Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html
424 comments
I worked at Amazon for 3+ years, leaving just under a year ago. "It’s the greatest place I hate to work" pretty much sums up how I felt about the place. The crazy thing is, I kinda want to go back! The scope and scale of the engineering problems is simply unmatched, especially if you're like me and you don't want to work for a primarily advertising funded company.
I worked in AWS, which I'd always understood to be culturally a bit different from the retail site. It sounds like most of the people interviewed for the article were on the retail side. In AWS, I never felt any sort of competition with my peers, nor did I feel like people were trying to sabotage me with the anytime feedback tool. In fact, it really felt like there was a refreshing lack of office politics there. Everybody worked very hard and there was mutual respect among all my peers. The workloads are heavy, for sure, but never really unmanageable, and the work is almost always interesting.
Ultimately what finally ended it for me was the complete lack of paternity leave. Amazon offers, to the letter, the bare minimum family leave that they can legally get away with. If the company isn't interested in my health or that of my family, should I really be putting effort into helping them succeed? I think policies like that really run counter to their "hire and develop the best" principle. How exactly do they plan on doing that if they don't treat them with respect?
I worked in AWS, which I'd always understood to be culturally a bit different from the retail site. It sounds like most of the people interviewed for the article were on the retail side. In AWS, I never felt any sort of competition with my peers, nor did I feel like people were trying to sabotage me with the anytime feedback tool. In fact, it really felt like there was a refreshing lack of office politics there. Everybody worked very hard and there was mutual respect among all my peers. The workloads are heavy, for sure, but never really unmanageable, and the work is almost always interesting.
Ultimately what finally ended it for me was the complete lack of paternity leave. Amazon offers, to the letter, the bare minimum family leave that they can legally get away with. If the company isn't interested in my health or that of my family, should I really be putting effort into helping them succeed? I think policies like that really run counter to their "hire and develop the best" principle. How exactly do they plan on doing that if they don't treat them with respect?
You could't pay me enough to work in such a sweatshop. It's like Bezos read Karl Marx and figured people are stupid enough to exploit. And yes no matter the pay working people voluntarily as if they were slaves on plantation is still exploitation.
Of course the article might be hyperbole and people venting but I don't doubt there is truth in it.
100 years ago titans such a Carnegie and Rockefeller worked people to death and didn't care as long as they made money. The only difference today might be more money. Sometimes.
Amazon would never hire me anyway no matter my long skill set as I would never put up with such crap.
Of course the article might be hyperbole and people venting but I don't doubt there is truth in it.
100 years ago titans such a Carnegie and Rockefeller worked people to death and didn't care as long as they made money. The only difference today might be more money. Sometimes.
Amazon would never hire me anyway no matter my long skill set as I would never put up with such crap.
I've worked at Amazon for the last 3 years as a Software Developer both on AWS and on the Retail side and I can answer any questions people have.
Most of the things I see in this article are bullshit, at least as a software developer is concerned. Maybe the business side is way worse, but I doubt it.
I've never seen anyone refer to "Climbing over the wall" when hitting it. People talk about "working hard and making history", but what major leading software company (Google, Facebook, anything in Silicon Valley) doesn't talk about changing the world?
The internal "anytime feedback" tool is geared towards giving people unprompted POSITIVE feedback when they do something you think is worthy of recognition. It is not meant to undermine each other's bosses, that's laughable.
Yes, once you reach a high enough level (Senior Manager (ie manager of managers), Director, VP), you hear stories all the time of your bosses emailing you things on Sundays and expecting a response the same day, but again, at the level of responsibility that we are talking about, where you are paid six figures multiple times over with additional six figures worth of stock, that's common expectations from most leading software companies that are in a cuthroat business.
I've never seen developers or senior developers be expected to respond to emails on Sunday or after midnight. In fact, right now, because of StageFright, most developers don't even have access to work email on their Android devices.
> "workers are encouraged to tear apart one another’s ideas in meetings"?
Don't make me laugh. If anything, the emphasis on "Leadership principles" emphasizes that as leaders we are more than our ideas, we are meant to build relationships, and not act as assholes where the idea is king.
> "Secrecy is required; even low-level employees sign a lengthy confidentiality agreement".
