10 ms·

Amazon Spars With The Times Over Investigative Article

136 points by hvo 11y ago

bbarn 11y ago
Sorry, all the nitpicking about small points in an article don't mean nearly as much to me as the dozen or so people I've known who's been miserable working there for low pay, and told me so personally. Embrace the culture you have, or fix it, but stop denying it exists, Amazon.
- xvf33 11y ago
  Same here. I know 2 people who went there, both after short startup stints after college. They both lasted under 2 years and are now at Mozilla and Facebook and would never go back. So many awful stories...
  - caseysoftware 11y ago
    None of that absolves the NYT from checking sources and attempting to determine the credibility. This is journalistic malpractice. If we excuse a "news" organization from fact checking because "well, I've heard stories along those lines" we're screwed.. because where will most people hear those stories? The same organizations.
    - awakeasleep 11y ago
      Whether the statements are true or not is what the journalists should care about, and what they did, in this article. You’ll notice that Carney never disputes the truth of the claims. He only attacks the character of the people who made them- or adds related but not contradictory details. Overall, side issues not actually related to the substance of the claims themselves.
      - caseysoftware 11y ago
        Personally, I suspect the claims are 100% true. The point is that "journalists" have ethical guidelines they have to follow. Failure to do so compromises themselves and their profession. It leads to the defense and promotion of "fake but accurate" articles that tell a great story but risk being just that.. stories. It's the equivalent of asking Hillary Clinton's opinion of Donald Trump. She may be 100% accurate in her assessment but she is not neutral or impartial.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - romaniv 11y ago
        Whether the statements are true or not is what the journalists should care about This is a very naive view of journalism. It is trivial to do horrible, biased reporting while printing statements that are factually true or not falsifiable. In fact, that is how most of the biased articles are constructed these days. In the age of the Internet you can't get away with outright lies. The tool of trade are mission, misrepresentation, manufactured context, selective citation, cherrypiked expert opinions and so on.
    - fluidcruft 11y ago
      You may see it that way. I didn't actually see any egregious failure of NYT "fact checking" in that victimization post spewed by Amazon PR yesterday. Just Amazon attempting a PR slight of hand. And of course Bezos owns WP, so attacking NYT credibility fits his playbook nicely.
    - cryoshon 11y ago
      Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. For the most part, mainstream media organizations are not really "checking sources" so much as presenting a coherent narrative that their advertisers want propagated. I don't doubt that the original anti-Amazon article was a hit piece that was commissioned. That doesn't make its claims false, however.
      - caseysoftware 11y ago
        If it was a commissioned hit piece, that makes it even worse. We have a "news" organization doing opposition research, calling it investigative "journalism", and then the editor defending their process and integrity without an appropriate disclosure. I sincerely hope that isn't the case. I could see the FTC getting involved if it was.
        cryoshon 11y ago
        That's exactly the way the PR engines work these days, though. You pay for a column to advertise for your company, you get your column. You pay for a column to criticize your competitor, you get your column. You pay for columns to introduce new concepts that your company will use in the future so that the public has been primed for what you're going to put out there. All of the major companies do these things in order to stay in the public consciousness, and stay favorable. Sure, these columns will admit "alternative viewpoints" in passing to maintain their veneer of credibility, but that's no threat to their actual purpose. The editor is going to defend their process and integrity until he is fired-- and firing him would represent a concession that mistakes were made. This spat with Amazon is good for the NYT, as it proves that they're willing to "stand up for themselves", which is the perfect trait for a proxy to have when you're paying them to go after the other guy.
- cryoshon 11y ago
  I had heard awful stories first-hand from former employees long before this story came out as well. I'm not even in the information tech industry, yet they complained to me without prompting.
- lawnchair_larry 11y ago
  I don't think anybody in a tech role would say they have low pay. Many problems, but that isn't one. Edit: I meant in a tech role at Amazon. Amazon are not known for low pay.
  - CaptSpify 11y ago
    You'd be surprised how low people are willing to go in a tough economy. I think the bigger issue is also that techs aren't given a fair-income, especially at places like Amazon, because of the H-1B scam. If you are young and trying to get your foot in the door, you'll put up with the low pay.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
    Considering most entry-level positions in big tech pay well but come with outrageous hours and no overtime, an accusation of low pay seems justified. I know plenty of Google engineers who recently started in the Bay Area at around $86,000. Considering the amount of time they're expected to work and the costs of living there, that's pretty pathetic for a huge company with deep pockets.
