Fucking Amazon. How to Reboot after an Acquisition.
39tl;dr: vote for my SXSW talk over here: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/54875
The NY Times published an article titled "Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace". A current Amazon employee posted a rebuttal on LinkedIn titled "An Amazonian's response to Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace".
Both pieces are mostly collections of anecdotes and it's impossible to say that either is the one true representation of Amazon. After the acquisition of Woot, I worked at Amazon in Seattle for just over 3 years. My first 18 months were more like the Amazon employee rebuttal. The honeymoon phase. The best of times. The good ol' days. No one wants to hear about that. It's too boring. Not enough drama.
My last 18 months were more like the NY Times article. A special kind of hell that I may never recover from. Ok, that's too far. But it's the interesting part that people want to hear about. I went to work every day thinking I was going to get fired. Then I got promoted. And then I thought for sure I was going to get fired.
I submitted a potential talk for SXSW 2016 that's going to be about my experience, from a technical perspective, taking a startup like Woot through an acquisition by a company like Amazon. The title "Fucking Amazon. How to Reboot after an Acquisition" evolved from an advertisement we ran on Daring Fireball. Amazon ruined Woot but they couldn't kill the community and spirit around the original daily deal concept. It's alive once again here at Meh.com.
I'm thinking of breaking the talk down into three sections:
- First: Knowing what I know now, what things would I have changed in the early days of building Woot to be better prepared for an acquisition.
- Second: The good and the bad experiences of a small team integrating with a company that has a massive technical footprint. I have a couple positive anecdotes along the lines of the Amazon employee rebuttal post. I have plenty of horror stories along the lines of the NY Times article. More constructively, I have some lessons learned that might help others going through a similar situation.
- Third: How these experiences are affecting the work we're doing at Mediocre Laboratories today and what we decided to do differently.
I didn't have octopus for breakfast with Jeff Bezos but who knows what kinds of fun stories we might get into. Like the time one of the lead Amazon engineers freaked out about the site crashing when a Bag of Crap went up. Or the time Jeff Bezos sent over one of his question mark emails because the Amazon customer support team was telling customers they had never heard of Woot. Or the time we think the Russian mafia tried to steal a bunch of our stuff and ship it to Africa. Or we could just spend the hour talking about sales tax. I know way more than I want to about sales tax now.
Right now the talk is just an idea, but I submitted the idea to SXSW a couple of weeks ago. If you'd like to actually see it (either at SXSW live or possibly in video format later) I need your help. Go to the SXSW PanelPicker, sign up for an account real quick (or just use Facebook), and vote for my talk here: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/54875
- 21 comments, 30 replies
- Comment
Voted. This sounds fascinating. I've always been curious why Amazon's post-takeover approaches to Woot and Zappos were so different.
There are more entrants with the f word than I would have thought. I will try to vote later but it's a whole thing with the sign in and password...
@naropa It only takes a minute - they aren't super nosy.
you convinced me to sign up
@Thumperchick. Fair enough. For those who are on the fence-it takes about the same amount of time as rechecking that your "meh face" marks went through...
@naropa It takes 5 times as long. But I check my face 1-8 times a day, and my computer knows when I type M I am going to Meh.com, and I am always signed in, so I am really good at it.
@caffeine_dude I also check my face 1-8 times per day. And the meh face, one time per day.
I would very much like to hear this story.
Created account and voted.
@Thumperchick I bet they were disappointed when they realised they just stole several pallets of bacon flavoured lube.
@Starblind I'd buy that for a dollar.
No that is not it I heard, I heard the mafia succeeded and opened up the loot only to discover it was speaker docks, so after giving back the speaker docks back to the ship's captain, they broke a leg of the captain as a warning to stop shipping crappy speaker docks.
@Thumperchick I once worked at an auto company. We couldn't figure out why all the off-lease vehicles in a particular large, tough looking SUV model were disappearing at dealer/wholesale auction.
They weren't ending up on dealer lots. They simply disappeared, never again to be registered.
We found out they were being bought up and shipped to Russia because the mob there loved them.
done
Joined and voted. Looking forward to the video!
Voted. I look forward to seeing more of this!
There are still a lot of ways to have fun at Woot, even with the new non-daily deal organization. Back when I worked at Woot, I contributed to the fun people had when they went to the site. I really think that once I left (aka fired/I wanted to quit, but let myself get fired), no one else was looking to add fun to the site -- or no one was willing to stick their neck out with a dumb idea.
It's been a year on meh, and it's still the same thing. The things like copywriting, and videos keep me coming back -- but sometimes you need to do the unexpected. Besides April Fools, you guys at mediocre haven't done that yet. I know you guys are capable of the unexpected, and I assume you're working on new ideas already.
@Kevin has vmp been worth it? I really need to drop that ive had it since the free trial but given the small amount ive bought since ive probably paid double in monthy dues than the actual amount of items i bought.
Meh needs to step it up soon or it will just be another shitty woot the website that only sends u 5 items when u order six and u have to go to the bbb just to get a minimal $5 refund that doesnt even cover the missing item. F woot, long live meh .........for now
@msujp Vmp is for rich people, and I'm not rich.
I don't think meh will become a shitty woot site. They've given themselves more flexibility to work on ideas when they created mediocre inc., they don't have to change meh if they don't want to.