NOPE. Just a standard boilerplate NDA and non-compete clause the same as at every software company I've worked at before - small and local, or large and multinational. OF COURSE there are teams that are under stricter security (e.g. the Kindle Fire team before it was announced), but again, that's not unorthodox.
I've never seen anyone cry at the office, not even close.
> "Within Amazon, ideal employees are often described as “athletes” with endurance, speed (No. 8: “bias for action”), performance that can be measured and an ability to defy limits (No. 7: “think big”)."
NOT EVEN CLOSE. "Bias for action" simply means that when faced with a choice to either try something and fail, and ultimately risk wasting that time, versus sitting around and trying to analyze the tradeoffs, we want to err on the side of trying. It's kind of like Facebook's "Move fast and break things", only without the breaking. It just says that we want our people to experiment, attempt moonshots, and figure out quickly if something will work or not.
"Think big" means that every decision we make needs to be considered at Amazon scale. If you build a caching library, think about what happens if every team at amazon started using it. If you build a feature to solve some problem for Amazon.fr, consider if every single marketplace needed it, and then 10 more regional marketplaces showed upworldwide. Would the same solution work?
>"Workers are expected to embrace “frugality” (No. 9), from the bare-bones desks to the cellphones and travel expenses that they often pay themselves. "
Typical standard per-diem when travelling like I have at other companies. Frugality isn't supposed to be "be cheap". It's "consider before spending". There is a whole Amazon legends about how you get a door for a desk, and it's not supposed to be literal. The point isn't that Amazon makes you use a door for a desk. It's that at some point in the company history, they realized they could get doors from Home Depot for cheaper than a simple office desk and thought "hey that's a good idea". These days desks are not doors. If you request you can get an adjustable ergonomic sit/stand desk. And no, if you're a developer, you don't have to buy your own second monitor. The company provides 2 monitors just like anywhere else, and reasonable developer-friendly specs for the machines.
>"Instead, Amazonians are instructed to “disagree and commit” (No. 13) — to rip into colleagues’ ideas, with feedback that can be blunt to the point of painful, before lining up behind a decision."
The bullshit just won't end. Disagree and commit isn't "Disagree and be aggressive". It's "If you disagree but are overruled, make your point AND MOVE ON." Don't sabotage the chosen approach if you were overruled. Don't make passive aggressive comments. Don't celebrate if it turned out you were right after all. Make the best argument you can, but if it's overruled, you go with the decision, and be a team player.
Most of the things I see in this article are bullshit, at least as a software developer is concerned. Maybe the business side is way worse, but I doubt it.
I've never seen anyone refer to "Climbing over the wall" when hitting it. People talk about "working hard and making history", but what major leading software company (Google, Facebook, anything in Silicon Valley) doesn't talk about changing the world?
The internal "anytime feedback" tool is geared towards giving people unprompted POSITIVE feedback when they do something you think is worthy of recognition. It is not meant to undermine each other's bosses, that's laughable.
Yes, once you reach a high enough level (Senior Manager (ie manager of managers), Director, VP), you hear stories all the time of your bosses emailing you things on Sundays and expecting a response the same day, but again, at the level of responsibility that we are talking about, where you are paid six figures multiple times over with additional six figures worth of stock, that's common expectations from most leading software companies that are in a cuthroat business.
I've never seen developers or senior developers be expected to respond to emails on Sunday or after midnight. In fact, right now, because of StageFright, most developers don't even have access to work email on their Android devices.
> "workers are encouraged to tear apart one another’s ideas in meetings"?
Don't make me laugh. If anything, the emphasis on "Leadership principles" emphasizes that as leaders we are more than our ideas, we are meant to build relationships, and not act as assholes where the idea is king.
> "Secrecy is required; even low-level employees sign a lengthy confidentiality agreement".
NOPE. Just a standard boilerplate NDA and non-compete clause the same as at every software company I've worked at before - small and local, or large and multinational. OF COURSE there are teams that are under stricter security (e.g. the Kindle Fire team before it was announced), but again, that's not unorthodox.
I've never seen anyone cry at the office, not even close.