    - lbotos 11y ago
      >Entry level Position. Median salary for SF Region in 2014 was $75,900. Thats ~10k over the median for an ENTRY level position. Sure, could Google pay them more, absolutely. But I don't think 86k a year is anything to scoff at.
      - nilkn 11y ago
        Why should you expect a very technically demanding position that requires passing strenuous filters and interviews to not pay much beyond the median in the entire area across all jobs? Should doctors who've just completed their residency start at $75-85k too just because they're technically entry-level?
- rdtsc 11y ago
  The level of and emotional investment in denial is important, it just shows that there is a problem going on. It is a bit like when two people are accused of something, one is guilty and one is not. The one who is guilty will react more violently usually and go to extra lengths to "prove" their innocence. So in this case we see them going the "extra length" with these response articles months after the original incident.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- bkjelden 11y ago
  I know multiple people who received advice from their doctor within 2 years of starting at Amazon that they should quit, because the stress of the job was having dangerous effects on their health. I can't say that I have heard that of any other tech company.
MCRed 11y ago
I worked for Amazon, I found it an abusive workplace. Not just because after a re-org I was taken away from a good boss and put under an abuser, but because the culture of the company is set up by people who clearly don't respect employees. I had interactions with Amazon management all the way up to, and including, Jeff Bezos, and the problems outlined in the article are systematic. By definition any previous employee who does not like a company is "disgruntled". And while there are employees who are insulated from the abuse, often by working for the good people at Amazon (and there are a lot of good people there) the idea that companies are good by nature is a mistake and there seems to be a bias that any employee who complains must be the problem. So, it's natural to bash the employee speaking out, and that's the route that Amazon has taken. Well, there are thousands of us, and what we witnessed was not one off events, but the result of a culture.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  It appears that Amazon is so fargone in its determination to decree its cultural superiority that it can no longer see that reputation must be earned.
- _spoonman 11y ago
  Forgive me if this isn't the right forum, but I'm genuinely interested - how was Mr. Bezos and your interactions with him?
- eclipxe 11y ago
  You post the same thing on every Amazon post. I understand you had a bad experience but it does seem like you are fairly upset at Amazon and have an axe to grind.
  - jarek 11y ago
    Don't see how that's any more objectionable than a third of your HN posts supporting Amazon
6stringmerc 11y ago
One thing that consistently bothers me about a "down economy" is the ability for some companies to feed off the desperation of good people seeking honest work. This applies both in technology-skilled positions, and also manual-labor positions in the case of Amazon. In different economic conditions, and with the ability of sites like Glassdoor or Medium to spread stories and reviews, I'd like to think Amazon would be forced to hire the least-employable members of society, like Ex-Cons, because nobody else would want to work there. I'm not laying waste to Amazon as a hopeless pit of despair, but do I give credence to the stories about life in their warehouses? How people are treated? What toll it takes on the human body? Yes, I do. That doesn't start from the concrete floor and go up to the Executive Suite in my experience... Long ago I remember reading stories on BestBuySucks.org. At one point in my life, I needed a job and got hired on at Best Buy. It did, indeed, suck...but it definitely motivated me to attain my first professional gig.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  Culture rot takes a long time. It's slowed by the employees who just want to vest their options and get out of there. It's promulgated by the jerks and sociopaths who see no problem with the culture of stepping on others to rise up the ladder. It's calcified by those same jerks who become managers and justify their actions, because everyone else at their pay grade is doing it. By the time it becomes a real problem, upper management is such an insular echo chamber that they can hardly recognize or acknowledge the problem. Enter the harbinger of American corporate stagnation: the outside management/PR consultant, whose job it is to identify the problem, be thoroughly ignored by management, and be quietly paid and asked to leave while the rest of the executive team plays hot potato with the blame until they find the right people to fire for Wall Street to stop bellyaching. Then once the stock is back up enough, fly out with a golden parachute. The people at the bottom of the ladder? Fuck 'em. If they don't recognize what's going on, it's their fault they get taken advantage of, right?