@Kevin I bought the Woot monopoly game direct from Amazon; at $5, it was cheaper than regular monopoly at the time, so they were even undercutting the lowest price I ever saw at Woot.
@PocketBrain We played Wootopoly last night! I got mine from Amazon too- it's $7 now with Prime, but you get a dollar ebook credit. Cheap!
@Kevin The periscopes are cool- have you seen any? I love Woot, but I feel like I get lost on the forums. They have their cliques set and it's hard to break in.
If you want to be like me and vote without giving an email, use https://www.guerrillamail.com/ -works fine for signups there
Signed up and voted, but no topic suggestions because I'm sure whichever tales @shawn cares to share will be enlightening and entertaining. I just hope it ends up on video somewhere since I won't be venturing anywhere near SXSW (ever).
You have my vote! Hope to hear your insights at SXSW. If for some reason @mfladd manages to screw it all up, I'll pitch in for some beers and maybe you could live stream to the mehasses?
@jimmyd103 Which I will. Beers are on me.
@mfladd watermelon....really?
Signed up and voted. Took all of 1 minute.
@jimmyd103 I know. But I thought I would save you from the Horny Goat.
?
@mfladd Thanks for that. I think.
COMMUNITY ATTENTION:
THIS IS SARCASM
I will only sign up if all you talk about the different sales taxes for Fed, State, County, City, and how a single item can be exempt from some of the taxes, but not for all. Do not forget to add exemption changes based on the customer's intended use of the product.
END SARCASM (actually my sarcasm never ends)
@caffeine_dude seriously, this is one area where I'm in agreement with Amazon's position of wanting "an even-handed federal framework for state sales tax collection." The sales tax thing is out of control.
My go-to example is that KitKat bars contain flour so they're considered a health food and charged at a lower sales tax rate than a Snickers bar. Let's say you want to sell online gift baskets containing things like KitKat bars and Snickers bars. Calculate the tax for that. But before you do, make sure you're not shipping the gift basket to an address inside a Mosquito Abatement District. Oh, did you check if there's an extra sales tax for being inside a snow removal zone? How about garbage collection? Wait, what day is it, because you might be in a sales tax holiday?
Layer upon layer of complexity. Reminds me of Taco Town:
@shawn I pay tax on shipping at Woot because it's bundled with handling, and that's what my state requires. It's not much money but it pisses me off.
@shawn Yep. Out of control. Seems the only way to be 100% (or at least strive to be) compliant is to hire an outside service that maintains all those jurisdictions.
And far fewer companies (if that is possible) are in compliance with state Escheat laws. Laws telling you what you have to do with abandoned property, payments owed to customers when you don't know how to reach them, old forgotten bank accounts, uncashed rebate checks, etc... In most cases the company cannot simply pocket the property/money - they must forward it to the state. But aging, $ limits, and handling are wildly different everywhere. Again, an outside service is the only practical solution. Luckily for businesses, States don't have the resources to audit.
Voting was so easy I may do it again.
@caffeine_dude Stay tuned, that's not the only Mediocre submission that needs your help.
@caffeine_dude You must be a fellow Chicagoan.
@denboy I assume you are talking about this? I see it's classified as advanced and it's probably over my head, but since you're meh family I gave you an upvote. Now make a post and sell it to the rest of us!
@gio Wow, nice find. Thanks for the vote. I doubt it's over your head, calling it advanced upon suggestion from a wise SXSW sage. Promotional post coming soon.
@denboy I voted too. Didn't understand a word. I'm sure I'm the target audience they want voting- just like for president.
@sammydog01 Thanks for voting for me regardless of it being nonsensical. I promise if it gets voted in I'll balance the budget and create jobs.
@denboy - So, @mediocrebot's goal is healthy internal disruption? I voted for you so I can find out.
and impressive detective work, @gio.
@KDemo Not really. I got impatient waiting for @denboy to follow-up on his tease so I went to the SXSW site and searched for mediocre. :-)
Woot's language filter recently started allowing "shit" and "dick". Coincidence or are they trying to get the magic back?
I like the lines of discussion you mention above. Especially focusing on actual stories that made the experience stand out. Things that haven't/wouldn't/shouldn't/should happen elsewhere. Stuff nobody has exposed or were afraid to expose.
Nobody wants to hear how nice/OK a place is unless it is a standout.
Those above counter-reports didn't really illustrate specific examples of how decisions were made or ideas implemented. They talked about the process.
Specific examples of how Amazon intruded or did not intrude on Woot.
Joined. Voted. @shawn
Oh, if anyone wants to tweet something to their friends but has no idea what to say, I managed to squeeze an explanation into 140 characters here:
(Up) Voted. I very much hope your talk gets to happen. I doubt that I'll be able to see it live, so I very much hope that there is a video of it.
It seems like a lot of people want to see this live but live to far away. I propose that a brightly-painted school bus travels the country picking up these folks and depositing them at the main event. This shall be called Wootstock.
Voted...I looked for a vote button in the middle but didn't find one so I went with the Fonzie thumbs up.
I noticed lots of videos in other submissions...nice ones. While you have Irk. Now I'm sure I'm still the only Official Irk Hater here but seriously? You can do better. (oh, and please kill that little fucker to appease one member...ME)
Hell, I was there and I'd listen to it.
@gatzby seconded.
Voted for you!