> "Within Amazon, ideal employees are often described as “athletes” with endurance, speed (No. 8: “bias for action”), performance that can be measured and an ability to defy limits (No. 7: “think big”)."
NOT EVEN CLOSE. "Bias for action" simply means that when faced with a choice to either try something and fail, and ultimately risk wasting that time, versus sitting around and trying to analyze the tradeoffs, we want to err on the side of trying. It's kind of like Facebook's "Move fast and break things", only without the breaking. It just says that we want our people to experiment, attempt moonshots, and figure out quickly if something will work or not.
"Think big" means that every decision we make needs to be considered at Amazon scale. If you build a caching library, think about what happens if every team at amazon started using it. If you build a feature to solve some problem for Amazon.fr, consider if every single marketplace needed it, and then 10 more regional marketplaces showed upworldwide. Would the same solution work?
>"Workers are expected to embrace “frugality” (No. 9), from the bare-bones desks to the cellphones and travel expenses that they often pay themselves. "
Typical standard per-diem when travelling like I have at other companies. Frugality isn't supposed to be "be cheap". It's "consider before spending". There is a whole Amazon legends about how you get a door for a desk, and it's not supposed to be literal. The point isn't that Amazon makes you use a door for a desk. It's that at some point in the company history, they realized they could get doors from Home Depot for cheaper than a simple office desk and thought "hey that's a good idea". These days desks are not doors. If you request you can get an adjustable ergonomic sit/stand desk. And no, if you're a developer, you don't have to buy your own second monitor. The company provides 2 monitors just like anywhere else, and reasonable developer-friendly specs for the machines.
>"Instead, Amazonians are instructed to “disagree and commit” (No. 13) — to rip into colleagues’ ideas, with feedback that can be blunt to the point of painful, before lining up behind a decision."
The bullshit just won't end. Disagree and commit isn't "Disagree and be aggressive". It's "If you disagree but are overruled, make your point AND MOVE ON." Don't sabotage the chosen approach if you were overruled. Don't make passive aggressive comments. Don't celebrate if it turned out you were right after all. Make the best argument you can, but if it's overruled, you go with the decision, and be a team player.
I have worked all over Amazon as an SDE and Manager, and still do (11 years and counting.) I have certainly seen parts of the company that resemble parts of this article, especially OLR backstabbing, which I especially despise. As someone in a technical job family, it has always been easy for me to transfer internally to better-run corners of the company.
I stick around because I find that I like the low-fat culture, and working with extremely high achievers. Most of those top-tier people that I know in the tech families that have left end up coming back within a few years because they get bored on the outside. The exceptions overwhelmingly are those who left for Google, they never look back.
I cannot imagine literally crying about criticism in a meeting, and have never seen it myself. Working in a place with high standards and honest criticism is preferable to the alternatives. The real danger is inadequate mechanisms to deal with toxic org politics, and especially jackasses who think 80 hour weeks are not a sign of a problem. This definitely needs to change.
I stick around because I find that I like the low-fat culture, and working with extremely high achievers. Most of those top-tier people that I know in the tech families that have left end up coming back within a few years because they get bored on the outside. The exceptions overwhelmingly are those who left for Google, they never look back.
I cannot imagine literally crying about criticism in a meeting, and have never seen it myself. Working in a place with high standards and honest criticism is preferable to the alternatives. The real danger is inadequate mechanisms to deal with toxic org politics, and especially jackasses who think 80 hour weeks are not a sign of a problem. This definitely needs to change.
Ok since we are talking Amazon, let me share my interviewing experience with them. I was talking to an AWS team.
Had a phone interview scheduled. They forgot about me. Ok, it happens in a big company. Had another one, went pretty well. They invited me over.
I show up and my contact person (my future manager) wasn't there that day. They had me wait for 30min, I guess until they scrambled to find a replacement. Except 2 people I talked to that day, everyone else seemed like they didn't expect to be interviewing anyone and were pulled in last minute. Needless to say that made for a pretty bad experience.
Oh and they promised lunch, ok, I wasn't hungry but they actually forgot about me during lunch. I was just sitting there in the conference room by myself.