- demian 11y ago
  This is capitalism critique 101. Marx was a tech writer in a way, he wrote about the emerging power asymmetries between the people that owned the machines and the people that operated them. I know you guys are not big for socialists authors in the states, but you should at least read the classics. PS: I'm not a communist.
sremani 11y ago
I am not sure I am adding much to the conversation, it may be unfair to Mr.Carney, but when I see a Politically involved person like Mr.Carney who worked as press-secretary, I do not trust his message. I simply do not. Even though I spent some time reading his entire posting, my biases were yelling at me, "do you want to really take this political hack seriously?". Amazon has to find a better spokesperson for public tussle, better in this case would be someone who is not already labeled.
- cryoshon 11y ago
  It isn't unfair. Amazon hired a spin doctor, and spin is what he produces. My guess is that Amazon will be just fine after this scandal, though-- they're too big to let a petty thing like "bad culture" impact profits.
  - hobs 11y ago
    And there is enough people who see Amazon as "getting in the door" that they will tolerate a year or two of utter bullshit so they can jump ship to Google or other more humane jobs.
- forgottenpass 11y ago
  Amazon has to find a better spokesperson for public tussle, better in this case would be someone who is not already labeled. Why would you trust anyone else more? They'd be doing the same exact job for Amazon as Carney is (even if it differs slightly in the implementation). It's just deliciously transparent when they hire Carney to do it. Any other person would be bullshit artist too, Carney is just known for delivering bullshit. If someone sees a name on Amazon's PR mouthpiece and doesn't immediately drop their evaluation of that person's statements to Carney's level, they're simply being tricked.
- larrys 11y ago
  The more important reason why Carney is being used is that he is trusted by journalists and/or has had an important job and reputation that preceded him. As such he will be given certain leeway and the benefit of the doubt that won't extend to others (with less of a pedigree). This isn't about what the tech press thinks (or what even an Amazon customer thinks) it's about what other important decision makers (who follow the journalists that are impressed by Carney think). Separately, when does any PR hack speak the truth (if you want to call it that).
redwood 11y ago
It's somewhat disturbing to me that a former President's press secretary is just a gun for hire for the biggest megacorps. I mean obviously it's totally predictable but at the same time very disturbing.
leothekim 11y ago
It's odd that Amazon would stir this up again months after the original NY Times piece came out. Then again, maybe Amazon doesn't really feel like it has anything to lose. And maybe attacking the veracity of the NY Times would be in the best interest of someone who, say, owns the Washington Post.
- ceejayoz 11y ago
  I suspect they're hearing mentions of the article as reasons for people turning down recruiters and job offers.
- comrh 11y ago
  > The debate, a spokeswoman for The Times said, prompted a fresh flood of readers to the original article. They're shooting themselves in the foot with all this.
- starklize 11y ago
  Interesting point - looked up how the Washington Post covered the debate (spoiler alert: not in favor of Amazon): https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/10/19/amazons-weak-attack-on-the-new-york-times/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/10/...
- codeonfire 11y ago
  It reminds me of this ad from Halliburton during Gulf War 2. It's just pure unrestrained hubris. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRDBn3CcPSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRDBn3CcPSI
jroseattle 11y ago
I can't imagine this Olson story is over. AMZN publicly airs personal and damaging information about illegal activity (their words) of a named former employee, in an attempt to destroy his credibility as a source of their story. The former employee publicly refutes those claims, essentially saying that AMZN is intentionally telling a lie. Someone is not telling the truth, and I'm not sure there is much wiggle room in this scenario for both to be plausibly correct. No matter who is the truthful party, AMZN has taken on a lot of potential legal liability, and for what? In an attempt to refute one source of an article that has many sources. And a source that said people cry at their desk. Seems a very large bet to place with little to be gained. I would imagine Mr. Olson has already been contacted by lawyers galore.
- deskamess 11y ago
  It will likely be settled out of court. AMZN cannot risk having any of the NYT story ex-employees be bought up in a courtroom. The truth could be devastating and validate NYT. If I were Olson I would let the lawyers work on a simple 35-40% commission.
Saad_M 11y ago
This ongoing spat can't be good in the long term for Amazon's image. Wouldn't it of been easier if Amazon had been a bit humble and say: "Yes, things are not perfect, we will try and make it better for our employees." Rather than fighting it out in public with a newspaper.
