8 ms·

Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Way

95 points by wyclif 11y ago

known 11y ago
Amazon is of the sociopath, by the sociopath, for the sociopath.
rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
I see a lot of comments on the Times regarding unions. We take a lot of things like weekends for granted, and many of these tech companies seem to treat them as a flexible inconvenience. I wonder if a hundred years from now we will look on the taxes to our mental health today as similarly as we imagine the truly backbreaking labor of the 19th century.
- nickff 11y ago
  The level of stress, and the toll it takes on mental health that we experience today is very low compared to a time when productivity and income were 20x lower. Our lives have changed, and we are immensely richer than we were 100 or even 50 years ago. People have more mobility, options, and opportunity than ever before in human history. One can argue that certain policies or priorities have affected our lives for the better or worse, but we should not try to compare the relatively minor difficulties we face with those of our forebearers, who left us in a life of luxury.
  - braythwayt 11y ago
    Everything you say is true in aggregate, but let’s not forget that the future is still unevenly distributed.
  - xacaxulu 11y ago
    This 'feels' accurate, but I don't know how worthwhile it is to say 'well it was shittier back then so...'. People commit suicide, relationships are ruined and diseases appear due to the kind of stressors described in the Amazon exposés. They're worthy of being considered today, in context, not compared to British coal workers in the past or whatever.
  - x5n1 11y ago
    > The level of stress, and the toll it takes on mental health that we experience today is very low compared to a time when productivity and income were 20x lower. How could you possibly know this. Stress is completely subjective, and so is its effect on mental health. Lots of animals in the wild have a much more supposedly stressful life but curl up and die in captivity where everything is provided for. I would say the experience that we have with work is similar subjectively regardless of modern convenience. Especially workers working in Amazon warehouses on their feet 10-11 hours a day and at times with no air conditioning.
- pekk 11y ago
  It's not just mental health. Working 55-hour weeks (a number many HN users would laugh at) poses a 33% increase in stroke risk and 13% increase of coronary heart disease over "standard" hours: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/researchers-link-longer-work-hours-and-stroke-risk/ http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/researchers-link-lo... We're not just giving up a little time to prove our commitment, we're giving our life. Because our employers will fire us if we don't work long hours, citing a lack of passion or commitment. Just try interviewing for most tech jobs saying up front that you don't want to go over 40 hours. The best part? We punish anyone who doesn't harm themselves in the same way, when we could all be working together to insist on better conditions.
- parennoob 11y ago
  Why wait a hundred years? If we have any 60+ year olds on HN that have worked in tech all their life (I can recall of at least one person like this chiming in on discussions in the past) -- then they can probably comment on what sort of toll this takes on your life in the longer term.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- Crito 11y ago
  I don't think a union would solve this. I'd sooner quit a shitty job than stay in it, and hope the union makes it better for me. Much faster turnaround when I take matters into my own hand. If this were the sort of industry where I couldn't be working again with higher pay within the week, then maybe I'd consider sticking around for organized action..
  - Frondo 11y ago
    Of course it would. It'd solve it before you even got into the position, by mandating that you put in your 40 hours and then left to enjoy the weekend, see your family, etc. And before anyone says "but I want to be paid on merit not seniority hur hur," remember, it's your union. You want your union to fight for merit-based pay and not seniority-based pay? Fine, go for it. Unions are democratic, so you shouldn't have too much trouble persuading others to vote for your ideas, as long as they're good ones.
    - Crito 11y ago
      Why would I put up with waiting for collective action to work, if I can improve my lot in life by simply changing companies? I'm not going to stick around at the company just to help out my coworkers. I feel zero loyalty to them.
      - wpietri 11y ago
        In that case, on behalf of your coworkers, I encourage your plan of leaving. For the rest of us, though, quitting often doesn't help. Shitty workplaces are commonplace. Jointly pushing back (which doesn't require a union) can create a place that you don't want to leave, one where you can have more confidence that it will stay good even as executives come and go.
astrowilliam 11y ago
