Chapter 2 views

Amazon: Improving the Work Environment With a fortune worth well over $100 billion by conservative estimates, Jeff Bezos is generally acknowledged to be the world's richest person. 89 Most of his wealth is derived from his 16% stake in Amazon, the publicly traded Seattle firm he started. While other early Internet companies like AOL and Yahoo faded and ultimately died, Amazon's rise was relentless. In 2019, it had the highest value of any firm traded on global stock markets. An online marketplace for nearly every imaginable product, the company also ran Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud storage company, which was the main source of its profits, meager though they were. Bezos's mantra was to "Get Big Fast," which meant that only after the company achieved a certain scale would profits follow. The company's soaring stock market value was mainly attributable to the rapid rise in its revenue, not its profits, since in most years it had not earned profits (Figure 7.3).90 Amazon employed more than half a million workers in the United States. 91 Figure 7.3 Amazon's Annual Revenues and Profits, 2014 to 2017 Introduction: 5 views of Ethics - Utilitarianism: teleology or consequentialism (focus on ends) - Rights: focus on means - Virtue: focus on qualities of moral excellence (e.g., honesty, integrity) - Justice: Contract or social contract theory (focus on fairness of society's arrangement) - Care: Feminist ethics based on compassion and nurturing of relationships