- bambax 11y ago
  Carney should be fired (my guess is, he will be). His entire job is to try and make sure that kind of snafu never happens, or if it happens, to make it go away as quietly as possible. He worked with the reporters about this story for six months, and a very bad article was produced. He probably feels a little betrayed, and must have endured quite his share of head washing from Bezos. But now, two months later, he should really try to change the conversation; instead he's throwing former employees under the bus and revealing personal details about them, to make up for failures that are mostly his own. He's really doing a terrible job.
  - CaptainZapp 11y ago
    He worked with the reporters about this story for six months, and a very bad article was produced. He probably feels a little betrayed But the guy was a damned reporter himself. He should know all the tricks of the trade and moreover, he should know that a reporter is never your friend. She's after the story and if you're in the way: tough luck! That said. You may be totally right. But such a reaction due to a bad case of bruised ego from a reporter is hard to fathom. [edit : fixed syntax]
  - pinewurst 11y ago
    This is an interesting demonstration that rising to an elevated role is no proof of competency. Carney became a "brand" by working as press secretary, but seems grievously out of his depth actually having to do damage control; something that high-end PR usually handles with nonchalance.
  - drzaiusapelord 11y ago
    How autonomous is he? I suspect he's just doing Bezos' dirty work here. I mean, right after this Bezos bizarrely pulled Chromecast from Amazon because his firesticks aren't selling, but claimed it was because of "consumer confusion." He also refuses to allow the Prime Video app to use Chromecast in any way. That's on top of getting a beating for his Fire Phone, which was laughed straight into the bargain bin. Amazon is run by a something of a meglomaniac and everyone knows it. Carney is just collecting a paycheck, imo, and knows this response is a bad idea. I think its obvious Amazon wants to be a tech giant like MS or Google but simply can't pull it off. This NYTimes piece just made hiring a lot harder for them, right or wrong. Bezos must be livid, especially since everyone has cloud services now, many of which make AWS look poor in comparison. What's Amazon's big claim to fame today? Being an online retailer and e-book seller? That's not tech powerhousing, that's just sales.
techterrier 11y ago
It's really not helping their 'we aren't a bunch of dicks we promise' line at all.
crabasa 11y ago
If you're curious as to why Amazon is behaving so foolishly given that this rebuttal serves only to extend the shelf life of the original story, you should consider that the founder and CEO of Amazon happens to own the Washington Post, one of the New York Times' chief competitors.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
DocSavage 11y ago
About a decade ago, the NY Times wrote a story about an event and a group I started. I was interviewed and my wife was present, occasionally saying something. When I read the piece that came out, it was clear the writer had a story line and anything that interfered with the story line was omitted. At least one of the quotes attributed to me was said by my wife. There was no Medium at that time so I wrote a rebuttal piece on my blog. The author of the NY Times story thought it was great that I had a chance to give my take on the whole thing, which I thought was grand because his piece was on the NY Times and mine was on a personal blog. Before then, I knew that you couldn't trust what's written in newspapers, particularly those that favor story telling to make the news more interesting. The incident really drove home that opinion. This is not to say that Amazon is a good place to work. There's been a lot of substantive reports that it isn't a decent workplace. However, it's not surprising the NY Times cherry-picks its quotes to backup the theme of the article.
mc32 11y ago
If the times wants to be the news of record, it should do a better job of reporting on news rather than editorializing or trying to sway opinion or garner a writing prize for "investigative" work. No doubt Amazon has bad managers and may have toxic work cultures, but for the Times to be shoddy in reporting is surprising in light of their house cleaning after the fake news reporting by at least one of their previous and now disgraced journalists, but no, it appears he was more symptom of the management of the NYT rather than mr Blair being a single bad apple. It's also surprising to see the management dive into what's degenerated into a spat. Report news, dont get into personality fights, keep composed, stay above the fray, if you purport to be a news org.
rdtsc 11y ago
The vigor with which Amazon is fighting back, for me at least, conforms that there are serious problems going on. It reminds me of cases when someone is guilty and at the slightest mention of the problem they start swearing up and down that they are alright, and everything is fine.
- cruise02 11y ago
  Innocent people will swear that they're innocent when you falsely accuse them, too.
