Linked List: February 2, 2021

Tuesday, 2 February 2021

Jeff Bezos:

This journey began some 27 years ago. Amazon was only an idea, and it had no name. The question I was asked most frequently at that time was, “What’s the internet?” Blessedly, I haven’t had to explain that in a long while.

I am reminded of the fact that Bezos’s longstanding policy bans PowerPoint presentations from meetings, replacing them with “narratively structured six-page memos”. You can hide unclear thinking in a slide deck; you can’t hide unclear thinking in a narrative memo.

WSJ: ‘Facebook Knew Calls for Violence Plagued “Groups”, Now Plans Overhaul’ ★

Jeff Horwitz, reporting for The Wall Street Journal (News+ link):

The company’s data scientists had warned Facebook executives in August that what they called blatant misinformation and calls to violence were filling the majority of the platform’s top “civic” Groups, according to documents The Wall Street Journal reviewed. Those Groups are generally dedicated to politics and related issues and collectively reach hundreds of millions of users.

The researchers told executives that “enthusiastic calls for violence every day” filled one 58,000-member Group, according to an internal presentation. Another top Group claimed it was set up by fans of Donald Trump but it was actually run by “financially motivated Albanians” directing a million views daily to fake news stories and other provocative content.

Roughly “70% of the top 100 most active US Civic Groups are considered non-recommendable for issues such as hate, misinfo, bullying and harassment,” the presentation concluded. “We need to do something to stop these conversations from happening and growing as quickly as they do,” the researchers wrote, suggesting measures to slow the growth of Groups at least long enough to give Facebook staffers time to address violations.

“Our existing integrity systems,” they wrote, “aren’t addressing these issues.”

You need actual integrity to implement integrity systems that work.

The Trend of CEOs Transitioning to Executive Chairmen ★

Interesting 2016 paper by Susan Schroeder for CAP, an executive compensation consulting firm:

Companies transitioning from a long-term Chief Executive Officer and involved in CEO succession planning, especially for a company founder or head of a family-owned company, are looking to retain and capitalize on the outgoing CEO’s institutional knowledge while ensuring a smooth transition to the new leader. In response to this need, some creative companies are transitioning their outgoing Chief Executive Officer to the position of Executive Chairman of the Board. The Executive Chairman position allows the organization to leverage the former CEO’s personal client relationships and institutional knowledge while allowing him to retain employee rights and benefits, assist in the transition process, and gradually phase out of CEO responsibilities.

That’s what Jeff Bezos is doing at Amazon. It was also Apple’s plan when Steve Jobs stepped down as CEO in August 2011, if he’d been able to stay a few steps ahead of the cancer. A year ago Bob Iger made this transition at Disney.

Jeff Bezos to Step Down as Amazon CEO, Will Become Executive Chairman ★

Karen Weise, reporting for The New York Times:

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive, will hand over the reins of the e-commerce giant this summer and transition into the role of executive chairman, the company announced Tuesday.

Andy Jassy, the chief executive of Amazon’s cloud computing division, will be promoted to run all of Amazon.

The end of an era.