I thought, ok, this is pretty bad. But no, that's not all, they promised "we'll get back to you with an answer in 2 days". Took almost 3 weeks. At that point I was just curious how long they would take and just waited.
So anyway, I hear people like working there. But judging by me experience, there are some red flags. I think it points to how things are run internally.
Had a phone interview scheduled. They forgot about me. Ok, it happens in a big company. Had another one, went pretty well. They invited me over.
I show up and my contact person (my future manager) wasn't there that day. They had me wait for 30min, I guess until they scrambled to find a replacement. Except 2 people I talked to that day, everyone else seemed like they didn't expect to be interviewing anyone and were pulled in last minute. Needless to say that made for a pretty bad experience.
Oh and they promised lunch, ok, I wasn't hungry but they actually forgot about me during lunch. I was just sitting there in the conference room by myself.
I thought, ok, this is pretty bad. But no, that's not all, they promised "we'll get back to you with an answer in 2 days". Took almost 3 weeks. At that point I was just curious how long they would take and just waited.
So anyway, I hear people like working there. But judging by me experience, there are some red flags. I think it points to how things are run internally.
Something to keep in mind here is that while history is written by the victors, hit pieces like this are primarily sourced from the sad tales of the losers. While there is truth in this article, it exhibits the same sort of inaccuracies as _The Everything Store_. It's nowhere near as bad it sounds from this article, but there are real problems - just like anywhere else. One's ability to prosper at Amazon is a function of one's personality - just like anywhere else. People who need strong guidance will do poorly. People who can survive criticism and thrive in chaos will prosper.
As for me, I worked at Amazon for several years as an engineer. The frugality is what eventually made me leave because too often it gets implemented as dirt cheapness. But in their defense, I had opportunities to do things there none of the other big 4 would have granted. And I got the chance to do them by being confrontational and confident. The downside is that if one interviews at other companies with one's Amazon personality, one will frequently come off as a total a$$hole.
Amazon will change you. Some of those changes are great, but you really have to keep your Amazon ego in check outside of the place.
As for me, I worked at Amazon for several years as an engineer. The frugality is what eventually made me leave because too often it gets implemented as dirt cheapness. But in their defense, I had opportunities to do things there none of the other big 4 would have granted. And I got the chance to do them by being confrontational and confident. The downside is that if one interviews at other companies with one's Amazon personality, one will frequently come off as a total a$$hole.
Amazon will change you. Some of those changes are great, but you really have to keep your Amazon ego in check outside of the place.
Worked in AWS DevOps in Dublin, Ireland for 8 months. Totally agree with the article.
- 12 - 16 hour days. Conf calls with the States in the middle of the night. Was expected to respond to emails/txt/calls even when not on-call.
- Low pay, cr*p health insurance, minimal pension contribution. Cheap PC, dirty, overcrowded office, expected to pay for parking outside of office.
- Colleagues never saw their young children. My friend's wife filed for divorce as he was always working.
- When my 2nd son was diagnosed with a lethal condition before birth, my boss showed zero tolerance to what i was going through and expected the same level of commitment as before. This was when i decided to leave.
Three years on if i have to summarize what AWS felt like i'd say "It's a mad scientist's experiment to find the limits of human beings until a more efficient replacement (drones, robots,etc.) is found."
- 12 - 16 hour days. Conf calls with the States in the middle of the night. Was expected to respond to emails/txt/calls even when not on-call.
- Low pay, cr*p health insurance, minimal pension contribution. Cheap PC, dirty, overcrowded office, expected to pay for parking outside of office.
- Colleagues never saw their young children. My friend's wife filed for divorce as he was always working.
- When my 2nd son was diagnosed with a lethal condition before birth, my boss showed zero tolerance to what i was going through and expected the same level of commitment as before. This was when i decided to leave.
Three years on if i have to summarize what AWS felt like i'd say "It's a mad scientist's experiment to find the limits of human beings until a more efficient replacement (drones, robots,etc.) is found."
Jeff Bezos has always been a bit of a dick.
This just codifies his dickishness, this kind of crap a century from now will be written about like Dickens wrote about 19th century London.
Appalling in every way, I think I'm going to shop elsewhere in future.
This just codifies his dickishness, this kind of crap a century from now will be written about like Dickens wrote about 19th century London.