I've worked at a big internet company where the culture was very toxic and not a good place to work, let alone be a normal human being. Pushy, rude and underhanded people were plentiful and were willing to throw you so far under the bus at any given moment that you would never find your way back out. This became evident to me when I went on my lunch break after working there for about 4 months. Each employee was given 1 hour for lunch. I spent ~15 minutes walking to the local burrito place, grabbed a burrito which took about 10 minutes and then walked back. I was gone roughly 45 minutes. The next day I was called into my managers office because someone didn't like the amount of time that I spent on my lunch break. Lucky for me I had my receipt and logged my work time so I showed him how much precious company time I spent galavanting to the burrito place. I said something that I definitely should have. "Maybe the person that reported me should have been doing work instead of worrying about my lunch break. If this company can't treat its employees like humans, I don't plan on working here much longer" I got written up for insubordination. I was pissed. I went back to my desk and typed up my 2 week notice. Good riddance.
- terabytest 11y ago
  What sort of company is that?
  - yrro 11y ago
    Even better... Which company?
    - MCRed 11y ago
      Yes, companies should be named and shamed. In fact, we need something like Glassdoor but where bad reviews don't magically disappear.
  - astrowilliam 11y ago
    A company that hires douche bags, apparently.
- stevewepay 11y ago
wyclif 11y ago
This is just an observation, but a recurring theme in casual conversations with friends in tech is that the quality of work/life balance as an employee (as opposed to a founder) is eroding fast. One factor that I think accelerates this is that companies that are established and clearly not startups anymore (companies with lots of employees, huge market cap, and revenue, whether they've IPO'd or not) increasingly consider themselves "startups", which often leads to them justifying these toxic work cultures, insane hours, and massive churn. By refusing to grow up and mature as a company, and admit that this is happening, the owners of the company can have it both ways: you work for a startup when they're talking about passion, commitment, and hours, but you work for an established business when they want to turn the corporatist screws on their employees.
onaplane 11y ago
Okay, these articles are getting really ridiculous. I just finished a Summer internship at Amazon. While it's true that there's more pressure on employees than other places I've worked, it's really not that bad. It definitely doesn't feel cutthroat, and an 80-85 hour work week is definitely not normal! The vast majority (I'd say >70%, and I think that's conservative) of people work 35-45, depending on what needs to get done that particular week - which is completely normal! There are some teams where it's normal to work longer hours - mostly in AWS. Usually it's the case that a few people on the team have very high expectations for themselves, and that sort of forces everyone else to meet those same standards. I think that's actually not a bad thing - some people just love to work, and they end up producing a lot of really high quality software. But if you don't feel the same way, you can just transfer to a different team! I haven't heard of a manager asking someone to put in extra hours except when there are extenuating circumstances. Now, don't get me wrong, as an employee you definitely get the impression that Amazon doesn't care that much about you. It's not really a fun place to work or anything like that. But some of these articles make it sound like everyone who works for Amazon is begin taken advantage of, and that simply isn't true.
- MCRed 11y ago
  Sorry, your internship is not representative. They are trying got trick you into working there. You were treated special in a number of ways. Further, AWS is isolated to some extend from the abusive nature of the company by being a separate division. A lot of what you say is right out of the amazon weltanshaung-- its cult has seeped in to some extent. You're giving us rationalizations for the abusive nature of the work environment. "high expectations of themselves" == code for piling drudgery on people because you won't allow them to create a more efficient process. He downvoters: I know HN teaches you that silencing people you disagree with is good, but try making a counter argument. For the record, I had some contact with the internship program and it was treated VERY differently than regular recruiting. It literally is designed to trick the interns into coming aboard... because Amazon knows kids irhgt out of college are going to be easier to manipulate than people who have been treated right elsewhere. But then, scientologists try to silence critics too... no surprise that the amazon cult would as well.
libber 11y ago
I found this interesting, feels like the most realistic account so far - http://pastebin.com/BjD84BQ3 http://pastebin.com/BjD84BQ3 I just feel bad for amazon people I meet, the 2 year cliff and high pressure oncall simply isn't a thing at the other tech companies. At least for me and ive worked at a few of them (plural of anicdote isn't data but still) Life seems strictly worse at amazon.
- MCRed 11y ago
  His account seems much better than what I experienced. I still think he has swallowed too much koolaide-- and this is why Amazon focuses on the young kids they can make an impression on.
  - goldenkey 11y ago
    I've worked at Amazon and you are absolutely right. The implied "get it done" pressure, basically just socially awkward managers who have no self-value themselves, pushing the new people to work ridiculous hours. Not mentioning hours though, but basically getting unexperienced youth to waste away their lives at their jobs. It's sad.. it's definitely a mental and manipulative tactic. It's really cancerous because these exact kind of mentally defective people who spurry to get things done, usually last-licks from Microsoft, become managers. Then they apply that silly pressure to everyone under them, and elegance fades away. Literally horrible code, with little polymorphism, less elegant frameworks, etc. Just a side affect of "get it done." Anyhow, Amazon isn't rosy. It's a dumping ground, and yeah, the FLP process where people get culled is just a side affect of the value of work-life balance, human empathy there. I would never work at Amazon again.
