Amazon’s new CEO can help workers and sellers – or automate them

Amazon uses software to manage in a way that almost no other company except gig-economy giant Uber, Lyft,

DoorDash and Instacart. Whether they’re driving a delivery van, picking items off the shelves or trying to maintain their product inventory so as not to delist, Amazon’s employees, subcontractors and sellers are monitored, evaluated, rewarded and even tagged for reprimand or coaching by software.

While Mr. Jassy is often described by those who worked for him as Jeff Bezos, but perhaps warmer and fuzzer, there is currently a stark contrast between the way he treats his immediate reports and the way Amazon’s algorithms and artificial intelligence treat its millions of frontline workers and market vendors. As mnr. Jassy can figure out how to use algorithms to manage workers and partners just as humanly as he apparently manages the people he works with personally, it could be the crucial legacy of CEO.

After building Amazon Web Services from a small business he started in Amazon, starting in the early 2000s, in the cloud market (and half of Amazon’s profits), Jassy not only understands the internet plumbing business for numerous technological enterprises. AWS supports, from Netflix to Slack, but also how it is plugged into the myriad businesses owned by Amazon itself. He is now 53 years old and joined Amazon in 1997, immediately after graduating from Harvard Business School.

Mr. Jassy’s experience of a cloud operation may not qualify him to run a competitor like Walmart,

which is still dominated by physical stores. But along with his nearly 24 years at Amazon, it gives him an edge in overseeing Amazon’s e-commerce operations and the rest of its vast empire. (Cloud computing is remote computing power obtained through the Internet, and it is the most important factor for everything from the mobile revolution to numerous services we take for granted, from streaming to AI.)

Amazon’s empire faces challenges – technological, operational and regulatory – that are as great as they have ever faced.

To begin with, there is a question that is at the heart of what kind of business Amazon wants to be. Managers at the company are emphatic about their desire to preserve the health of employees and give them opportunities to grow and develop, but the way Amazon manages both employees and sellers with algorithms is contrary to the values. Can Mr. Jassy chooses to make changes, can Amazon design its software and systems to be more empathetic to the needs of those who serve and govern them?

The same cloud infrastructure that Amazon uses to manage and handle millions of customers also supports systems that drive its employees increasingly difficult in many ways, and that their third-party sellers often lose out on how to navigate Amazon’s market – which fuels complaints. and investigations into its labor and competition practices. Will Amazon design its systems to rather improve the quality of life of workers and promote better and more transparent relationships with its sellers?

Sal mnr. Jassy balances Amazon’s status as one of the largest employers in America with the pursuit of automating as many roles as possible? And lastly, how much of this will he be able to achieve in the face of increasing antitrust investigations and a call to break up the company?

Mr. Bezos resigns as CEO, giving the company a chance to restore its public image in Washington and around the world. Many people who work with Mr. Jassy worked, said that although in certain ways like Mr. Bezos is, his temper is softer and softer.

David Risher was a senior vice president of retail at Amazon from 1997 to 2002, and he worked closely with Mr. Jassy. “If the past is a prediction, he will lead from the heart as well as from the head,” says Mr. Risher. “He leads with sincere empathy – the kind you can’t fake.” The two are still in contact; Mr. Jassy is a member of the advisory board for Mr. Risher’s Worldreader non-profit organization, which gives disadvantaged children access to digital books.

Throughout the supply chain of Amazon’s e-commerce industry, people are quickly turned into jobs that require almost no training. This is possible due to how these roles are guided and constrained by algorithms and automation. In Amazon’s more advanced fulfillment centers, employees who select items for orders from robotic shelves, for example, are examined by AI-enabled cameras. A scanning gun coupled by the cloud monitors the rate at which they pick items, the number and duration of their breaks, and whether they grab the right items and place them in the right places. Managers only need to turn on if software reports a problem, such as a worker falling behind.

An Amazon spokesman objects to the characterization that anyone in his facilities is “managed by algorithm” because all employees have a human manager who is responsible for it and who directs them if they do not meet performance expectations. “Our front-line workers are the heart and soul of Amazon,” and receive the same benefits as corporate employees from the day they start the business, the spokesman added. Amazon has said in the past that only a small percentage of associates are fired or leave the company due to performance issues.

Also, software replaced the people who would normally handle the accounts of retail partners. Even big brands that decide to sell on Amazon are mostly dealing with the company’s automated systems. AI almost completely determines how sellers are treated in Amazon’s market, and it’s not always easy to work with, says Jason Boyce, who was a top 200 seller on Amazon for 17 years and then founded Avenue7Media , which helps companies sell. on Amazon’s market.

“Their AI sometimes doesn’t get nuances,” he says. Sometimes the offers from sellers will decline with little warning, leaving small businesses scrambling to make payroll, he adds.

“Amazon invests heavily in supporting our sellers as we work together to serve customers and protect the brands,” said an Amazon spokesman. “It is in our economic interest to limit any disruption to our sellers’ sales, and we work hard to prevent misapplication. We call all sellers with low risk or permanent residency before suspension, and we offer a clear way to sellers to appeal appeal decisions by our team. ”

Mr. Jassy may choose to improve these systems, or he may just automate most of his employees. And if regulators do not go into this, there are also many of its partners and market vendors.

Right now, Amazon needs all the workers it can get. But depending on whether the union’s effort at the company becomes strong, the company may soon have another powerful incentive to replace workers with automation as quickly as possible. The company has tried many tactics to prevent union at its facilities, arguing, among other things, that a union that unites the union will reduce the flexibility needed to adapt its systems.

Clearly, Amazon wants to use its AI and cloud computing infrastructure on even more ambitious forms of automation, such as autonomous delivery, both by drone and by wheeled vehicles. Since Amazon has outsourced the last mile of delivery in its own logistics network to thousands of local delivery franchisees, the company can terminate contracts with such companies virtually overnight, as in the past, without affecting the size of the workforce it employs. direct.

It looks like Mr. Bezos, who has a talent for long-term thinking, just chose the right moment to install an unworkable CEO who has the opportunity and possibly the temperament to burn the image of Amazon. The biggest challenges in Amazon’s immediate future, aside from union, are the years-long congressional hearings, as well as federal investigations, into whether Amazon is a monopoly that needs to be broken, says Paul Armstrong, an industry analyst and creator of ‘What Has Amazon done this week? ‘ newsletter.

Under Mr. Jassy, ​​”I think you might get a more boring Amazon,” adds Mr. Armstrong by. Known for his cool head and attention to detail, Mr. Jassy also has the advantage of not identifying with Amazon as personally as Bezos, its creator, does. This could serve him well, as he is forced to appear before Congress on a semi-regular basis and spend a significant portion of his time with lawyers should the antitrust actions against Amazon come into play.

Whether all this AI, software and automation will be used to ease the burden on employees or force them to work harder to keep up, this is a choice facing all businesses in the era of digitalisation, and none more than Amazon. It is possible that Mr. Jassy will choose to manage this ongoing transition differently than the famous hard charger that Mr. Bezos het. It is also possible that he may feel compelled to manage things differently from Mr. Reg. Bezos.

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Write to Christopher Mims by [email protected]