The beginning of the end & doing what you love.
Amazon Q1 report reveals fundamental issues & the culture of work is changing
Good morning lovely people! ☀️
After a break away in the south of France, I’m back this week with my Friday thoughts. For some fun jabs at Elon Musk and Twitter earlier in the week, feel free to check out my Substack website.
Friday quote:
“When in doubt, act.”
Friday thoughts:
Is it the beginning of the end for Amazon?
Amazon is down, their EV company Rivian is also down.
I’m sure Jeff Bezos would’ve seen this coming far earlier, so probably decided he was past his prime, made enough money, and was just going to fuck off to the sidelines.
I feel like Jeff had been pulling a high school move of trying to one up Elon Musk by tagging onto whatever he’s doing. First it was Aerospace, then it was EVs. Should’ve just focused on yourself dumbass.
I have a gnawing suspicion that Google will gradually take over Amazon’s market demand. Their online shopping function has been getting increasingly better, and it’s just much more convenient to search for items to buy on a search engine everyone is already using all the time anyway.
The product results on Google also just look far more reliable. Amazon has gone too far overboard with their sponsored products which end up coming from dodgy Chinese manufacturers rather than legitimate brands.
I was discussing with Leon the other day how shit Amazon’s UI is as well. It’s become super impractical. Google’s UI has been consumer-focused since the beginning, continually modernising their sleek and simple design. I’m also wondering why Amazon seem to have given up on their own product line.
With increasing costs, unhappy workers, and all the rest, I think it’s time to short Amazon hard.
On management.
New research on remote work forces leaders to contend with uncomfortable truths.
Full-time work is linked to higher work-related stress & anxiety compared to hybrid & remote working. These realities have been reflected by the complaints & resignations of workers who were asked to return to the office.
The rise of freelance work and the increased number of people starting their own businesses has only further exacerbated the consequences of leaders who refuse to let go of their antiquated ideas.
CEOs, like Jamie Dimon, who resisted against the wave of remote work have since softened their positions and learned the importance of adapting. Employees are placing more value on non-monetary compensation. And as employers battle for talent, there is now a race to find the optimal remote work balance.
In previous months, three days a week has been touted as the optimal amount for in-office work; however, a new paper by Harvard Business School discovered that those working in the office one to two days per week were more productive. Through this setup, workers could gain flexibility without sacrificing connection to colleagues.
Remote work relies on leaders’ ability to trust workers’ own incentive to do well. It forces leaders to recognise that the only way to ensure productivity is by ensuring enjoyable work. It means we will hire more by passion rather than titles, labels, and superficial accolades. It means we will automate repetitive & arduous tasks, and place greater attention on assigning meaningful work.
I really think that this is a turning point in our culture surrounding work: people are being forced to contend with whether they truly enjoy their job, or whether they were just doing it for the pay check in the first place.
The rise of remote work means that it will become increasingly difficult to work productively unless you want to. This means we are moving into an era where doing what you love will become the norm, not the exception.
We are living through an insanely exciting time.
Thanks so much for being here with me today. You deserve a wonderful weekend, and damn you crushed it this month.
With love,
Angeline 🤍
Resources:
“Selling the Tesla silver.” The Bloomberg Open, Europe Edition, Bloomberg, April 29, 2022.
“Why autocorrect sometimes gets it wrong.” WSJ Tech News Briefing, The Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2022.
Bindley, Katherine. “What if the Optimal Workweek Is Two Days in the Office, Not Three?” The Wall Street Journal, April 22, 2022.
Great article
Don’t count Amazon out yet! Whilst I agree their UI sucks there will always be demand for cheaper products at lower prices. Furthermore they have created exclusivity with their Amazon prime membership, a thing that Google lacks. I don’t know any household without at least one membership. 200mil members, that’s approx 20bn yearly just from that.
Even when you look at AWS their market share is much bigger than their closest competitors in Azure and Cloud.
I completely agree though. Amazon has gotten complacent after reinventing themselves and are going for volume over quality. Quality always triumphs long term.