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Jeff Bezos tells employees ‘one day Amazon will fail’

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Opening Insights: "Not too big to fail!"

As America witnesses the fall of the once world's largest retail chain, SEARS… Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder warns his staff that like SEARS:

"Amazon is not too big to fail … In fact, I predict one day Amazon will fail. Amazon will go bankrupt. If you look at large companies, their lifespans tend to be 30-plus years, not a hundred-plus years,” Bezos told staff, according to a recording that was heard by CNBC.

Rushe, D. (2018, November 16). Jeff Bezos tells employees 'one day Amazon will fail'. The Guardian. Retrieved November 17, 2018, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/16/jeff-bezos-amazon-will-fail-recording-report

The world’s richest man made this surprising warning that Amazon, currently valued just short of $1tn and regarded as the most fearsome retailer on the planet, would one day face its own demise

Bezos said, Amazon would have to “obsess over customers” and avoid looking inward.

“If we start to focus on ourselves instead of focusing on our customers, that will be the beginning of the end,” he said. “We have to try and delay that day for as long as possible.

Rushe, D. (2018, November 16). Jeff Bezos tells employees 'one day Amazon will fail'. The Guardian. Retrieved November 17, 2018, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/16/jeff-bezos-amazon-will-fail-recording-report

Informational Insights: Realities of Power

Bezos’s frank admission of mortality come in a tough week for the tech giant. On Tuesday Amazon announced the location of its new headquarters – one in Queens, New York, and another in Arlington, Virginia.

The announcement came after a hard-fought beauty parade between cities across the US who offered billions on subsidies and investments to woo Amazon.

But New York residents in particular have been outraged by the size of the corporate welfare package offered to Amazon. “The governor and the mayor have decided to throw Jeff Bezos almost $3bn in subsidies and tax breaks – and throw in a helipad so he doesn’t have to take the damn 7 train,” said city councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, who represents Long Island City.

Amazon is also facing a global backlash over the sheer scale of its business. European regulators have opened an antitrust investigation into the company’s use of data. In the US, where Amazon is shortly expected to account for 50% of all e-commerce, there have been calls to break the company up.

Rushe, D. (2018, November 16). Jeff Bezos tells employees 'one day Amazon will fail'. The Guardian. Retrieved November 17, 2018, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/16/jeff-bezos-amazon-will-fail-recording-report

Additional insight comes in light of the poor working conditions that employees face - from the top down. A culture "customer obsessed" only cares about their bottom line and not their front end.

Amazon has rejected criticism of its business practices, claiming that it provides decent jobs and prioritizes workers’ safety, while aggressively thwarting “interference” from unions. Yet studies on the long-term impact of Amazon distribution centers on local markets show they may often have the net effect of displacing higher wage blue-collar and retail jobs, while undermining local small businesses.

Frustration with Amazon’s local impacts has gone global. Distribution workers in Europe and the United Kingdom recently staged demonstrations and strikes against “robot”-like labor practices and low wages. And in the United States, communities where Amazon has become a dominant employer are lashing out at executive Jeff Bezos, whose astronomical wealth contrasts glaringly with the lives of hundreds of thousands of Amazon workers, who might earn as little as $11.50 per hour.

According to Hibaq Mohamed, one of several East African immigrant workers at an Amazon facility in Shakopee, Minnesota, her community is being pushed into crisis by a punishing work system. As an organizer with the worker center Awood, which has been organizing area workers with support from SEIU, she says the pressures of the workplace even haunt coworkers at night. “They say, ‘When we have [a] schedule [for work] tomorrow, we do not sleep at night. We dream [of] what we’re doing. We dream of the boxes that we do…. Sometimes they say, ‘We did not sleep last night, because we’re worried about the future.’”

The workers are more than willing to work, Mohamed says, if Amazon would simply provide a healthy, decent workplace, where workers are comfortable taking a prayer break without fearing of getting punished for missing their production target: “We don’t want to go home and feel sick, feel pressure…. We love to work at Amazon, but we need [to be] equal, to be treated as human beings.”

Chen, M. (2018, December 21). Is This the Turning Point in the Fight Against Amazon? The Nation. Retrieved December 22, 2018, from https://www.thenation.com/article/amazon-workers-labor-prime/

We have to question the logic of Bezos' customer centric approach. While it is important to focus on the customer, if we fail to nurture ALL STAKEHOLDERS that impact the business, how can be ensure our survival.

Possibilities for Consideration: ALL People Matter, NOT Just Consumers

ALL STAKEHOLDERS MATTER! Employees, manufacturers, providers and customers matter.

Replacing people with robots may remove some of the responsibility of creating a pleasant human centered work culture, however, the question is how do organizations like Amazon ensure customer support and loyalty if their employees are being motivated by fear and being treated less than?

  • How can Amazon change their corporate image, do they even want too?
  • How can retailers compete with Amazon in terms of price, quality and loyalty?
  • How can retailers drive customers to their sites and support services?
  • How can retailers compete with such a giant?

Add Your Insight: Unite and Collaborate

The Co-Lab Platform has the power and intelligence to neutralize social cultural challenges and reinstate trust-based cultures that embrace diversity.  It provides intelligent insight to the community through a process that allows adversity to fuel diversity through social enterprise and structured collaboration.  Get involved today, and make your impact!

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FOOTNOTE of Importance


Our world is experiencing an incredible revolution powered by technology that has used its tools to:

  • deceive the public
  • disrupt tradition
  • divide the people

This has inadvertently resulted in a Fear-based Shadow Culture™ that has hurt many people.
A powerful group of influence has joined together to deliver a proven antidote by shifting from impersonal development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to replace people to utilize AI to empower Human Intelligence (HI).

 

To Empower The People:

 
  

Distraction Junction

 
 

What is a Modern Hero?:

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We invite Heroes and Visionaries
to explore accessing these powerful methodologies and resources
to achieve their individual visions.




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