Appalling in every way, I think I'm going to shop elsewhere in future.
David Streitfeld has written a number of strident, highly-critical articles on Amazon. What he's writing here doesn't reflect my experience as an SDE in a couple of different divisions in the company. I can't speak to what people in marketing or vendor management experience.
Take the first paragraph for instance:
> They are told to forget the “poor habits” they learned at previous jobs
I don't recall anyone telling me this
> When they “hit the wall” from the unrelenting pace, there is only one solution: “Climb the wall,” others reported
I don't recall hearing either of these phrases used.
> To be the best Amazonians they can be, they should be guided by the leadership principles, 14 rules inscribed on handy laminated cards. When quizzed days later, those with perfect scores earn a virtual award proclaiming, “I’m Peculiar” — the company’s proud phrase for overturning workplace conventions.
The leadership principles are repeated pretty frequently, although I think most people take them with a grain of salt. The quiz is called 100% Peculiar, not "I'm Peculiar". I don't recall it being about leadership principles at all. I recall it being about things like how Amazon doesn't delete negative customer reviews because the company sees it as being in its long-term interest for reviews to be trustworthy. The other thing on the quiz I remember is that Amazon likes to use informal language with customers, like "Where's my stuff". [Edit: I should also point out that it's not a mandatory thing and nobody cares if you don't do it or don't do well enough on it to get the little badge on your page in the company directory.]
Take the first paragraph for instance:
> They are told to forget the “poor habits” they learned at previous jobs
I don't recall anyone telling me this
> When they “hit the wall” from the unrelenting pace, there is only one solution: “Climb the wall,” others reported
I don't recall hearing either of these phrases used.
> To be the best Amazonians they can be, they should be guided by the leadership principles, 14 rules inscribed on handy laminated cards. When quizzed days later, those with perfect scores earn a virtual award proclaiming, “I’m Peculiar” — the company’s proud phrase for overturning workplace conventions.
The leadership principles are repeated pretty frequently, although I think most people take them with a grain of salt. The quiz is called 100% Peculiar, not "I'm Peculiar". I don't recall it being about leadership principles at all. I recall it being about things like how Amazon doesn't delete negative customer reviews because the company sees it as being in its long-term interest for reviews to be trustworthy. The other thing on the quiz I remember is that Amazon likes to use informal language with customers, like "Where's my stuff". [Edit: I should also point out that it's not a mandatory thing and nobody cares if you don't do it or don't do well enough on it to get the little badge on your page in the company directory.]
Remember the "Dear Amazon interns, some advice from an old man who has been at Amazon way too long." post that was made a month ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/3ce0s8/dear_amazon...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/3ce0s8/dear_amazon...
I worked at Amazon as an intern for 3 months. Super intense work environment that seriously skewed my view of the normal workplace, as it was my first time working at a large company. Heard shouting during meetings behind closed doors. F-Bombs used regularly. Saw lots of 50+ year old engineers with kids working there until 3 am for a week at a time. Even as an intern I was working nights and weekends. A lot of the middle managers went home early at 4pm though. Lots of Indian contractors working their ass of so they don't lose their visas and get kicked out of the US. My mentor was getting so many text messages (thousands) being sent to his phone in the middle of the night while he was on call that he was fighting with Amazon to get them reimbursed.
Back in 2005 I interviewed for a director of engineering role at Amazon. But after I learned about the culture and methods Amazon uses to "manage" it's people I lost interest. It's just not how I want to be remembered. I don't see the value of a harsh dehumanizing environment ironically used to create a feeling in customers that people come first. And I just don't think these tactics work over the long term. Google will be around long after Amazon fails because it retains and inspires it's best engineers.
On the one hand, I zero percent want to work in that environment. On the other hand, I can see why it would appeal to some people.
If you've ever worked at a place with stifling bureaucracy, where building consensus laboriously over months is necessary to move forward with even relatively minor decisions, then you know how liberating and empowering it feels to work in a place where people are focused on getting things done, where you can make decisions and drive forward quickly, and where ideas get debated openly and decisively.
But yeah, I suspect most people would prefer that taken down a few notches.
