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> Here’s what the story didn’t tell you about Mr. Olson: his brief tenure at Amazon ended after an investigation revealed he had attempted to defraud vendors an

> Here’s what the story didn’t tell you about Mr. Olson: his brief tenure at Amazon ended after an investigation revealed he had attempted to defraud vendors and conceal it by falsifying business records. When confronted with the evidence, he admitted it and resigned immediately. Together with the inappropriate disclosure of performance reviews, this statement just makes me think that Amazon probably has a culture of defrauding vendors, and usually gets away with it, but sometimes has to blame a junior hire to save face when caught.

jessriedel 11y ago
Let's assume both Amazon and Carney are evil. Do you think it was acceptable for the Times to not disclose the context of Olson's dismissal?
- petegrif 11y ago
  I don't know it if would have been appropriate for the Times to disclose the context of Olson's dismissal at all, it wasn't after all the point of the article - that was work conditions at Amazon rather than the transgressions of Olsen. But I think it was completely unacceptable for them to take his disclosures at face value given such a context.
  - jhall1468 11y ago
    Wait, so you are pleading ignorance to the Times failing to properly inform and are fast to judge Amazon for disclosure of the truth? If the roles were reversed, you would undoubtedly be supporting an Amazon PR piece in the Times, because the truth "wasn't the point of the article", correct?
    - jessriedel 11y ago
      The parent and grand parent commentors are different.
- cjbprime 11y ago
  That's a good question. Let me see the original article: > Bo Olson was one of them. He lasted less than two years in a book marketing role and said that his enduring image was watching people weep in the office, a sight other workers described as well. If other workers described the same sight, I don't think his input's important enough to require personal credibility, so I'm not too concerned. But the use of "lasted less than two years" would be more honest written as "spent less than two years" or something, because there's an implication that he chose to leave voluntarily.
  - jessriedel 11y ago
    I've heard comments from a dozen ex-Amazon employees on HN, in this thread and in the one back on the original NY Times article. The large majority of them said the anecdotes described by the article were unrepresentative of their time at Amazon.
    - cwilkes 11y ago
      I've heard comments from a dozen ex-Amazon employees on HN, in this thread and in the one back on the original NY Times article. The large majority of them said the anecdotes described by the article were unrepresentative of their time at Amazon. Shouldn't that point to a problem of the HN crowd being homogeneous/type-A personalities and not representative of what most people see at Amazon?
      - jessriedel 11y ago
        Of course the HN crowd is not a perfect sample. But why on Earth would you think the NYTimes reporters, who are trying to write a compelling article, are more likely to get an unbiased sampling of Amazon employees than a sampling of the commentators on HN, who have nothing to gain?
        cjbprime 11y ago
        Alternative theory: the people commenting on HN are software engineers, who are treated better than average at Amazon because it is very easy for them to go work somewhere else. I don't think any of the employees mentioned in the NYT article worked in software. It looks to me like the NYT found a statistically significant set of experiences that they wrote about while acknowledging that not everyone at Amazon would have these experiences.
- dandare 11y ago
  NYT disputes it, see one of the comments above: > Olson described conflict and turmoil in his group and a revolving series of bosses, and acknowledged that he didn’t last there. He disputes Amazon’s account of his departure, though. He told us today that his division was overwhelmed and had difficulty meeting its marketing commitments to publishers; he said he and others in the division could not keep up. But he said he was never confronted with allegations of personally fraudulent conduct or falsifying records, nor did he admit to that. If there were criminal charges against him, or some formal accusation of wrongdoing, we would certainly consider that. If we had known his status was contested, we would have said so.
  - jessriedel 11y ago
    Thanks for the pointer. Here's the comment you refer to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10414033 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10414033 As danso notes, the NY Times editor and Amazon's Carney have now made pretty unequivocal contradictory statements, with little room for them both to be right without one of them outright lying. (And I don't think either one would go on the record here with an outright lie.) Except that the NY Times says "But he [Olson] said he was never confronted with allegations of personally fraudulent conduct or falsifying records, nor did he admit to that... If we had known his status was contested, we would have said so". That is, they can both be telling the truth if Olson was lying to the Times about his departure. That's my prediction for how this shakes out. And in that case, the Times will have egg on their face for having not properly vetted their sources.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
smileysteve 11y ago
> Together with the inappropriate disclosure of performance reviews, this statement just makes me think that Amazon probably has a culture of defrauding vendors, and usually gets away with it, Especially with the Discover fraud whistle blowing lawsuit
- whiteboarder 11y ago
  There wasn't any fraud. There was a response to this accusation, by the NYT, and they claim that this is false.
srtjstjsj 11y ago
I remember an article a few years ago with a similar dispute -- something about advertisement placement abuse, and overcharging a client (a credit card company / bank?) to the tune of $million for placements on Kindles(?) that customers never saw, and a dispute as to whether it was a lone wolf, or an executive who pushed the lower-level person to do it. Ah, here's the story: http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employee-lawsuit-kivin-varghese-2014-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employee-lawsuit-kivin... http://www.geekwire.com/2014/former-amazon-employee-ends-hunger-strike-meeting-company/ http://www.geekwire.com/2014/former-amazon-employee-ends-hun... https://www.google.com/search?q=Varghese+amazon https://www.google.com/search?q=Varghese+amazon

jessriedel 11y ago

Let's assume both Amazon and Carney are evil. Do you think it was acceptable for the Times to not disclose the context of Olson's dismissal?