  - carrotleads 11y ago
    He had stated that he did drink the koolaid initially... seems like a matter of fact version..
  - wpietri 11y ago
    I totally agree. I can see why he would blame a lot of this on himself, but I think it's a mistake. A good manager would have been keeping an eye on him, helping him set boundaries, reducing schedule pressure, etc. If this guy were the only one to have a problem at Amazon that would be one thing, but the sheer number of stories points to deep problems with culture and management.
MCRed 11y ago
My experience at Amazon was straight up abusive. It is a hostile work environment and it should not be tolerated. If you have any self respect, do not go to work there. The only way abusive companies can learn is when their abuse is discovered and they have trouble hiring good employees. The apologists and the rationalizers and the Amazon PR machine are out in full force. this is not surprising, because the core methodology of Amazon's abuse is its cult nature. Amazon is very much like a cult. The stories I read about scientology remind me much of my time at Amazon. They lionize Bezos because they want to pretend he's like steve jobs (these same propagandists are why most of you think steve jobs was an asshole, by the way) Reality is, he's a master manipulator, a poor business man, and terrible at technology and leadership. But he did create a cult. He's more like charles manson. So expect the cultists to continue to be out in force.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- chambo622 11y ago
  > Reality is, he's a master manipulator, a poor business man, and terrible at technology and leadership. Your argument really breaks down here. Reality contradicts these assertions.
  - johneth 11y ago
    > terrible at technology and leadership While I'm not suggesting that he's not successful in many ways, he's also been (and still is) quite bad at these two things. On the technology front, the terribleness that immediately comes to mind are the Fire Phone, Prime Instant Video's UI, Amazon's UI in general, their godawful search, and so on. On the leadership front... well... there are all these accusations of an awful workplace culture stemming from the top man.
    - sokoloff 11y ago
musesum 11y ago
When it was my own company, I loved the excitement of the hunt. I slept under my desk. We kicked ass. Even though some of us had lives outside of work. More recently, I worked at at a startup where it was possible to have a family and get stuff done. It was pretty cool! It seems like, for work-life balance, the US is somewhere between Japan and Switzerland. What would it take to be more like the Swiss?
veidr 11y ago
This story has got to be really hurting Amazon by now. (I don't mean this specific piece, but the exposure of Amazon's terrible cult-like culture and workplace environment as a whole.) Most engineerish people I know, myself included, had already heard through the grapevine that working at Amazon sucks (friends, friends of friends, posts on forums like this). But now everybody knows it sucks -- Amazon is a shitty place to work, and any decent software engineer has many better options is now as close to an objective fact as it gets. This must be hurting their recruiting already, and you have to think it will hurt them for years to come. (And if that is true, then it may eventually change the judgement of whether this style of management "worked".)
- x5n1 11y ago
  Amazon needs to unionize, it's obvious that Bezos and his management don't respect his workers. This sort of company deserves a union. And I think both white collar and blue collar workers there would support such a union.
- studentrob 11y ago
  Yup. I remember hearing about it years ago. You've got to believe that this culture comes from the top. The fact that Bezos is trying to pass the buck and takes no responsibility is telling. Awesome guy, and you have to believe he doesn't want Amazon to be that way, but if he can't take some responsibility for the culture he grew, it can only stay the same or get much, much worse as everyone below him will follow his lead and point fingers.
jmgtan 11y ago
Been reading a lot of Amazon articles the past few weeks. I'll be joining AWS next month as an SA. I met the hiring manager during the interview loop, and he seems like a cool guy. Funny thing is when I told my family and friends that I'll be joining AWS they all emailed me the NYT expose. Well I do hope it's not as bad as it's portrayed. I do want to see my son grow up (he is turning 2 years old).
- morgante 11y ago
  May I ask why you are planning to join Amazon? It's reputation for being a bad employer is well-established and known in the tech community. If you're skilled enough to get through an Amazon interview loop, you could also get a job at a company which actually respects its employees (Facebook, Google, even Microsoft).
  - jmgtan 11y ago
    I love the AWS platform, I find the entire thing very elegant. I wanted to move away from software development and get into more high level stuff (hence the SA role), and I'd rather join a company where am passionate about their products. I have friends working in AWS, and so far none of them have been complaining about work life balance, so am assuming that it's different from the retail side.