If you've ever worked at a place with stifling bureaucracy, where building consensus laboriously over months is necessary to move forward with even relatively minor decisions, then you know how liberating and empowering it feels to work in a place where people are focused on getting things done, where you can make decisions and drive forward quickly, and where ideas get debated openly and decisively.
But yeah, I suspect most people would prefer that taken down a few notches.
Since this is getting a lot of visibility, I would like to ask - How many of you like the e-book reading experience in the Kindle or with the Kindle reader apps on other devices?
To me, I hated the high quantity of low quality of work I was doing at Amazon. I worked for Kindle e-books division. Most of the times the product managers were giving random suggestions, and the managers mostly spent time impressing higher level management rather than delivering the best experience for the customer. I felt like being in the midst of a bunch of folks who weren't excited about the e-books space and that they were mostly there because they had a good pay and were able to dance the dance. Internal politics was a big thing and the more I licked my managers boots by answering his midnight calls/mails the more he liked me. Adding even a small feature to enhance the reading experience needed sign-offs from a gazillion teams who would sometimes not agree to just Quality Validate because there wasn't enough time for them. The environment was toxic and no team wanted the other teams to perform well.
To me, I hated the high quantity of low quality of work I was doing at Amazon. I worked for Kindle e-books division. Most of the times the product managers were giving random suggestions, and the managers mostly spent time impressing higher level management rather than delivering the best experience for the customer. I felt like being in the midst of a bunch of folks who weren't excited about the e-books space and that they were mostly there because they had a good pay and were able to dance the dance. Internal politics was a big thing and the more I licked my managers boots by answering his midnight calls/mails the more he liked me. Adding even a small feature to enhance the reading experience needed sign-offs from a gazillion teams who would sometimes not agree to just Quality Validate because there wasn't enough time for them. The environment was toxic and no team wanted the other teams to perform well.
What a depressing read. Jeff Bezos needs to tell us why he is treating our fellow human beings so badly. I am willing to wait another day for my gadgets from amazon, or not even have gadgets. I didn't ask for this, no customer asked for this. I don't want people to be treated like this,
Some of the reports about the sick and unlucky being penalized is grotesque and Bezos needs to stand up and defend himself or be dismissed as a psychopath.
Efficiency, performance and wealth should not be a ruse for businesses to drag us a sterile world stripped of humanity in pursuit of profits. No one signed that social contract.
Ultimately the only reasons sociopaths thrive and succeed is there are too many people willing to do their bidding, every single time, to dehumanize themselves and others.
Some of the reports about the sick and unlucky being penalized is grotesque and Bezos needs to stand up and defend himself or be dismissed as a psychopath.
Efficiency, performance and wealth should not be a ruse for businesses to drag us a sterile world stripped of humanity in pursuit of profits. No one signed that social contract.
Ultimately the only reasons sociopaths thrive and succeed is there are too many people willing to do their bidding, every single time, to dehumanize themselves and others.
Amazonian here. My experience has been nothing like what was described in the article. A few quick hits:
-In three years, I have never once seen anyone cry at Amazon. I've never even heard of anyone crying at work.
-In re: secret feedback tool -- Note that it isn't anonymous. I know the article doesn't say it is, but "secret feedback" seems to imply it is, at least IMO. It's little more than a form for submitting an email to someone's boss. I've only ever heard of a sabotage attempt happening once, and it backfired as predictably as one would expect.
-I remember hearing the phrase "climb the wall" once during my first week at orientation. Reading it in this article was the first time I've heard it in the three years since then.
The company’s winners dream up innovations that they roll out to a quarter-billion customers and accrue small fortunes in soaring stock. Losers leave or are fired in annual cullings of the staff
Correct. Good employees do well. Bad employees are eventually weeded out. This was not invented at Amazon.
Some workers who suffered from cancer, miscarriages and other personal crises said they had been evaluated unfairly or edged out rather than given time to recover.
I legitimately laughed out loud when I read this. Cancer! Miscarriages! Literally the two worst things to ever happen to most people in their lives when they strike! And, of course, not a single shred of evidence to support the claim.
Well, unless you count "some workers" as a reliable source.
