Sunday, March 1
Some cool stuff is on the way for people who preorder Always Day One, my new book, releasing on 4/7/2020. If you forward your preorder receipt to alwaysdayonebook@penguinrandomhouse.com I will invite you to an exclusive conference call shortly after release where I’ll discuss the book and answer your questions. There will be more on the way! You can preorder here: www.alexkantrowitz.com
Amazon’s Robots
There’s a line in the recent PBS Frontline documentary about Amazon that’s stuck with me since it aired two Mondays ago. It came from Amazon executive Jeff Wilke, who addressed how robots have changed work inside the company’s fulfillment centers (bold is mine).
“As we’ve added 200,000 robots, in that same time frame, since 2012, we’ve added 300,000 people in our fulfillment centers,” Wilke said. “Robots change the work, so they allow us — people don’t have to walk as far, which is a complaint that we’ve heard in the past. They make the job safer. They make them higher quality because we present a smaller set of options to employees.”
Wilke’s admission that Amazon views automation as a way to address complaints that workers have about their jobs was fascinating. Automation has always played a major role in how Amazon structures its operations — which I cover in my upcoming book Always Day One — but Wilke’s decision to talk about how robots address a “complaint” was surprising.
Over the years, critics have railed against Amazon’s workplace shortcomings: The company has ordered its warehouse employees to work in sweltering heat, had them walk near-marathons over the course of a day, and set incentives that led employees to limit their bathroom breaks, among many more issues.
Amazon’s largely addressed these concerns in two ways: by trying to prevent workers from forming unions and by making internal changes, like raising its minimum wage to $15. But Wilke suggested a third option: Automation. I had never before heard the company say that it’s addressed labor complaints this way.
To me, this signals that Amazon will push even harder to automate other parts of its fulfillment operation. As Recode’s Jason Del Rey noted in his terrific podcast, Land of the Giants, Amazon is already working on advancing technology that could automate other parts of its fulfillment process.
The Last Word
On Friday, I published a story about how big tech companies are preparing for coronavirus to spread across the US, and the globe. How’s your company responding to the threat? I’d love to hear from you. Reply to this email with your thoughts.
Have a great week.
Best,
Alex