  - rdtsc 11y ago
    I don't think in this case it is a false accusation. I have heard enough stories and it matches with some of those experience. Usually if there really is no problem, in most cases people will deny it, and rely on the fact that the situation will sort itself out as a misunderstanding. (Yes, that in some situation ends up biting back and all, but it doesn't deny that people will do that). However if they are guilty they will put their full force in denying it and go the extra mile (as in pull personnel files and share them, write articles about it on blogs months after the incident, and so on).
- hga 11y ago
  I strongly suspect you're correct, but I like the thesis that this is hitting their recruitment hard and that could be the primary driver. The two go together quite well, we hear that most people don't stay at Amazon for more than 2 years, so this could be an existential threat to their current model if they're no longer able to get enough new warm bodies to replace the attrition. That it was sparked by the first big, really prominent MSM expose strongly suggests its a perception problem of some sort, that article was just more of the same to those of us on HN.
  - rdtsc 11y ago
    The article got a ridiculous amount of attention and in many way it conformed what I've been hearing about it from the word of mouth, it conforms with my interview experience there -- forgot I was coming that day, didn't call for almost 3 weeks after, forgot about me during lunch, a good number of interviewers seemed disgruntled and seemingly not happy. (Now, to be fair, I heard good things about it as well, and that is why I was initially going for an interview there, and it is a big company after all, but I am talking on average). In a way if they didn't have a problem, like let's say the same article came out regarding Google or Facebook, there would have been as much talk about it, and author and the news source would have been condemned and discredited, and it would have been blown over quicker. But in case of Amazon that article keeps coming back somehow.
bgentry 11y ago
One of the main reasons Amazon is able to treat its tech workers so poorly is their aggressive use and enforcement of non-compete agreements. Fed up with Amazon and want to jump to Google or Microsoft for better pay or better working conditions? Be prepared for a lawsuit, or at least a threat thereof. Unlike in California, non-competes are enforceable in Washington state. When will such anti-competitive, anti-free-market behavior be outlawed there? It's hard to imagine that a popular vote on such a referendum would not pass.
kraig911 11y ago
I think the industry knows that Amazon in terms of HR is on borrowed time. If they want to maintain their dominance it's time to invest more in their employees.
happywolf 11y ago
Amazon's arguments are flimsy at best, and it renews the focus back to this piece of news which most people have not talked about. Staying quiet or saying something more humble would dull the backlash a lot.
wallace21 11y ago
My best friend has been working there for six years. I've been asking her about these articles. In her experience: (1) she hasn't seen crying, (2) she's had coworkers with medical conditions who were treated very well, and (3) when she or a coworker has had a bad manager, it was no worse an experience than for friends at Google or Microsoft. Her opinion is that the original NYT piece was cherry-picked. She thinks that the anecdotes they used could be true, but that she just hasn't seen any of that in the past six years across different departments.
klenwell 11y ago
One HN Poll I'd be interested in seeing: Would you accept a competitive offer from Amazon? "Competitive" here meaning a salary and title as good or slightly better than your current job or next best offer.
alexwebb2 11y ago
I think a lot of HN commenters are being too quick to dismiss Amazon's objections - either because they have heard similar anecdotes from friends or because they distrust Mr. Carney. Amazon's core objections are that A) the NYT flat-out lied to them about the nature of the article they were producing, and B) the NYT failed to subject their sources to the usual standard of scrutiny. Reading between the lines, it appears to me that Amazon is accusing NYT of deliberately producing a hit piece on them in response to Jeff Bezos's purchase of the Washington Post. Does Amazon have serious cultural problems? I'm inclined to say yes, and Amazon's reluctance to admit as much is troubling. But I'm also inclined to suspect that the NYT article was indeed a hit piece that greatly exaggerated the issues at Amazon and that this came from a place of business strategy and not genuine journalistic investigation.
droithomme 11y ago
Not so much sparring as debunking.
pinewurst 11y ago
An interesting comparison, I think, can be made with the Microsoft bad culture article published by Vanity Fair in 2012: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer http://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2012/08/microsoft-lo... This article received a lot of exposure at the time, yet I don't remember MS hiring political hacks or trying to (at least overtly) discredit sources.
- hga 11y ago
  And, hey, Ballmer is gone, and stack ranking has officially been stopped.
- dekhn 11y ago
  Not exactly discrediting a source, but: http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-frank-shaw-on-why-he-slammed-david-pogue-2013-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-frank-shaw-on-why-... anyway I think we know how windows 8 turned out in the long run.
treebeard901 11y ago
Who wants to bet that Mr. Carney is crying at his desk this week?

