Saturday, November 01, 2008
Judging people...
I was feeling lousy yesterday after being mean to a close friend of mine. After a day of brooding for having become the mean person I have become, I remembered what a friend of mine said a while ago. "Do not judge people including you in their worst times, you will only be a hypocrite amd it serves no good purpose". So very true.. I never used to like the instances when somebody or the other criticizes somebody else especially when they are going through some tough time. Recollecting the recent past, I've commited two counts of such offence myself. Another instance of hypocrisy.. I've often told myself I shouldn't fight with my loved ones and they deserve the longest leash but often we give the longest leash to strangers and we hold our loved ones to a very high bar. It is only human to falter in tough times.. so forgive and forget.
When you are hurting...
I know these are tough times for many people. Economy, career, personal life.. multiple reasons. Fear is the biggest factor.. fear of the unknown, fear of the future. Our first move will be to try to take refuge with the known.. the known comfort zone. Learning to manage one's fear is critical for long term happiness. Stay grounded.. do not make any drastic moves without much thought. If a change is essential, just embrace it. Fear hampers your rational thought process and can negatively affect your decisions. So, take a step back, take a deep breath and see what you can do the best under these circumstances. And just do it. All situations are transient. As one of my friends well put, "Life is like a test cricket. You have to do what it takes to stay in the game when things are not going well for you.. so that you will be there and ready to hit when the right ball comes.. until then just "doku" like Sunil Gavaskar used to" :). Ofcourse, my favorite was Sanath Jayasuriya.. ok.. I am digressing from the topic here.
I remember the day before flying out to Seattle from North Carolina. I did not know anybody in Seattle. When I was looking at where my office was located, I found it was in downtown and they dont provide "Free Parking". I couldnt imagine joining a company that doesnt have a parking lot.. and all my other fears started coming down on me. I called my parents and cried my heart out. They recollected their own experience of moving from a small town "Udumalpet" to "Coimbatore". When they moved, they were moving slightly away from my mom's parents(who were breathing down their neck all the time in a nice way.. always there to help them out) and to a big city. They were wary of the higher cost of living and starting from scratch in a way. What motivated them to move was the possibility of sending us to good schools. My parents gave me the encouragement that I will find the move refreshing, will meet new people and make new friends.. and many a times.. the path to a better life is taking a walk into the unknown. Everything lies in the perception.
I remember the day before flying out to Seattle from North Carolina. I did not know anybody in Seattle. When I was looking at where my office was located, I found it was in downtown and they dont provide "Free Parking". I couldnt imagine joining a company that doesnt have a parking lot.. and all my other fears started coming down on me. I called my parents and cried my heart out. They recollected their own experience of moving from a small town "Udumalpet" to "Coimbatore". When they moved, they were moving slightly away from my mom's parents(who were breathing down their neck all the time in a nice way.. always there to help them out) and to a big city. They were wary of the higher cost of living and starting from scratch in a way. What motivated them to move was the possibility of sending us to good schools. My parents gave me the encouragement that I will find the move refreshing, will meet new people and make new friends.. and many a times.. the path to a better life is taking a walk into the unknown. Everything lies in the perception.
What is that I like about Amazon.com ?
Aside from the fact Amazon is my employer, there are a lot of things that I love and learnt about Amazon.
Great customer service. Amazon is so customer experience focused and focuses on fairness.
Great Management. Jeff Bezos is very hands on and always focused on the long term growth of the company. He comes across as a very grounded person, irrespective of how Wall Street perceives the company, he's always investing for future growth of the company.
