- 150 million amazon prime users globally (equivalent to to combined france + germany population (or) half of US population). Impressive!!
- Rivian is integrating Alexa into its electric vehicle lineup, including its upcoming fleet of 100,000 all-electric Amazon delivery van. Amazon has made investments in Rivian. Going to compete with Tesla?
- Amazon Music has more than 55 million customers worldwide. Collectively, in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Japan, Amazon Music customers have grown nearly 50% year-over-year;
- Prime Video received eight Golden Globe Award nominations, with Fleabag winning Best Television Series, Musical or Comedy, as well as Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy, for Phoebe WallerBridge.
- AWS announced three Arm-based instances (M6g, C6g, R6g) powered by AWS’s new Graviton2 processors, that deliver up to 40% better price and performance than current x86 processor-based instances. Threat to intel?
- AWS announced the general availability of AWS Outposts, a fully-managed service that extends AWS infrastructure and services to virtually any data center, co-location space, or on-premises facility. On-premises is gaining strength?
My other comment ITT is touting the awesome library compatibility I’ve experienced on ARM, but the problem I see with ARM laptops is that I haven’t seen tons and tons of consumer desktop/laptop apps compiling for ARM (with the sort-of exception of Android apps, many of which rely on Google Play Services).
Getting ARM laptops to work is going to require OS-level changes. If Amazon shipped one now, they’d either need to ship a fork of a linux desktop OS with good app compatibility or wait for MS to crack the ARM walnut with one of their ARM compatibility projects.
I feel pretty confident that this is a “hardware follows software” situation: laptop manufacturers may be tempted to make ARM laptops right now, but I think they’re probably waiting for MS to ship a version of “Windows for ARM” that is generally seen to be successful.
I’d be more concerned about 3rd party developers. It is true that Windows 10 runs on ARM, but from what I’ve heard it’s still kind of rough trying to get a lot of 3rd party apps to run on those laptops. Not to mention the difficulty of trying to get game developers to support Windows+ARM (as opposed to Android or iOS) in large enough numbers that you can fairly say the sentence “you can game on Windows for ARM”.
The distinction of “successfully shipping Windows on ARM” is a subjective one and depends on the needs of each user. Although that being said, I don’t think we can really say “ARM laptops have arrived” until they either have great gaming compatibility or great compatibility with some large group of productivity apps. I think they’ll get there, but they aren’t there in January 2020.
I’m gonna give the unhelpful shot of “it depends” with a chaser mixed from “anecdotal experience”.
Having done a lot of work with Raspberry Pis over the past few years, I’ve been pretty impressed with the number of libraries and packages that compile for ARM. I’ve done stuff like building fullscreen electron apps (for theatre projections), doing some light video processing in ffmpeg, running a plex server, running a DIY Time Capsule (which required formatting a drive with HFS+ and then using some HFS+ based libraries).
There are probably holes: I haven’t tried doing deep learning stuff on a Pi (I’d guess some frameworks work and some don’t but I don’t know which) and to that end I definitely haven’t tried anything CUDA related (I have no idea if Nvidia’s proprietary drivers compile for ARM).
But overall, I get the feeling that with Android a lot of libraries started shipping for ARM, which made Raspberry Pi possible, which has gotten more libraries and packages to ship for ARM, which should hopefully make people’s transition in serverland much easier (especially if you’re doing run of the mill web server stuff).
Net sales ~$280B (products and services)
Net Operating expenses ~$266B
Operating income ~$14.5B on that huge amazon.com revenue.
AWS is an amazing business itself but it's easy to underestimate what a massive strategic advantage it is for amazon - compared to other retailers - to have it in their portfolio!
[edited M to B - thanks for catching that :)]
That's by design. Amazon has found it's far more effective to deploy their excess capital toward company expenditures in the form of acquisitions, real estate, capex, employees, stock buybacks, etc rather than letting it get taxed as corporate operating income.
Those dollars do ultimately get taxed, to be clear, but in the form of employment taxes, individual capital gains, individual income taxes, and property taxes.
