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Amazon boss Jeff Bezos defends company's workplace culture
- coldcode 11y agoNot surprising. Likely he knows exactly what is going on in his company (known as a micromanager) but can't stand criticism. But like the titans of old (Rockefeller, Carnagie etc) employee happiness doesn't register as important to him.
- mhuffman 11y agoSadly, employee happiness does not always equate to revenue either.
- sz4kerto 11y ago"In Mr Bezos' memo, he encouraged Amazon employees to read the article, and email him directly if they recognised any of the "shockingly callous management practices" it described." Oh well, this seems to be a bit hypocritical. ("Hey Mr. Bezos, my boss, John Doe (cc'd!) wants me to do this task until tomorrow, but it's 8 pm. What do you think about this?")
- tmuir 11y agoThat was the statement that caught my attention too. If the environment really is how the NYT article, and many HN posters say it is, then Bezos' offer sounds a lot like US whistle blower protections. Sounds good on paper, not so much in practice.
- chinathrow 11y agoThe fact that he has to defend their culture says a lot to me.
- toyg 11y agoYou never see posts about people at Google or Facebook saying they're abused and overworked. Even with Microsoft, you read about political infighting and stack-ranking being stupid, but not downright emotional abuse or on-call madness. With Amazon, it's quite a regular occurrence. Where there is smoke...
- austenallred 11y agoGoogle: http://www.businessinsider.com/reasons-working-at-google-sucks-2012-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/reasons-working-at-google-suc... http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/18/why-google-employees-quit/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/18/why-google-employees-quit/ http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/anonymous-employees-reveal-the-worst-thing-about-working-for-google-8921216.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/fea... Facebook: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-22-worst-things-about-working-at-facebook-according-to-employees-2015-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-22-worst-things-about-wor... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2410298/Forget-free-food-drinks--workplace-awful-Facebook-employees-reveal-best-place-work-tech-grind-like-other.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2410298/Forget-free-... Microsoft: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-microsoft-is-so-messed-up-toxic-environment-and-bad-managers-2011-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/why-microsoft-is-so-messed-up... http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/08/microsoft_ceo_steve_ballmer_retires_a_firsthand_account_of_the_company_s.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/08/micr... If your company has >1,000 employees, there will be disgruntled and dissatisfied employees. Full stop.
- toyg 11y agoDid you actually read those complaints? Some are about compensation (you don't even have to reach 1000 employees to get those...), some about work/life balance, some about not being as good as the company would allow you to be (!), but i can't see any about emotional abuse, people crying at their desk or having to pay for a parking lot. It's a different scale. Even on glassdoor, Amazon averages 3.4 vs Google 4.4 vs Facebook 4.4. That 0.6 difference is what you mention: some people will inevitably be unhappy. But that other 1.0, that's not normal for a tech company.
- mason240 11y agoIt's a big world, someone will criticize you no matter what you do.
- chinathrow 11y agoTreating employees in the fullfilment centers like shit is another side of the story, right? Do you need sources?
- mason240 11y agoI'm addressing your "anyone defending themselves (and thus anyone who has revived criticism) is automatically wrong" argument. You're defending yourself right now, so by that argument it "says a lot to me."
- chinathrow 11y agoTouchée ;)
- jasode 11y agoThis BBC article isn't really about Jeff Bezos. The bulk of the text is about Nick Ciubotariu's blog post. Just read the source directly: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/amazonians-response-inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-nick-ciubotariu https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/amazonians-response-inside-am... Understandably, a story that could have been titled "Nick Ciubotariu from Amazon responds to criticism" is not as eye-catching as "Jeff Bezos defends company's workplace"
- Mithaldu 11y agoAdditionally while there IS a response from Jeff, its full text is actually available here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10071600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10071600
- sudhirj 11y agoThere's a bit of a divide that no one seems to be touching on - most of the issues talked about in the NYT article seem to be from non technical folks, while engineering tends to be a little happier for precisely the reasons Bezos mentions. Amazon and most other companies have separate staff, culture and levels of morale for engineering and non engineering divisions. Can't really compare them directly.
- littletimmy 11y agoIt is only happier because demand/supply seem to be working out for engineers at the moment. High competition to hire engineers = you have to be nice to them. Bezos would treat engineers much worse if he could.
- srj 11y agoAnother anecdote: when I lived in Seattle I knew several amazon engineers and most seemed overworked and miserable. The reputation is that they hire college grads and work them until they burn out. My understanding is that the attrition rate is high within engineering so that may provide some data to back up this narrative.