136 points by hvo 11y ago

bbarn 11y ago

Sorry, all the nitpicking about small points in an article don't mean nearly as much to me as the dozen or so people I've known who's been miserable working there for low pay, and told me so personally. Embrace the culture you have, or fix it, but stop denying it exists, Amazon.

xvf33 11y ago
Same here. I know 2 people who went there, both after short startup stints after college. They both lasted under 2 years and are now at Mozilla and Facebook and would never go back. So many awful stories...
- caseysoftware 11y ago
  None of that absolves the NYT from checking sources and attempting to determine the credibility. This is journalistic malpractice. If we excuse a "news" organization from fact checking because "well, I've heard stories along those lines" we're screwed.. because where will most people hear those stories? The same organizations.
  - awakeasleep 11y ago
    Whether the statements are true or not is what the journalists should care about, and what they did, in this article. You’ll notice that Carney never disputes the truth of the claims. He only attacks the character of the people who made them- or adds related but not contradictory details. Overall, side issues not actually related to the substance of the claims themselves.
    - caseysoftware 11y ago
      Personally, I suspect the claims are 100% true. The point is that "journalists" have ethical guidelines they have to follow. Failure to do so compromises themselves and their profession. It leads to the defense and promotion of "fake but accurate" articles that tell a great story but risk being just that.. stories. It's the equivalent of asking Hillary Clinton's opinion of Donald Trump. She may be 100% accurate in her assessment but she is not neutral or impartial.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - romaniv 11y ago
      Whether the statements are true or not is what the journalists should care about This is a very naive view of journalism. It is trivial to do horrible, biased reporting while printing statements that are factually true or not falsifiable. In fact, that is how most of the biased articles are constructed these days. In the age of the Internet you can't get away with outright lies. The tool of trade are mission, misrepresentation, manufactured context, selective citation, cherrypiked expert opinions and so on.
  - fluidcruft 11y ago
    You may see it that way. I didn't actually see any egregious failure of NYT "fact checking" in that victimization post spewed by Amazon PR yesterday. Just Amazon attempting a PR slight of hand. And of course Bezos owns WP, so attacking NYT credibility fits his playbook nicely.
  - cryoshon 11y ago
    Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. For the most part, mainstream media organizations are not really "checking sources" so much as presenting a coherent narrative that their advertisers want propagated. I don't doubt that the original anti-Amazon article was a hit piece that was commissioned. That doesn't make its claims false, however.
    - caseysoftware 11y ago
      If it was a commissioned hit piece, that makes it even worse. We have a "news" organization doing opposition research, calling it investigative "journalism", and then the editor defending their process and integrity without an appropriate disclosure. I sincerely hope that isn't the case. I could see the FTC getting involved if it was.
      - cryoshon 11y ago
        That's exactly the way the PR engines work these days, though. You pay for a column to advertise for your company, you get your column. You pay for a column to criticize your competitor, you get your column. You pay for columns to introduce new concepts that your company will use in the future so that the public has been primed for what you're going to put out there. All of the major companies do these things in order to stay in the public consciousness, and stay favorable. Sure, these columns will admit "alternative viewpoints" in passing to maintain their veneer of credibility, but that's no threat to their actual purpose. The editor is going to defend their process and integrity until he is fired-- and firing him would represent a concession that mistakes were made. This spat with Amazon is good for the NYT, as it proves that they're willing to "stand up for themselves", which is the perfect trait for a proxy to have when you're paying them to go after the other guy.
cryoshon 11y ago
I had heard awful stories first-hand from former employees long before this story came out as well. I'm not even in the information tech industry, yet they complained to me without prompting.
lawnchair_larry 11y ago
I don't think anybody in a tech role would say they have low pay. Many problems, but that isn't one. Edit: I meant in a tech role at Amazon. Amazon are not known for low pay.
- CaptSpify 11y ago
  You'd be surprised how low people are willing to go in a tough economy. I think the bigger issue is also that techs aren't given a fair-income, especially at places like Amazon, because of the H-1B scam. If you are young and trying to get your foot in the door, you'll put up with the low pay.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  Considering most entry-level positions in big tech pay well but come with outrageous hours and no overtime, an accusation of low pay seems justified. I know plenty of Google engineers who recently started in the Bay Area at around $86,000. Considering the amount of time they're expected to work and the costs of living there, that's pretty pathetic for a huge company with deep pockets.
