'll be hard to sell and onboard new service till the economy
recovers.

~~~
mcintyre1994
There’s also the apparently massive use of Azure, if the companies currently
jumping in there are looking to do huge cloud spend in a few months I’m not
sure AWS will be the winner there. Though maybe this is all a big enough
market for them both to see massive growth, I’m definitely just speculating.

------
WoodenKatana
Maybe this will bring him back to Earth and see that not everything is as good
as in the bubble he lives by focusing on futuristic projects. It'd be nice to
see an impact

------
Loughla
I guess now we'll see how much of the perceived shit show was actually his
making, and how much was his leadership group. This should be interesting.

~~~
crazygringo
I don't think there's any "perceived shit show" from the perspective of
investors or management.

If you're referring to the treatment of warehouse workers over the past
decade, Amazon pays them market rates, like pretty much every other business
pays market rates. So Amazon can sell goods at the lowest price possible. It's
not a "shit show", it's a business strategy that has paid off.

If you're upset about how workers are treated, bring it up with Congress to
set minimum wage and employee treatment laws that will apply to _all_
businesses and warehouse fulfillment centers, not just Amazon.

~~~
londons_explore
> Amazon pays them market rates

Actually substantially over market rates this year. Everyone wants to work in
amazon when the alternative is walmart...

------
guylepage3
Maybe he should set his sites lower and get some work done to fix Amazon
Fresh. I have tried to order something everyday since Mar 12 and no time slots
have been available.

~~~
krazyk8s
I'm willing to give Amazon a pass on this one for the moment. I haven't been
able to use any grocery delivery services in weeks. If there are time slots
available they are getting filled pretty much immediately when they open up,
and I've not been lucky enough to catch it.

~~~
burrows
Do they lack sufficient personnel (deshelvers, drivers) to increase delivery
slots?

~~~
MattGaiser
Essentially. No company can hire enough of those right now.

~~~
burrows
Increasing pay is the obvious answer. Maybe the profit margin is too thin.