-In three years, I have never once seen anyone cry at Amazon. I've never even heard of anyone crying at work.
-In re: secret feedback tool -- Note that it isn't anonymous. I know the article doesn't say it is, but "secret feedback" seems to imply it is, at least IMO. It's little more than a form for submitting an email to someone's boss. I've only ever heard of a sabotage attempt happening once, and it backfired as predictably as one would expect.
-I remember hearing the phrase "climb the wall" once during my first week at orientation. Reading it in this article was the first time I've heard it in the three years since then.
The company’s winners dream up innovations that they roll out to a quarter-billion customers and accrue small fortunes in soaring stock. Losers leave or are fired in annual cullings of the staff
Correct. Good employees do well. Bad employees are eventually weeded out. This was not invented at Amazon.
Some workers who suffered from cancer, miscarriages and other personal crises said they had been evaluated unfairly or edged out rather than given time to recover.
I legitimately laughed out loud when I read this. Cancer! Miscarriages! Literally the two worst things to ever happen to most people in their lives when they strike! And, of course, not a single shred of evidence to support the claim.
Well, unless you count "some workers" as a reliable source.
This sounds like a boom/bust company. This all works while the stock is going up consistently. Eventually it won't, and this place will implode.
This makes me recall Bezos posting to usenet in 1994 looking for potential new hires...
"You must have experience designing and building large and complex (yet maintainable) systems, and you should be able to do so in about one-third the time that most competent people think possible. "
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/mi.jobs/poXLCW8udK4/_G...
"You must have experience designing and building large and complex (yet maintainable) systems, and you should be able to do so in about one-third the time that most competent people think possible. "
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/mi.jobs/poXLCW8udK4/_G...
In contrast, Walmart (where I worked as an intern this summer) is full of genuine kindness, bottom to top, as far as I could tell. I don't remember anyone saying a thing that was rude or harsh to me. Even higher ups seemed like cool people that you could talk to whenever you needed to.
If you're at Amazon and are looking for a kinder environment, Walmart was great to my family.
If you're at Amazon and are looking for a kinder environment, Walmart was great to my family.
Personally, I think Amazon's successful despite their workplace culture, not because of it.
I'm glad I got out (well, was pushed out, largely due to my own ignorance) when I did. This sounds like a real grindhouse now. Perhaps some folks enjoy this kind of working environment, but personally I'm thankful for a 40 hour work week where I can innovate for my company and still have a life outside work.
I remember a few months ago a senior manager from their security team came to our workplace to give a presentation (we use AWS a lot)
He was talking about how he and his team are constantly evaluated on metrics, down to the minutest detail that are recorded and reviewed regularly.
He was talking about how he and his team are constantly evaluated on metrics, down to the minutest detail that are recorded and reviewed regularly.
I started at Amazon in 2005 and I can definitely say it's an intense place-- I spent most of my 20s at Amazon. Amazon makes you battle-hardened, jaded engineer the longer you are there. There's just no avoiding it. That being said I worked there as long as I did because there were aspects that I did like. For example I think the opportunities there in terms of work / scale are a lot bigger than many other big companies. They are more willing to take risks on people. For example I had no college degree when they hired me. Also there are quite a lot of very smart people working there. So it's not all bad. But intense? Yes.
The most depressing thing about this is that this abusive mode of working started by apple and Amazon seems to be winning. I don't see how this is sustainable - while it leads to probably good business results - how many relationships is it destroying and how many children are going unparented? Amazon in general seems like a net loss for society.
I can see the perspective of wanting Amazon on your resume. But otherwise it sounds like an awful place to work. I've known three people who have worked there. 1 made it 6 months, another 2 years, and the last is going on 3 years if his LinkedIn profile is correct. I suspect he will stay due to H1B reasons.
I love how all the Amazon apologists came out to defend their company and criticise any argument against it. They want hard evidence yet completely ignore everything the article says. To counter it, they cite their own anecdotal experience as proof that Amazon's not a bad place to work at all!
I don't get how they keep anyone more than 6 months?
What the hell are they dangling over people that makes them stay?
What the hell are they dangling over people that makes them stay?