Goodwill is not amortized in GAAP accounting for public companies (it can be impaired, but that’s bad).
But you’re right, I had forgotten that it may be amortized for tax purposes when it comes from a taxable asset sale (not for an stock-based acquisition).
I always wonder why Apple does not utilize its revenue and profits the way Amazon does by funneling it towards CapEx and ever grow more ambitiously with its acquisitions and new products and services. I have seen Apple keep buying back its own stock and giving ever more dividends to its shareholders rather than investing in itself.
I get the feeling that large acquisitions wouldn’t help Apple given its culture and emphasis on tight integration. Also, it’s R&D budget on an absolute level is pretty large.
No, because not every company can invest like Amazon.
edit: Take for example McDonalds. What are they supposed to invest in? Its a mature business at this point, and over-investment in random things would just destroy shareholder value.
A single $2000 strike call option expiring tomorrow was trading at $250 just before close. If Amazon closes at $2100 tomorrow that option will be worth $10,000. Amazing.
There are always massively out of the money options expiring soon that are worthless and would skyrocket if the company suddenly became much more valuable. They're not valued highly because that very rarely happens, no matter what the guys at /r/wallstreetbets tell you.
This is actually noteworthy because the $2k strike was by far the most heavily traded call option today...not even close, so this wasn't an extremely random dumb lotto bet made by 2 people on /r/wsb
Options can be used both for hedging and speculation. You seem to only appreciate the latter.
Suppose I own AMZN already at a lower cost basis and believe the $2000 strike is approximately the maximum, say for example I believe the stock will drop after a short rally. Then I'd write a call; if the stock doesn't reach $2000, I earn the premium, even when the earnings are bad and the stock tanks; if the stock does reach $2000, I earn the premium and realize the gains on the stock, with only a bit of a FOMO.
That's one of the most basic option strategies known as a covered call.
I’m not sure what your point is. Sellers obviously think the credit they earn is worth the risk. Buyers think the price they pay is worth it too. It’s just a two-sided marketplace like many other things.
Options writers can and should hedge losses by not writing naked calls (highly risky in situations exactly like this) and instead buy a higher strike option which caps losses e.g. a vertical spread.
You said the option/strike in question was not a dumb lotto bet and you submitted the volume of trading as your supporting evidence.
But the state lottery is literally a dumb lotto bet with super high volume.
So I don’t see how this wasn’t some set of lucky gamblers. If ER went another way, there’d be some other group making lots of money. Everyone speculating about the future (which is fine depending on the financial circumstances of involved individuals)
What’s the point of this comment besides being inflammatory?
All those things are always discussed tirelessly in HN every time there’s something about Amazon. We get it. And it’s ok to bring them up here. But how about adding something useful to the discussion, instead of just making that statement and posting a bunch of links?
Some people are jerks. Discussions about them always begin or end by stating that. It's a cost of being a jerk. Why should companies be treated differently?
I thought it was insightful. 4 and 5 are what made me boycott Amazon and shop at, gasp, Wal-Mart. Amazon might be surging now but they are eroding consumer trust with this BS.
I don't know about the original poster, but I think it's important when we talk about these massive 'success' stories that we're actually talking about the domination of capital holders over workers and the failure of regulators when it comes to technology companies.
I’m not. Used to. Could talk shit about Amazon for days, but that’s not the point of what I said.
Thanks for being super creepy, and digging through my profile. Unfortunately you couldn’t even get that right. And by the way, even if I still worked there I can’t see how that discredits my opinion.
But since you seem to going down that route, I can say confidently that I don’t like Amazon as an employer and many times I don’t like it when I interact with it as a customer. Mind blowing, right? Someone who can be critical and still tries to seek objective opinions.
Either the vast market that they exploit is ignorant to their abuse of the world, or the vast market is knowingly participating in fairly a-moral behavior knowingly.
I prefer to think that people are generally good (moral) & naive, so i'll continue parroting the point everytime Amazon comes up, just on the off chance that i'll elucidate to someone Amazon's true nature that they may otherwise be unaware of.
