The Andy Jassy Way at Amazon

admin July 18, 2022

0 7 minutes read

The last of the country’s largest banks reported their second quarter earnings this morning. Goldman Sachs exceeded expectations as its traders were able to take advantage of volatile markets. Bank of America’s revenue was as expected, but revenue was down one-third year-on-year.

Jassy goes to Washington (many)

When Jeff Bezos led the Amazon, he was away from Washington. He seldom lobbyed lawmakers and testified only once in front of Congress under the threat of a subpoena. However, Andy Jassy visited Washington at least three times a year after taking over the top job from the founder of Amazon. This is just one way Jassy is changing the way tech Jaguar notebooks are operated by retail giants, Times’ David McCabe and Karen Weise reported in their Amazon CEO profile this morning.

Jasie soon leaves his mark on the company.. For many years, Lieutenant Bezos made more changes than many expected.

He delved into the logistics and other parts of the business that his predecessor left for his agent.
He cut costs, admitted that Amazon was overbuilt, and oversaw turbulent leadership changes.
He struck a reconciliation with employees, maintaining Amazon’s long-standing and often aggressive opposition to unions.

The biggest difference between Jassy and Bezos may be their involvement with Washington. Jasie called Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader, on antitrust reforms. He spoke with Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine about a new corporate campus in the state of Amazon. He also met twice with Mark Warner, another Democratic Senator in Virginia. The bill is a co-sponsor of a bill that limits Amazon’s ability to prioritize its products over other products. “He’s very curious,” said Ron Klain, Chief of Staff of President Biden, who met Jasie in Washington in September.

A more direct approach in Washington may come from need. Amazon faces regulatory scrutiny in several respects.

Antitrust Law: In addition to a bill limiting how Amazon can introduce products to its market, FTC Chair Lina Khan is investigating whether Amazon’s market dominance limits the competitiveness of its rivals.
Union: Last year, Biden formed a union in the Oval Office and threw his support behind an Amazon worker who was trying to host the union organizer.
Amazon responded by expanding lobbying. It spent $ 19.3 million on federal lobbying in 2021, up from $ 2.2 million ten years ago. According to OpenSecretsTrack the impact in Washington.

And Jassy’s more direct approach seems to be paying off. Daniel Auble, Senior Researcher at OpenSecrets, said: “But of course, Amazon’s CEO can get them all over the phone.”

What’s happening

Central banks are stepping up their efforts to curb inflation. At least 75 central banks have raised interest rates, many from historically low levels, and the European Central Bank is expected to raise interest rates for the first time since 2011 at this week’s meeting. Authorities have shown that it is expected to rise by just a quarter percentage point, and perhaps even bigger moves will continue in September.

Uvalde’s shooting reports show a “systemic failure” in police response. According to the report, the final decision to confront the shooter was made by a small group of officers and may have been made much earlier. The findings were the most complete external explanation of what happened in the 77 minutes between the shootings of gunmen in a Texas school classroom, the final death of 21 people, and the police attack. ..

Britain is probably supporting the hottest days. Temperatures in some areas can exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit. This is unusual for causing a national emergency. Spain, Italy and France are also preparing for the heat wave, and wildfires in southern France were expected to spread north. Italy has experienced the worst drought in the last few years.

Climate stall as a political issue in the United States It’s no secret that Senator Joe Manchin rejected the compromised climate bill. Voters and politicians place high premiums on pressing issues such as inflation and the economy. In a recent New York Times / Siena University poll, only 1% of voters cite climate change as the most important issue facing the country.

Timing issues

Elon Musk’s lawyer formally responded to Twitter’s request on Friday to quickly pursue a lawsuit demanding that he complete the $ 44 billion acquisition. The social media company demanded a four-day trial in September, claiming that the longer the dispute, the more harmful it would be to the company and its shareholders. Musk is proposing February, so we have time to dig deeper into how Twitter counts bots.

Judge Cataleen McCormick, who oversees the case, will hold a hearing tomorrow to decide how fast to proceed. Her decision is a preview of the case’s most important issue: Does Mask, to be precise, have the right to prove in court?

Musk wants to delve into the number of Twitter bots. That was the focus of his submission to court on Friday, and according to the submission, was the main reason he was looking for a long-term process of calling third-party experts, consultants, and Twitter executives. “The central debate over fake and spam accounts is the basis of Twitter’s value,” Musk’s lawyer wrote. “It is also very fact- and expert-focused and takes a considerable amount of time to discover.”

Twitter wants to continue to focus on merger agreements. The deal signed by Musk doesn’t give him anything simple if Twitter has more bots than he thought. Twitter may claim that the actual number of bots is irrelevant. We have already told investors (and masks) that the numbers given to spam and fake accounts on the platform are estimates. Twitter also warns that third parties may have trouble calculating numbers, so it may try to oppose the value of external testimony.

This decision reveals a lot about this case. Judge McCormick shows how relevant she thinks Twitter’s bot counts are, and how deeply she’s trying to get involved in the pain of bot counts. She probably knew that if she elicited the process, as the Mask team requested, the widespread public might see it as a sign that she was seeing something in his claim. increase. But she may also want to make sure she looks thorough and cautious.

Judge McCormick was here before. In the case of Kohlberg, a private equity company Trying to leave She hasn’t allowed a speedy trial since she bought cake decoration maker DecoPac during a pandemic. However, DecoPac is a private company and was unaffected by day trading whipping, public shareholder pressure, or the drama produced by Mask. And she finally forced Kohlberg to complete her transaction.

“The five largest semiconductor companies that are likely to receive most of this taxpayer’s distribution, Intel, Texas Instruments, Micron Technology, GlobalFoundries and Samsung, made $ 70 billion in profits last year. Does it sound like your company really needs corporate welfare? ”

— Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders explains why he opposes the measures he offers Over $ 52 billion for companies building semiconductor factories In the United States

Dollar hits high for the first time in 20 years

The dollar has risen 10% this year and is now at its highest level in 20 years. Often referred to as the world’s reserve currency, it usually rises during times of global turmoil. But US inflation, rising interest rates, and concerns about growth resulting from a pandemic have fueled it.

That’s good news for Americans traveling abroad. However, a stronger dollar can have a volatile impact on the global economy. It disrupts demand for imports and exports, impacts the interests of multinational corporations and raises borrowing costs in poor countries that tend to borrow in dollars, reports Times Kurt Russell and Joe Renison, Jason Caryan.

Sales are growing for companies outside the United States. Burberry, a British luxury goods maker, announced on Friday that currency movements would add more than $ 200 million to this year’s sales. This helps offset the decline in sales in China, where the economy is slowing.

But that’s worse news for American businesses and American investors. Ben Laidler, eToro’s global market strategist, predicts that the dollar’s rise will reduce revenue growth for S & P 500 companies by 5%, or about $ 100 billion, this year. Reflecting that resistance, the companies that generate most of their revenue in the United States performed better than their rivals, who had high overseas sales.

Fiscal stability in poor countries can be at risk. In countries where currencies are depreciating rapidly, such as Argentina and Turkey, it is especially difficult to pay creditors interest in dollars, especially as interest rates on new debt rise. It may seem impossible, as in Sri Lanka.

Is it possible to stop the dollar? The US economy looks volatile, but as Europe faces an energy crisis, Japan resists raising interest rates, China’s Covid-19 lockdown policy disrupts the supply chain, and other countries are high. Suffering from inflation, demand for the dollar looks strong. “For now, we expect the dollar to trade on the forefoot,” said Kamaksha Trivedi, co-head of the Goldman Sachs market research group. “There may be more to come, but perhaps most of the dollar’s movements are behind us.”