95 points by wyclif 11y ago

known 11y ago

Amazon is of the sociopath, by the sociopath, for the sociopath.

I see a lot of comments on the Times regarding unions. We take a lot of things like weekends for granted, and many of these tech companies seem to treat them as a flexible inconvenience. I wonder if a hundred years from now we will look on the taxes to our mental health today as similarly as we imagine the truly backbreaking labor of the 19th century.

nickff 11y ago
The level of stress, and the toll it takes on mental health that we experience today is very low compared to a time when productivity and income were 20x lower. Our lives have changed, and we are immensely richer than we were 100 or even 50 years ago. People have more mobility, options, and opportunity than ever before in human history. One can argue that certain policies or priorities have affected our lives for the better or worse, but we should not try to compare the relatively minor difficulties we face with those of our forebearers, who left us in a life of luxury.
- braythwayt 11y ago
  Everything you say is true in aggregate, but let’s not forget that the future is still unevenly distributed.
- xacaxulu 11y ago
  This 'feels' accurate, but I don't know how worthwhile it is to say 'well it was shittier back then so...'. People commit suicide, relationships are ruined and diseases appear due to the kind of stressors described in the Amazon exposés. They're worthy of being considered today, in context, not compared to British coal workers in the past or whatever.
- x5n1 11y ago
  > The level of stress, and the toll it takes on mental health that we experience today is very low compared to a time when productivity and income were 20x lower. How could you possibly know this. Stress is completely subjective, and so is its effect on mental health. Lots of animals in the wild have a much more supposedly stressful life but curl up and die in captivity where everything is provided for. I would say the experience that we have with work is similar subjectively regardless of modern convenience. Especially workers working in Amazon warehouses on their feet 10-11 hours a day and at times with no air conditioning.
pekk 11y ago
It's not just mental health. Working 55-hour weeks (a number many HN users would laugh at) poses a 33% increase in stroke risk and 13% increase of coronary heart disease over "standard" hours: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/researchers-link-longer-work-hours-and-stroke-risk/ http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/researchers-link-lo... We're not just giving up a little time to prove our commitment, we're giving our life. Because our employers will fire us if we don't work long hours, citing a lack of passion or commitment. Just try interviewing for most tech jobs saying up front that you don't want to go over 40 hours. The best part? We punish anyone who doesn't harm themselves in the same way, when we could all be working together to insist on better conditions.
parennoob 11y ago
Why wait a hundred years? If we have any 60+ year olds on HN that have worked in tech all their life (I can recall of at least one person like this chiming in on discussions in the past) -- then they can probably comment on what sort of toll this takes on your life in the longer term.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
Crito 11y ago
I don't think a union would solve this. I'd sooner quit a shitty job than stay in it, and hope the union makes it better for me. Much faster turnaround when I take matters into my own hand. If this were the sort of industry where I couldn't be working again with higher pay within the week, then maybe I'd consider sticking around for organized action..
- Frondo 11y ago
  Of course it would. It'd solve it before you even got into the position, by mandating that you put in your 40 hours and then left to enjoy the weekend, see your family, etc. And before anyone says "but I want to be paid on merit not seniority hur hur," remember, it's your union. You want your union to fight for merit-based pay and not seniority-based pay? Fine, go for it. Unions are democratic, so you shouldn't have too much trouble persuading others to vote for your ideas, as long as they're good ones.
  - Crito 11y ago
    Why would I put up with waiting for collective action to work, if I can improve my lot in life by simply changing companies? I'm not going to stick around at the company just to help out my coworkers. I feel zero loyalty to them.
    - wpietri 11y ago
      In that case, on behalf of your coworkers, I encourage your plan of leaving. For the rest of us, though, quitting often doesn't help. Shitty workplaces are commonplace. Jointly pushing back (which doesn't require a union) can create a place that you don't want to leave, one where you can have more confidence that it will stay good even as executives come and go.

astrowilliam 11y ago

I've worked at a big internet company where the culture was very toxic and not a good place to work, let alone be a normal human being. Pushy, rude and underhanded people were plentiful and were willing to throw you so far under the bus at any given moment that you would never find your way back out. This became evident to me when I went on my lunch break after working there for about 4 months. Each employee was given 1 hour for lunch. I spent ~15 minutes walking to the local burrito place, grabbed a burrito which took about 10 minutes and then walked back. I was gone roughly 45 minutes. The next day I was called into my managers office because someone didn't like the amount of time that I spent on my lunch break. Lucky for me I had my receipt and logged my work time so I showed him how much precious company time I spent galavanting to the burrito place. I said something that I definitely should have. "Maybe the person that reported me should have been doing work instead of worrying about my lunch break. If this company can't treat its employees like humans, I don't plan on working here much longer" I got written up for insubordination. I was pissed. I went back to my desk and typed up my 2 week notice. Good riddance.