Frugality. As an employee, it does bug me me how frugal the company is. We dont have a well stocked pantry.. not the latest laptop.. some companies pay for the use of your personal phone for office use etc. I am not a frugal person in my personal life .. so you can see why this bugs me. So, why do I still like frugality of Amazon ?. Amazon builds home grown products.. hires the smartest engineers and builds its own products. It will be a tough sell to ask Amazon to buy another company. If you go with such a proposal, they will ask you to build the product yourself. That doesnt mean Amazon does not buy other companies. Amazon does buys but many a times, doesnt totally integrate under Amazon flagship. Those companies run fairly independently. Amazon hardly shells out money for marketing. Marketing is in the form of free shipping for orders >25$ and prime program .. highly targetted spending that will promote customer experience and brand loyalty.
Time to market. This is not meant to bash any major company. One thing that bothered me about Microsoft.. they had this Microsoft surface technology in their hands long before Apple. They were so focused on making the product complete and thought too highly about the product that they kept postponing its release. Microsoft has business in all markets like Mobile, music player, what not. How much time will it take to promote the use of a new technology across all areas?. Not many in the market has seen the MS Surface as a product yet. They could have made 10 times more money with this technology as Apple made with the Iphones. The difference is where the focus is. Microsoft is more developer centric... Apple is more sales centric.
Execution and follow through. Best examples are EC2, S3 and other webservices. I thought Amazon is trying an area which was cool but not really a lucrative area when they started it. Now, I see the difference between other companies that tried this before Amazon and Amazon. The difference lies in the execution. Amazon is very result oriented.. less talk and more work and focus on customer experience.
It is easy to move around the company and learn a lot. You can talk to people across the company and learn a lot about whats going on. Company all hands meetings are great eye openers. You get to know a lot about the stuff that is being built in the company.
No wonder, I've seen many ex-Amazonians turn into entrepreneurs. Amazon itself has lots of entrepreneurs turned into employees.. such people have better strategic vision and tend to keep the big picture in mind while working on their part.
Great customer service. Amazon is so customer experience focused and focuses on fairness.
Great Management. Jeff Bezos is very hands on and always focused on the long term growth of the company. He comes across as a very grounded person, irrespective of how Wall Street perceives the company, he's always investing for future growth of the company.
Frugality. As an employee, it does bug me me how frugal the company is. We dont have a well stocked pantry.. not the latest laptop.. some companies pay for the use of your personal phone for office use etc. I am not a frugal person in my personal life .. so you can see why this bugs me. So, why do I still like frugality of Amazon ?. Amazon builds home grown products.. hires the smartest engineers and builds its own products. It will be a tough sell to ask Amazon to buy another company. If you go with such a proposal, they will ask you to build the product yourself. That doesnt mean Amazon does not buy other companies. Amazon does buys but many a times, doesnt totally integrate under Amazon flagship. Those companies run fairly independently. Amazon hardly shells out money for marketing. Marketing is in the form of free shipping for orders >25$ and prime program .. highly targetted spending that will promote customer experience and brand loyalty.
Time to market. This is not meant to bash any major company. One thing that bothered me about Microsoft.. they had this Microsoft surface technology in their hands long before Apple. They were so focused on making the product complete and thought too highly about the product that they kept postponing its release. Microsoft has business in all markets like Mobile, music player, what not. How much time will it take to promote the use of a new technology across all areas?. Not many in the market has seen the MS Surface as a product yet. They could have made 10 times more money with this technology as Apple made with the Iphones. The difference is where the focus is. Microsoft is more developer centric... Apple is more sales centric.
Execution and follow through. Best examples are EC2, S3 and other webservices. I thought Amazon is trying an area which was cool but not really a lucrative area when they started it. Now, I see the difference between other companies that tried this before Amazon and Amazon. The difference lies in the execution. Amazon is very result oriented.. less talk and more work and focus on customer experience.
It is easy to move around the company and learn a lot. You can talk to people across the company and learn a lot about whats going on. Company all hands meetings are great eye openers. You get to know a lot about the stuff that is being built in the company.
No wonder, I've seen many ex-Amazonians turn into entrepreneurs. Amazon itself has lots of entrepreneurs turned into employees.. such people have better strategic vision and tend to keep the big picture in mind while working on their part.