Speaking of topics that are spoken of ceaselessly on HN : Amazon's success and profit. Where's your issue with that topic?
> What’s the point of this comment besides being inflammatory?
I think that's an absolutely atrocious response to anything human-rights related.
I think moralizing about companies is stupid. If a company makes moral decisions, and as such, is less sucessful, they're probably going to get their lunch eaten by their less moral competition. The only antidote to this is laws that ensure some basic level of civility.
Capitalism is a nasty, amoral system by nature. Saying some companies are good and others are bad is just scapegoating.
If everybody boycotts amazon tomorrow, they'll be replaced by a company that does the same stuff - because amazon have proved that it works, and that it is profitable. Nothing but legistlation can stop that. Talking about how bad amazon is obcures this.
> The only antidote to this is laws that ensure some basic level of civility.
How do you figure those laws are created, if not by public pressure? And how would publish pressure be created if not by talking about the amoral behavior of companies?
In general, but not in specific. Saying that a specific practice should be illegal is productive. Saying that a particular company is bad is not - they'll simply say, 'we follow the law'. And they'll be right. Then the politicians will say, 'you can't ban Amazon'. And they'll also be right, because laws can't be targeted against specific groups.
If you target specific techniques and practices (for instance, child labour, historically) then the supporters and lobbyists have to actually justify the problematic stuff - they can't just hide behind the nebulous vagueness of all the things big companies do.
If everyone rewards companies for being nasty because that's somehow "smart" or "successful", then the nasty companies will be among the most successful ones.
If everyone boycotts companies that do unethical things, then those companies will be punished financially and ethical behavior will be economically incentivized.
The vast majority of customers buy products first on quality, second on price, then third on ethics. The third point is very tenuous, since it relies on specific, reliable information that the producer is highly incentivized to obfuscate.
I don't see how that could ever work. So, in my eyes, it's not choosing the world you want to live. It's engaging in some magical thinking to feel good about yourself. If you want to change the world, vote. Better still, organize. Take the time you would have spent researching the ethical status of one company or another and look into the history of campaigns to improve working conditions. Some campaigns have worked - but I have never heard of, and cannot imagine there are any, that were consumer boycotts.
1. You're making up vague statistics that I believe are false. If "the vast majority of customers" only "tenuous"-ly care about ethics, then why are major multinational corporations reacting to today's ethical concerns like climate change? Doesn't stand up to your own logic that companies do amoral things.
2. If you reward companies for being bad, then they will be bad. If you reward companies for selling blue items, they will sell more blue items. Your own logic about amorality dictates this. Why is it so hard to understand?
I guess I thought my 'vague statistics' were obvious and undeniable. If not, let's get concrete. Consider Union Carbide. They were responsible for the worst industrial disaster in history, with around 20,000 dead. They then went on to neither compensate the victims (including 40,000 permanent disabled) nor clean up the site.
This was widely publicized. According to your theory, such an extreme 'bad' act would have led to disaster for the company. In reality, it didn't even lead to rebranding. They were bought by Dow Chemicals - but that was because they had massive debts. I think they cannot have been related to the Bhopal disaster, since their compensation paid was very small.
One salient fact here is that moral hazard is not contagious. Many products are for other businesses, who aren't likely to pay a premium for ethical considerations. Another fact here is that even in the most famous and awful cases of bad companies, you're relying on the company's own branding to tell informed customers to stay away. Which is obviously extremely fragile - the company can rebrand, even if the customers are reliably informed (how many people on the street know about Bhopal? Is it present when they buy shrink wrap? Is it even possible to know that your shrink wrap was made using ethylene from union carbide?
All seems a bit absurd to me. Even before you get into the inherent asymetries of the idea (is Bill Gate's ethical opinion worth more than a billion poor people? As an ethical consumer, it is.)
Capitalism is a nasty, amoral system by nature. Saying some companies are good and others are bad is just scapegoating.
Actually, this isn't the case. Not too long ago, orphan drugs were actually reasonably priced. Cuprimine went up from 500 USD to 24000 USD for a 30-day supply when Valeant bought the original manufacturer, and Daraprim went up from 13.50 USD/dose to 750 USD/dose thanks to Shkreli: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-senate-drug-price-stu...