terabytest 11y ago
What sort of company is that?
- yrro 11y ago
  Even better... Which company?
  - MCRed 11y ago
    Yes, companies should be named and shamed. In fact, we need something like Glassdoor but where bad reviews don't magically disappear.
- astrowilliam 11y ago
  A company that hires douche bags, apparently.
stevewepay 11y ago

wyclif 11y ago

This is just an observation, but a recurring theme in casual conversations with friends in tech is that the quality of work/life balance as an employee (as opposed to a founder) is eroding fast. One factor that I think accelerates this is that companies that are established and clearly not startups anymore (companies with lots of employees, huge market cap, and revenue, whether they've IPO'd or not) increasingly consider themselves "startups", which often leads to them justifying these toxic work cultures, insane hours, and massive churn. By refusing to grow up and mature as a company, and admit that this is happening, the owners of the company can have it both ways: you work for a startup when they're talking about passion, commitment, and hours, but you work for an established business when they want to turn the corporatist screws on their employees.

onaplane 11y ago

Okay, these articles are getting really ridiculous. I just finished a Summer internship at Amazon. While it's true that there's more pressure on employees than other places I've worked, it's really not that bad. It definitely doesn't feel cutthroat, and an 80-85 hour work week is definitely not normal! The vast majority (I'd say >70%, and I think that's conservative) of people work 35-45, depending on what needs to get done that particular week - which is completely normal! There are some teams where it's normal to work longer hours - mostly in AWS. Usually it's the case that a few people on the team have very high expectations for themselves, and that sort of forces everyone else to meet those same standards. I think that's actually not a bad thing - some people just love to work, and they end up producing a lot of really high quality software. But if you don't feel the same way, you can just transfer to a different team! I haven't heard of a manager asking someone to put in extra hours except when there are extenuating circumstances. Now, don't get me wrong, as an employee you definitely get the impression that Amazon doesn't care that much about you. It's not really a fun place to work or anything like that. But some of these articles make it sound like everyone who works for Amazon is begin taken advantage of, and that simply isn't true.

MCRed 11y ago
Sorry, your internship is not representative. They are trying got trick you into working there. You were treated special in a number of ways. Further, AWS is isolated to some extend from the abusive nature of the company by being a separate division. A lot of what you say is right out of the amazon weltanshaung-- its cult has seeped in to some extent. You're giving us rationalizations for the abusive nature of the work environment. "high expectations of themselves" == code for piling drudgery on people because you won't allow them to create a more efficient process. He downvoters: I know HN teaches you that silencing people you disagree with is good, but try making a counter argument. For the record, I had some contact with the internship program and it was treated VERY differently than regular recruiting. It literally is designed to trick the interns into coming aboard... because Amazon knows kids irhgt out of college are going to be easier to manipulate than people who have been treated right elsewhere. But then, scientologists try to silence critics too... no surprise that the amazon cult would as well.

libber 11y ago

I found this interesting, feels like the most realistic account so far - http://pastebin.com/BjD84BQ3 http://pastebin.com/BjD84BQ3 I just feel bad for amazon people I meet, the 2 year cliff and high pressure oncall simply isn't a thing at the other tech companies. At least for me and ive worked at a few of them (plural of anicdote isn't data but still) Life seems strictly worse at amazon.

MCRed 11y ago
His account seems much better than what I experienced. I still think he has swallowed too much koolaide-- and this is why Amazon focuses on the young kids they can make an impression on.
- goldenkey 11y ago
  I've worked at Amazon and you are absolutely right. The implied "get it done" pressure, basically just socially awkward managers who have no self-value themselves, pushing the new people to work ridiculous hours. Not mentioning hours though, but basically getting unexperienced youth to waste away their lives at their jobs. It's sad.. it's definitely a mental and manipulative tactic. It's really cancerous because these exact kind of mentally defective people who spurry to get things done, usually last-licks from Microsoft, become managers. Then they apply that silly pressure to everyone under them, and elegance fades away. Literally horrible code, with little polymorphism, less elegant frameworks, etc. Just a side affect of "get it done." Anyhow, Amazon isn't rosy. It's a dumping ground, and yeah, the FLP process where people get culled is just a side affect of the value of work-life balance, human empathy there. I would never work at Amazon again.
- carrotleads 11y ago
  He had stated that he did drink the koolaid initially... seems like a matter of fact version..
- wpietri 11y ago
  I totally agree. I can see why he would blame a lot of this on himself, but I think it's a mistake. A good manager would have been keeping an eye on him, helping him set boundaries, reducing schedule pressure, etc. If this guy were the only one to have a problem at Amazon that would be one thing, but the sheer number of stories points to deep problems with culture and management.