I got through 3/4 of the article and had to quit. Simply FUCKING APPALLING organizational behavior. I can say with reasonable confidence that if I had discovered those tricks being done to my reputation behind my back, there would be fisticuffs. Fuck Bezos.
So from the article we read
>> Jeff Bezos turned to data-driven management very early. He wanted his grandmother to stop smoking, he recalled in a 2010 graduation speech at Princeton. He didn’t beg or appeal to sentiment. He just did the math, calculating that every puff cost her a few minutes. “You’ve taken nine years off your life!” he told her. She burst into tears.
The weird thing is that I actually watched the Princeton video and Bezos learnt a very different lesson (by his grandfather). Makes you wonder if yet again the need for simple narratives makes this article kind of useless.
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S27/52/51O99/inde...
>> At that age, I'd take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. I'd calculate our gas mileage -- figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending. I'd been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I can't remember the details, but basically the ad said, every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life: I think it might have been two minutes per puff. At any rate, I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I estimated the number of cigarettes per days, estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on. When I was satisfied that I'd come up with a reasonable number, I poked my head into the front of the car, tapped my grandmother on the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed, "At two minutes per puff, you've taken nine years off your life!"
I have a vivid memory of what happened, and it was not what I expected. I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. "Jeff, you're so smart. You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division." That's not what happened. Instead, my grandmother burst into tears. I sat in the backseat and did not know what to do. While my grandmother sat crying, my grandfather, who had been driving in silence, pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway. He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow. Was I in trouble? My grandfather was a highly intelligent, quiet man. He had never said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be the first time? Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother. I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be. We stopped beside the trailer. My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, "Jeff, one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever."
What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy -- they're given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you're not careful, and if you do, it'll probably be to the detriment of your choices.
>> Jeff Bezos turned to data-driven management very early. He wanted his grandmother to stop smoking, he recalled in a 2010 graduation speech at Princeton. He didn’t beg or appeal to sentiment. He just did the math, calculating that every puff cost her a few minutes. “You’ve taken nine years off your life!” he told her. She burst into tears.
The weird thing is that I actually watched the Princeton video and Bezos learnt a very different lesson (by his grandfather). Makes you wonder if yet again the need for simple narratives makes this article kind of useless.
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S27/52/51O99/inde...
>> At that age, I'd take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. I'd calculate our gas mileage -- figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending. I'd been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I can't remember the details, but basically the ad said, every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life: I think it might have been two minutes per puff. At any rate, I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I estimated the number of cigarettes per days, estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on. When I was satisfied that I'd come up with a reasonable number, I poked my head into the front of the car, tapped my grandmother on the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed, "At two minutes per puff, you've taken nine years off your life!"
I have a vivid memory of what happened, and it was not what I expected. I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. "Jeff, you're so smart. You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division." That's not what happened. Instead, my grandmother burst into tears. I sat in the backseat and did not know what to do. While my grandmother sat crying, my grandfather, who had been driving in silence, pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway. He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow. Was I in trouble? My grandfather was a highly intelligent, quiet man. He had never said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be the first time? Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother. I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be. We stopped beside the trailer. My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, "Jeff, one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever."
What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy -- they're given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you're not careful, and if you do, it'll probably be to the detriment of your choices.
It's a shark eat shark environment. I never cried, but I saw others (specially female colleagues) do. After 2 years of waking up in the middle of the night for bullshit on-call pages (wack-a-mole with production issues) and increasingly heavier deadlines, I developed stress related medical issues. That was a wake up call for me, and as soon as I realized the shit place that I was in, I started showing up at the office detached, practicing interview questions and doing phone screen interviews from work. I eventually got offers from Facebook/Google, and moved on. It was only then that I realize I was actually paid at the 50th percentile for my position's level and experience all along.
Since I left, I've helped multiple other friends/colleagues detach emotionally from the need for approval, practice for interviews and get job offers from Apple/FB/Google for substantial (> %75) raises.
I get Amazon recruiters contacting me all the time, and I'm always nice to them because I know the shit environment they're stuck in. Though in the back of my mind I'm thinking "there's no way in hell I'd ever go back"
Fuck Jeff, fuck Amazon, fuck AWS, and fuck their leadership principles.