- exelius 11y agoThis is exactly it. I know numerous people who work in marketing or operations at Amazon, and their experiences more closely mirror the NYT article. Much of the pressure is self-imposed: Amazon hires type-A overachievers, then stack-ranks them. The pressure to succeed is immense, and as happens with any forced stack rank system, people try to tear each other down. Amazon hires legions of MBA graduates every year, and most of them will have left by the time the next class comes in. Jeff Bezos seems to have modeled Amazon in the style of his former employer, McKinsey & Co., and it shows. The expectations at Amazon are similar to the expectations at McKinsey -- except that being fired from McKinsey after 2 years is almost considered a rite of passage in the executive world. Until Amazon develops a similar reputation (and becomes a lot pickier about who it hires) they will continue to have this perception problem. It's certainly effective, but Amazon is not a nice place to work.
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- gdulli 11y ago> Amazon's boss Jeff Bezos wrote in a memo to staff that the "article doesn't describe the Amazon I know". I'm not surprised he feels this way, being solely unaccountable in the way that his employees are and primarily responsible for both denying and preserving the culture. > Mr Ciubotariu invoked the company's culture of fun in his LinkedIn post. "We have Nerf wars, almost daily, that often get a bit out of hand," he wrote. Did this make anyone else cringe? You couldn't pick an example that better demonstrated an awkward, forced element of corporate "fun." I have to wonder, though, what he means by them getting "a bit out of hand": - "fun" exhaustion? - loss of place in stack ranking system? - injuries? deaths? - productivity lost to spontaneous bouts of letter-writing from employees to their friends about how much fun it is to work at Amazon?
- toyg 11y agoI just wondered how you can have Nerf wars in offices full of electronic equipment. Do you go outside then? Seattle is known for being rainy... And how are you getting people out, all in one go? Doesn't sound very spontaneous. Dunno, it just sounds awkward.
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- meddlepal 11y agoThe Nerf thing made me cringe too. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only software developer out there that does not want to be treated like I am some sort of over-sized elementary school kid. Maybe I am just getting old... Work can be fun without resorting to gimmicks. What's next snack time and mandatory naps?
- bluedino 11y ago>> Mr Ciubotariu invoked the company's culture of fun in his LinkedIn post. "We have Nerf wars, almost daily, that often get a bit out of hand," he wrote. This reminds me of Rackspace. Rackspace claims to have this great fun environment and they love their employees and they're always doing this fun stuff at work. I know a handful of people that work there and I'm always being told about the elaborate pranks games going on. Then I wonder why it takes them 2 days for a sales specialist to call me back, 6 hours to respond to a support ticket or it takes them 45 minutes to locate my server in one of their datacenters.
- hlfw0rd 11y agoThat is what happens if you don't pay for their managed support plans. If you do, they provide spectacular service.
- mhuffman 11y agoI don't know anything about Rackspace's internal operations, but I have used them with business support before and it was some of the best customer service I have ever experienced with a company. Also, since this is an Amazon thread, their customer service is the cat's tits as well!
- kalleboo 11y agoCorrelation != causation. We used to have some servers at 1&1 and their support was even worse than what you describe, and they've never described as "a fun place to work"
- nemo44x 11y agoI don't work there but 1 note about support plans at companies: You will get what you pay for. If you have an SLA of 1 hour you will get your reply in an hour. If you don't have that (lets say you have a 12 hour SLA) the team, even if they can answer your question right away, is likely going to hold off on it for awhile because you haven't paid for that level of service. It's also protection as their response could lead to another reply from you and possibly a call would have to be scheduled and then meanwhile a few important tickets from clients that pay for the extra service come in and now they are backed up. Sales guys should be calling you constantly though!
- alistairSH 11y ago"No one tells me to work nights. No one makes me answer emails at night. No one texts me to ask me why emails aren't answered." Well, if you're willingly working nights and weekends (which we know you do, as you penned the response on a Saturday), then of course nobody is going to tell you to do so. This statement does nothing to disprove that those who wish to have lives outside the workplace aren't harassed by their coworkers and/or managers.
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- notacoward 11y agoI was struck by the same careful wording. These kinds of policies and pressures never bother the True Believers who have already decided to make the company #1 in their lives. You know, the kind who will enlist an already-annoyed spouse's help to proof-read a work-related article on a Saturday morning. The problem is with those who still believe in a work/life balance that's something other than 90/10.
