"An American consumer wants a German duvet cover, 130x200 cm. They go to Amazon. They get four pages of Chinese-manufactured polyester comforters keyword-stuffed with every bed size ever conceived by humanity. The sponsored listings at the top are for products that share no meaningful attributes with what was searched. The organic results, if you scroll far enough to find them, are identical in kind if not in degree.
This is not a search failure. Amazon’s search works exactly as intended. The intent is not to return what you asked for. The intent is to return what someone paid to show you.
Every subsequent problem in Amazon’s retail business is downstream of that choice, and the choice was rational at every level of the org chart."
The threat: "The threat to Amazon’s retail search isn’t a startup. It’s Grainger. W.W. Grainger sells industrial and MRO (maintenance, repair, and operations) supplies to corporate and institutional buyers. Roughly 1.7 million products. Catalog search that returns what you searched for, because the customer is a procurement manager with a part number who will immediately go elsewhere if the results are wrong. Grainger doesn’t sell sponsored placements above the right answer. Grainger’s business model depends on the right answer appearing first. They have existing distribution relationships, existing shipping infrastructure, existing corporate account relationships, and a search product that works because their incentive structure requires it to work."
After a long and detailed analysis, the bottom line on what Amazon businesses survive:
"Prime Video survives. Content lock-in is real. The subscriber base that stays for The Boys and doesn’t care about retail benefits is real, and it’s underrepresented in how people analyze Amazon’s decline narrative.
What doesn’t survive at current scale: the everything-store growth story, the AWS infrastructure dominance thesis, the 33% cloud market share trajectory, the Bedrock-as-AI-moat narrative, the $2 trillion valuation multiple."
Articulate exchange between Emmanuel Saez and Josh Rauh. Saez fundamentally believes the billionaires won't leave and presents the tax as a five year experiment. Rauh believes it will lead to the disintegration of Silicon Valley.
Richard Grenier captured the truth for civil society: "As George Orwell pointed out, people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." (h/t https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/11/07/rough-men/)
All we have of freedom, all we use or know –
This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.
Ancient Right unnoticed as the breath we draw—
Leave to live by no man's leave, underneath the Law.
Rudyard Kipling, The Old Issue, 1899
https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/kipling/old_issue/
An opinion that formed after the war, but not actually anchored in reality. None of the elite really wanted a war, some levels of the military did. Nicolas II raged against his generals that he did not want to mobilize and send men to their deaths. The German leadership didn't want a war, they thought it was inevitable but that they'd lose. The Austro-Hungarians definitely didn't want a war with Russia but did want to give the Serbs a black eye for the assassination in Sarajevo, and made a number of bad decisions. The British tried to stop the war and a number of politicians there wrote about the potential consequences before it happened.
In a way it's sadder than other conflicts: none of the participants entered the war for power or control, they all thought they were defending themselves. Plenty of people knew the human cost would be high. Events and fear and lack of fast communication just took over. And it set up the conditions for WW2 and probably the cold war.
Key quote: "People misunderstand what built Silicon Valley. It wasn’t just intelligence. It was the stamina to endure embarrassment, the courage to diverge from the 'ideal path,' and the sheer will to keep going."
A decision is always an irrevocable commitment of resources: time, effort, cost, reputation, relationship capital, opportunity cost, etc. The trick is understanding the size of the commitment and having a plan for what you will do if things don't go as planned.
But also be aware of 'analysis paralysis', where you spend so much time trying to plan for every contingency that you never get around to making the actual decision.
Absolutely, the size of a decision is the amount of resources you are committing irrevocably. Based on the size and the lack of a proven path, you need to invest effort in planning, adjusted for any deadlines the situation imposes on you. For example, when do you lose certain options, or, through inaction, commit to a course of action?
Sizing the decision also allows you to avoid the other side of the coin of "analysis paralysis," which is "extinction by instinct," where you proceed purely on pattern matching. Obviously, you need to rely on reflexes in situations where you don't have time to calculate, like maintaining your balance or pulling your hand away from something very hot. And there is value in letting the smell of smoke, a fire alarm, a cry for help, or other critical interrupts immediately redirect your attention to a new action.
My frustration with the “reversible decision” or “recoverable decision” framing is that it ignores the need to acknowledge the irrevocable commitment of resources and the opportunity cost of a course of action, and use those to guide the level of planning needed.
Planning is expensive, and overplanning is a waste. Still, a prudent survey of likely risks and outcomes should encourage you to plan in advance for certain likely situations and undertake mitigation efforts.
+ Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator, launched Garry's List, a California nonprofit organization.
+ The 501(c)(4) will distribute voter guides, research explainers, and digital content on economic policy.
+ Tan argues that California's innovation environment faces pressure from upcoming ballot measures.
Closing quote: “California should prioritize retaining and attracting entrepreneurs and investors—the people who create jobs, strengthen the tax base, and fund essential services,” Tan said. “Policies that drive them out of the state harm innovation and make it more difficult to support core public needs, from infrastructure to public safety to education."
Useful perspective. I think viable second sources can also lower costs. They might not increase QUALYS but would probably lower the cost of existing QUALYS so that money could be spent on other needs.
The problem:
"An American consumer wants a German duvet cover, 130x200 cm. They go to Amazon. They get four pages of Chinese-manufactured polyester comforters keyword-stuffed with every bed size ever conceived by humanity. The sponsored listings at the top are for products that share no meaningful attributes with what was searched. The organic results, if you scroll far enough to find them, are identical in kind if not in degree.
This is not a search failure. Amazon’s search works exactly as intended. The intent is not to return what you asked for. The intent is to return what someone paid to show you.
Every subsequent problem in Amazon’s retail business is downstream of that choice, and the choice was rational at every level of the org chart."
The threat: "The threat to Amazon’s retail search isn’t a startup. It’s Grainger. W.W. Grainger sells industrial and MRO (maintenance, repair, and operations) supplies to corporate and institutional buyers. Roughly 1.7 million products. Catalog search that returns what you searched for, because the customer is a procurement manager with a part number who will immediately go elsewhere if the results are wrong. Grainger doesn’t sell sponsored placements above the right answer. Grainger’s business model depends on the right answer appearing first. They have existing distribution relationships, existing shipping infrastructure, existing corporate account relationships, and a search product that works because their incentive structure requires it to work."
After a long and detailed analysis, the bottom line on what Amazon businesses survive:
"Prime Video survives. Content lock-in is real. The subscriber base that stays for The Boys and doesn’t care about retail benefits is real, and it’s underrepresented in how people analyze Amazon’s decline narrative.
What doesn’t survive at current scale: the everything-store growth story, the AWS infrastructure dominance thesis, the 33% cloud market share trajectory, the Bedrock-as-AI-moat narrative, the $2 trillion valuation multiple."
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