petegrif 11y ago
I don't know it if would have been appropriate for the Times to disclose the context of Olson's dismissal at all, it wasn't after all the point of the article - that was work conditions at Amazon rather than the transgressions of Olsen. But I think it was completely unacceptable for them to take his disclosures at face value given such a context.
- jhall1468 11y ago
  Wait, so you are pleading ignorance to the Times failing to properly inform and are fast to judge Amazon for disclosure of the truth? If the roles were reversed, you would undoubtedly be supporting an Amazon PR piece in the Times, because the truth "wasn't the point of the article", correct?
  - jessriedel 11y ago
    The parent and grand parent commentors are different.
cjbprime 11y ago
That's a good question. Let me see the original article: > Bo Olson was one of them. He lasted less than two years in a book marketing role and said that his enduring image was watching people weep in the office, a sight other workers described as well. If other workers described the same sight, I don't think his input's important enough to require personal credibility, so I'm not too concerned. But the use of "lasted less than two years" would be more honest written as "spent less than two years" or something, because there's an implication that he chose to leave voluntarily.
- jessriedel 11y ago
  I've heard comments from a dozen ex-Amazon employees on HN, in this thread and in the one back on the original NY Times article. The large majority of them said the anecdotes described by the article were unrepresentative of their time at Amazon.
  - cwilkes 11y ago
    I've heard comments from a dozen ex-Amazon employees on HN, in this thread and in the one back on the original NY Times article. The large majority of them said the anecdotes described by the article were unrepresentative of their time at Amazon. Shouldn't that point to a problem of the HN crowd being homogeneous/type-A personalities and not representative of what most people see at Amazon?
    - jessriedel 11y ago
      Of course the HN crowd is not a perfect sample. But why on Earth would you think the NYTimes reporters, who are trying to write a compelling article, are more likely to get an unbiased sampling of Amazon employees than a sampling of the commentators on HN, who have nothing to gain?
      - cjbprime 11y ago
        Alternative theory: the people commenting on HN are software engineers, who are treated better than average at Amazon because it is very easy for them to go work somewhere else. I don't think any of the employees mentioned in the NYT article worked in software. It looks to me like the NYT found a statistically significant set of experiences that they wrote about while acknowledging that not everyone at Amazon would have these experiences.
dandare 11y ago
NYT disputes it, see one of the comments above: > Olson described conflict and turmoil in his group and a revolving series of bosses, and acknowledged that he didn’t last there. He disputes Amazon’s account of his departure, though. He told us today that his division was overwhelmed and had difficulty meeting its marketing commitments to publishers; he said he and others in the division could not keep up. But he said he was never confronted with allegations of personally fraudulent conduct or falsifying records, nor did he admit to that. If there were criminal charges against him, or some formal accusation of wrongdoing, we would certainly consider that. If we had known his status was contested, we would have said so.
- jessriedel 11y ago
  Thanks for the pointer. Here's the comment you refer to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10414033 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10414033 As danso notes, the NY Times editor and Amazon's Carney have now made pretty unequivocal contradictory statements, with little room for them both to be right without one of them outright lying. (And I don't think either one would go on the record here with an outright lie.) Except that the NY Times says "But he [Olson] said he was never confronted with allegations of personally fraudulent conduct or falsifying records, nor did he admit to that... If we had known his status was contested, we would have said so". That is, they can both be telling the truth if Olson was lying to the Times about his departure. That's my prediction for how this shakes out. And in that case, the Times will have egg on their face for having not properly vetted their sources.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

smileysteve 11y ago

> Together with the inappropriate disclosure of performance reviews, this statement just makes me think that Amazon probably has a culture of defrauding vendors, and usually gets away with it, Especially with the Discover fraud whistle blowing lawsuit

whiteboarder 11y ago
There wasn't any fraud. There was a response to this accusation, by the NYT, and they claim that this is false.

srtjstjsj 11y ago

I remember an article a few years ago with a similar dispute -- something about advertisement placement abuse, and overcharging a client (a credit card company / bank?) to the tune of $million for placements on Kindles(?) that customers never saw, and a dispute as to whether it was a lone wolf, or an executive who pushed the lower-level person to do it. Ah, here's the story: http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employee-lawsuit-kivin-varghese-2014-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employee-lawsuit-kivin... http://www.geekwire.com/2014/former-amazon-employee-ends-hunger-strike-meeting-company/ http://www.geekwire.com/2014/former-amazon-employee-ends-hun... https://www.google.com/search?q=Varghese+amazon https://www.google.com/search?q=Varghese+amazon