MCRed 11y ago

My experience at Amazon was straight up abusive. It is a hostile work environment and it should not be tolerated. If you have any self respect, do not go to work there. The only way abusive companies can learn is when their abuse is discovered and they have trouble hiring good employees. The apologists and the rationalizers and the Amazon PR machine are out in full force. this is not surprising, because the core methodology of Amazon's abuse is its cult nature. Amazon is very much like a cult. The stories I read about scientology remind me much of my time at Amazon. They lionize Bezos because they want to pretend he's like steve jobs (these same propagandists are why most of you think steve jobs was an asshole, by the way) Reality is, he's a master manipulator, a poor business man, and terrible at technology and leadership. But he did create a cult. He's more like charles manson. So expect the cultists to continue to be out in force.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
chambo622 11y ago
> Reality is, he's a master manipulator, a poor business man, and terrible at technology and leadership. Your argument really breaks down here. Reality contradicts these assertions.
- johneth 11y ago
  > terrible at technology and leadership While I'm not suggesting that he's not successful in many ways, he's also been (and still is) quite bad at these two things. On the technology front, the terribleness that immediately comes to mind are the Fire Phone, Prime Instant Video's UI, Amazon's UI in general, their godawful search, and so on. On the leadership front... well... there are all these accusations of an awful workplace culture stemming from the top man.
  - sokoloff 11y ago

musesum 11y ago

When it was my own company, I loved the excitement of the hunt. I slept under my desk. We kicked ass. Even though some of us had lives outside of work. More recently, I worked at at a startup where it was possible to have a family and get stuff done. It was pretty cool! It seems like, for work-life balance, the US is somewhere between Japan and Switzerland. What would it take to be more like the Swiss?

veidr 11y ago

This story has got to be really hurting Amazon by now. (I don't mean this specific piece, but the exposure of Amazon's terrible cult-like culture and workplace environment as a whole.) Most engineerish people I know, myself included, had already heard through the grapevine that working at Amazon sucks (friends, friends of friends, posts on forums like this). But now everybody knows it sucks -- Amazon is a shitty place to work, and any decent software engineer has many better options is now as close to an objective fact as it gets. This must be hurting their recruiting already, and you have to think it will hurt them for years to come. (And if that is true, then it may eventually change the judgement of whether this style of management "worked".)

x5n1 11y ago
Amazon needs to unionize, it's obvious that Bezos and his management don't respect his workers. This sort of company deserves a union. And I think both white collar and blue collar workers there would support such a union.
studentrob 11y ago
Yup. I remember hearing about it years ago. You've got to believe that this culture comes from the top. The fact that Bezos is trying to pass the buck and takes no responsibility is telling. Awesome guy, and you have to believe he doesn't want Amazon to be that way, but if he can't take some responsibility for the culture he grew, it can only stay the same or get much, much worse as everyone below him will follow his lead and point fingers.

jmgtan 11y ago

Been reading a lot of Amazon articles the past few weeks. I'll be joining AWS next month as an SA. I met the hiring manager during the interview loop, and he seems like a cool guy. Funny thing is when I told my family and friends that I'll be joining AWS they all emailed me the NYT expose. Well I do hope it's not as bad as it's portrayed. I do want to see my son grow up (he is turning 2 years old).

morgante 11y ago
May I ask why you are planning to join Amazon? It's reputation for being a bad employer is well-established and known in the tech community. If you're skilled enough to get through an Amazon interview loop, you could also get a job at a company which actually respects its employees (Facebook, Google, even Microsoft).
- jmgtan 11y ago
  I love the AWS platform, I find the entire thing very elegant. I wanted to move away from software development and get into more high level stuff (hence the SA role), and I'd rather join a company where am passionate about their products. I have friends working in AWS, and so far none of them have been complaining about work life balance, so am assuming that it's different from the retail side.