- lotsofpulp 11y agoIf Bezos really wanted to put his money where his mouth is, he would implement a minimum mandatory vacation period and significant maternity/paternity leave at the least, if not a max # of hours per week. Of course, that would not maximize profits at amazon or most other companies so that's not really what will happen.
- jaawn 11y agoI don't think the assumption that long hours and little vacation maximize profits should be taken for granted, especially in a longer-term time frame. I've seen quite a lot of information in the past few years that shows that (especially for developers) long hours have diminishing returns on productivity, and may actually hurt productivity.
- lotsofpulp 11y agoIt may hurt productivity, but the employer gets the benefit of keeping the employee on a leash by not giving them time to look for other opportunities , plus in some businesses you can just keep grinding employees to the bone and sift until you have the most workaholic ones, such as in finance. I won't claim to know what will happen to Amazon or other companies if they keep trying to squeeze every cent out of every employee all the time, but in my professional circles of people who work front office at investment firms or consulting firms (in the northeast), there is a long history of making sure the newbies are in the office 80+ hours a week. These are also the same firms that continue to make the most money year after year, so I would assume there is some possibility to extract extra value from the subset of the population that is workaholic.
- jaawn 11y agoI think this is something that varies a lot based on the nature of the work. Creative software development/design/engineering is more taxing in a way that precludes almost anyone from being productive at an 80+ hour/week level, especially if it is the "normal" workload. Not to diminish finance people, by the way. I'm sure they work hard, but in a different way.
- austenallred 11y ago"BREAKING: Hugely successful big co has ex employees not fully satisfied, willing to criticize it. It also has current employees who appreciate it. Will keep you posted."
- eternalban 11y agoTo top it off, written by a company that has clear conflict of interest in context of eCommerce (NYTimes is an eCommerce player) and publishing (Washington Post) with Mr. Bezos. I am not in any way associated with the wunderkind of Seattle and/or his company. Just noting an interesting fact.
- nocarrier 11y agoHow is the New York Times an ecommerce player? I've never heard anyone suggest that before and now I'm quite curious.
- littletimmy 11y agoDoesn't Bezos own Washington Post?
- austenallred 11y agoYes
- Cshelton 11y agoIf you haven't read this book, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, and you want to know how Amazon has worked from day 1, it's a good place to go. It straight up tells you the culture at Amazon, starting from day 1. I'll even include the Amazon link =p http://www.amazon.com/The-Everything-Store-Bezos-Amazon/dp/0316219266 http://www.amazon.com/The-Everything-Store-Bezos-Amazon/dp/0...
- matwood 11y agoRead The Everything Store. It is clear the only relationship you want with Amazon is as a customer. Everything they do is to drive lower prices to the customer in order to take as much marketshare as possible.
- parasubvert 11y agoAmazon's success at being a grinding place but reaping major business results align with what I've seen of my previous employer (a transportation icon) that tightened the screws, re-engineered processes, encouraged thousands to leave. Revenue, profit, stock price, and bonuses soared. All of what we've been told about the war for talent, desire for caring work places, etc. seems to be exaggerated. Companies can literally have a policy of "be happy you have a job, punk" for professionals for YEARS, and people will suck it up. Morale does have an impact but not as much as you'd think once your company is large enough AND it is successful. One commonality in both companies is that they are very data driven. Eliminating a costly perk? Do it and see what the data says. Make a change to a major process that people are resisting? Do it, fire any insubordinates, and see what the data says. Basically don't take management policy or process for granted unless you have data to back it up. There's a line between tough and abusive, however, and this seems to be where Amazon's (and other tough cultures) walk the line.
- jaawn 11y agoThe data-driven management you're describing is based on the significant assumption that you are able to gather accurate data, and interpret that data accurately. For example, if you are making a management decision based on how much time employees are spending on X, you are assuming that you actually know how much time is being spent on X and what the value of that time is. Simply measuring data is not sufficient. You have to measure the right data in the right way for your stated purpose. Companies operating like Amazon does (apparently), are wildly over-confident in their data collection and interpretation abilities, in my opinion.
- parasubvert 11y agoMost companies I have consulted or work for make decisions based on politics and conjecture, with data being invented at a bare minimum to back the argument up, but no one doing serious analysis of it. The culture of having data collection and an ability to challenge it (whether it is flawed or not) indicates a desire for a fact-driven culture vs. a power-driven culture. They might be over-confident, but one would think that reality in the market will eventually catch up to that.
- j_s 11y agoNone of this most recent discussion has included any mention of conditions at fulfillment centers (something that has been criticized in the past): http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-f... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7902887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7902887 It is helpful to be aware of how all different types of workers are treated when evaluating whether or not to work for a company.
