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by dpark 2672 days ago
> I think the idea is that Bezos could have either sold some of Amazon stock over the years and paid his warehouse workers a better wage or he could have put some of his shares into an options pool for his warehouse workers.

The board of directors can allocate stock to warehouse workers and/or pay them more. For that matter, you could send your money to these warehouse workers and yet you don't. This idea that Bezos should personally give up his fortune to increase warehouse worker compensation is a bit absurd. Amazon isn't a charity and its employees are not a registered 503c, either.

1 comments

Yes, the board could have absolutely done that. And Bezos could have asked the board to do that as well, but chose no to. If the company did that, I argue it would have been just as successful (if not more) and many of their low wage workers would be more loyal and would have more wealth. The primary difference would be Jeff Bezos having a smaller fortune.

For profit companies can pay their workers better and still prosper. No one is suggesting Amazon should have been a non-profit. The suggestion is just that their CEO could have shared the wealth more with his workers. Workers who helped him build his fortune.