What Amazon’s Shareholder Letter Didn’t Say

We’re approaching that time of the year when most public companies hold their annual shareholder meetings, theoretically giving investors both large and small a chance to question management and vote on board members and other matters. That all still happens, but the drama has faded from these events. What used to be in-person gatherings are increasingly online, eliminating any real chance at meaningful interaction. CEO missives to shareholders, meanwhile, seemingly become more sanitized by the day (unless you’re Elon Musk, which is a whole other story).

Take Amazon, which released paperwork for its upcoming annual meeting today, along with its annual shareholder letter. In the meeting-related disclosures, the company details its efforts to talk to shareholders in the past year, including contacting 42 of the biggest 50 shareholders. That’s as admirable as its executive compensation structure, which has long been designed to tie management pay to stock performance more directly than is the case elsewhere. The company’s disclosure on how those compensation arrangements work, in today’s filing, may be among the clearest and most informative any company has provided on that topic. But the same cannot be said for Amazon’s annual shareholder letter, a ritual now handled by CEO Andy Jassy, who has demonstrated a deft hand at managing the company but is less skilled at crafting a sparkly letter.