- shruubi 11y agoI think the clear and interesting thing I have taken from this debacle is that all the horror stories come from non management with a large portion of the criticism targeted at people who work around the level of the people who are coming out to talk about how wonderful it is. It's easy for management to say how peachy things are when they are the people who very well might be (unknowingly) creating this culture. The most amazing part about all of this is that not a single person who has come out saying this is false has said they will either look into it themselves or put their money where their mouths are and do something about it. It's easy to be the general when the guns aren't pointed at you.
- mangeletti 11y agoIs it just me, or is there something extra creepy about Bezos having AMZN employees read the NYT article and then email him personally if they recognized any of the practices? That's sort of like being the National Security Adviser and telling all NSA agents, "if you notice anything illicit, please email me personally [whereafter you will receive a personal drone visit]".
- puppetmaster3 11y agoI wonder if this is related to H1 demand and lack of women in tech. Think about it for a minute. H1 would have to leave (the country) if they lose their job, so they are stuck working for a bad boss. Women can sense that, hey, this makes no sense faster than man who is somewhat expected to 'solider on'. If there was less H1 (but more legal immigration other ways), than that would force a turn around and encourage more welcoming places. And less bad bosses. I even look at product manager job postings and cringe: 'hold engineering team accountable for commitments'. The issue maybe that there is H1, that there are people willing to do it.
- CSMastermind 11y agoMy experience with women at Amazon is this: my ex-girlfriend had an internship with Amazon in the summer of 2013. While there her manager friended her on Facebook then sent her some messages suggesting that if she slept with him he would make sure she got a full time offer and explicitly describing his fantasies about her. She ended sleeping with him and true to his word he got her the full time position. About a month later I found out about the whole thing and broke up with her. I emailed the transcripts of their conversations to HR. They conducted an investigation and he admitted to everything. The guy got to keep his job. They did some sort of formal counseling with him and then transferred him to another group. They made the girl to sign a statement saying that nothing improper happened. They strongly suggested that her full time offer might be rescinded is she didn't sign the statement. She signed and has been working there the past more than a year now.
- arcameron 11y agoRough, I'm sorry that happened to you
- fasouto 11y ago"we have Nerf wars, almost daily, that often get a bit out of hand" :facepalm: I hate this part of the popular culture where developers are seen as kids or weirdos with no social skills. We have to make clear that we didn't like nerf wars neither overworking, if we didn't respect us nobody is gonna do it.
- pmelendez 11y ago> We have to make clear that we didn't like nerf wars neither overworking I do find those wars very entertaining and stress relieving. What is clear to me is that, even in the tech world, there are different cultures and not everybody are equal.
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- jaawn 11y agoMr. Bezos' response strikes me as the all-too-familiar case of upper management not keeping tabs on middle and lower management. If he is truly sincere that he does not recognize the version of Amazon depicted in the article, and does not agree with that type of management, then he (like many high-level managers) needs to take an active approach in weeding out abusive managers at all levels (especially lower level managers). I work at a large enterprise (5,000+ employees) and this is a huge problem for us. Upper management has a vision for the organization, but it gets lost on its way down the chain. A simple phrase is the main culprit: "...<any given policy> is up to manager discretion." For example, upper management: "We are creating a flexible part-time teleworking agreement whereby employees can work from home up to 2 days per week. Usage of this arrangement is up to manager discretion." Lower management: "I know about the new teleworking option, but our department is not participating because how can anyone get work done at home?" If upper management does not actively monitor and intervene with stifling lower-level managers, they can definitely create an organization that, in practice, differs greatly from the one they imagine, the one they wanted to create.
- t0mbstone 11y ago“Even if it’s rare or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero,” Mr. Bezos said in an email circulated to all the retailer’s employees. My note: Zero tolerance policies without recourse for correction are a perfect example of the Amazon inhumanity. Straight from the mouth of the leader. There's your culture problem right there.
- Epicism 11y agoThis "I didn't know this was happening" excuse doesn't cut it. You don't know because you don't look. As long as you are getting the results you want it doesn't matter if you're demanding people to come back the day after a miscarriage. Listen to any interview with Jack Welch and he'll tell you how accountability of work culture comes straight from the top, and how HR reviews are designed not to ask the right questions. As a random example, there's a huge difference between asking "have you been illegally treated in any way" and "have you been immorally treated". Little changes like that make survey results wildly different, and if management wants they can make employee's say a labor shop is a great place to work.