Not that again. Bioequivalence is important so that a patient can take Levothyroxin 75 μg from Ranbaxy one month and Levothyroxin 75 μg from Teva next month and notice no difference. Unfortunately, the market for orphan drugs is so small that it's impossible to recover the outlays.
Just as an aside, once you start on a thyroid medication, it’s recommended you stick with that manufacturer. Yes, they are bioequivalent, but to the FDA that means 80%-125% of the originator.
But yes, these markets where formally cheap drugs get 100x price increases are tiny markets where the outlay to get FDA approval is more than they’d make on it.
I'll add something useful! All of the above are cold, business sided stories. Let's get personal. If you're an employee and want to share your personal story, go check out https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home
Amazon employee here (product manager at AWS). I don't recognize this characterization of our company. The company treats me just fine. While the pace is high, and the bar for anything you do is very high, you learn a lot, get tons of opportunity to invent new stuff, and generally can make meaningful contributions to services, while still having a personal life.
I can only speak to my own experience but I usually work 40hrs/week and I got promoted last quarter. The office is usually completely empty by 6pm in Minneapolis. SDE at Amazon, opinions are my own, yada yada yada
I'm an Amazon SDE in NY. When I visit Seattle, after 5:00 or 5:30, it feels pretty quiet. In NY, it might be a bit longer, but tame compared to other places I've worked.
I've heard it varies depending on office location. Apparently the culture in Seattle is pretty demanding but I talked to an SDE in Austin who said they arrive at the office at 10am and leave before 6pm every day, and that their biggest gripe about that job is that it's hard to find parking near the office.
As with everything, it depends a lot on the team. But in general, in Seattle, yes. Amazon also has a ridiculous employee turnover rate in engineering for obvious reasons.
A friend went to work for Amazon in Boston; our workplaces were a half-mile apart. We went out for lunch. He asked if he could bring a coworker whom he thought I would like. Sure, no problem.
My friend shows up alone. Why?
"Oh, we believe in work-life balance, and he wants to leave work at 6 tonight because he wants to see his kids, so he's not taking lunch today."
that hasn't stopped some start ups from doing it anyways. I heard a pretty extreme horror story from a coworker who went to work for a start up in Sweden, of all places.
3.3 b earnings in a quarter. Most of which is from cloud I believe? They don't break down.
Shopping- Walmart is catching up (but will probably not beat. It's a lossy business for Amazon I believe and as people realize the counterfeit problem the business goes down )
Cloud- MS will beat them in 3 years (which doesn't mean they will lose customers but growth will slow down )
Other areas they have tough competition.
I'm beginning to wonder if it's a stock bought by faithful.
It wasn't debunked, what you said was correct. Microsoft does not break out Azure's sales or operating income numbers, it's all reported together with the other cloud products. All they reveal each quarter is Azure's growth rate.
- 150 million amazon prime users globally (equivalent to to combined france + germany population (or) half of US population). Impressive!!
- Rivian is integrating Alexa into its electric vehicle lineup, including its upcoming fleet of 100,000 all-electric Amazon delivery van. Amazon has made investments in Rivian. Going to compete with Tesla?
- Amazon Music has more than 55 million customers worldwide. Collectively, in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Japan, Amazon Music customers have grown nearly 50% year-over-year;
- Prime Video received eight Golden Globe Award nominations, with Fleabag winning Best Television Series, Musical or Comedy, as well as Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy, for Phoebe WallerBridge.
- AWS announced three Arm-based instances (M6g, C6g, R6g) powered by AWS’s new Graviton2 processors, that deliver up to 40% better price and performance than current x86 processor-based instances. Threat to intel?
- AWS announced the general availability of AWS Outposts, a fully-managed service that extends AWS infrastructure and services to virtually any data center, co-location space, or on-premises facility. On-premises is gaining strength?
https://ir.aboutamazon.com/static-files/f3589a21-d023-4e4c-9...