  - lbotos 11y ago
    >Entry level Position. Median salary for SF Region in 2014 was $75,900. Thats ~10k over the median for an ENTRY level position. Sure, could Google pay them more, absolutely. But I don't think 86k a year is anything to scoff at.
    - nilkn 11y ago
      Why should you expect a very technically demanding position that requires passing strenuous filters and interviews to not pay much beyond the median in the entire area across all jobs? Should doctors who've just completed their residency start at $75-85k too just because they're technically entry-level?
rdtsc 11y ago
The level of and emotional investment in denial is important, it just shows that there is a problem going on. It is a bit like when two people are accused of something, one is guilty and one is not. The one who is guilty will react more violently usually and go to extra lengths to "prove" their innocence. So in this case we see them going the "extra length" with these response articles months after the original incident.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
bkjelden 11y ago
I know multiple people who received advice from their doctor within 2 years of starting at Amazon that they should quit, because the stress of the job was having dangerous effects on their health. I can't say that I have heard that of any other tech company.

MCRed 11y ago

I worked for Amazon, I found it an abusive workplace. Not just because after a re-org I was taken away from a good boss and put under an abuser, but because the culture of the company is set up by people who clearly don't respect employees. I had interactions with Amazon management all the way up to, and including, Jeff Bezos, and the problems outlined in the article are systematic. By definition any previous employee who does not like a company is "disgruntled". And while there are employees who are insulated from the abuse, often by working for the good people at Amazon (and there are a lot of good people there) the idea that companies are good by nature is a mistake and there seems to be a bias that any employee who complains must be the problem. So, it's natural to bash the employee speaking out, and that's the route that Amazon has taken. Well, there are thousands of us, and what we witnessed was not one off events, but the result of a culture.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
It appears that Amazon is so fargone in its determination to decree its cultural superiority that it can no longer see that reputation must be earned.
_spoonman 11y ago
Forgive me if this isn't the right forum, but I'm genuinely interested - how was Mr. Bezos and your interactions with him?
eclipxe 11y ago
You post the same thing on every Amazon post. I understand you had a bad experience but it does seem like you are fairly upset at Amazon and have an axe to grind.
- jarek 11y ago
  Don't see how that's any more objectionable than a third of your HN posts supporting Amazon

6stringmerc 11y ago

One thing that consistently bothers me about a "down economy" is the ability for some companies to feed off the desperation of good people seeking honest work. This applies both in technology-skilled positions, and also manual-labor positions in the case of Amazon. In different economic conditions, and with the ability of sites like Glassdoor or Medium to spread stories and reviews, I'd like to think Amazon would be forced to hire the least-employable members of society, like Ex-Cons, because nobody else would want to work there. I'm not laying waste to Amazon as a hopeless pit of despair, but do I give credence to the stories about life in their warehouses? How people are treated? What toll it takes on the human body? Yes, I do. That doesn't start from the concrete floor and go up to the Executive Suite in my experience... Long ago I remember reading stories on BestBuySucks.org. At one point in my life, I needed a job and got hired on at Best Buy. It did, indeed, suck...but it definitely motivated me to attain my first professional gig.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
Culture rot takes a long time. It's slowed by the employees who just want to vest their options and get out of there. It's promulgated by the jerks and sociopaths who see no problem with the culture of stepping on others to rise up the ladder. It's calcified by those same jerks who become managers and justify their actions, because everyone else at their pay grade is doing it. By the time it becomes a real problem, upper management is such an insular echo chamber that they can hardly recognize or acknowledge the problem. Enter the harbinger of American corporate stagnation: the outside management/PR consultant, whose job it is to identify the problem, be thoroughly ignored by management, and be quietly paid and asked to leave while the rest of the executive team plays hot potato with the blame until they find the right people to fire for Wall Street to stop bellyaching. Then once the stock is back up enough, fly out with a golden parachute. The people at the bottom of the ladder? Fuck 'em. If they don't recognize what's going on, it's their fault they get taken advantage of, right?
demian 11y ago
This is capitalism critique 101. Marx was a tech writer in a way, he wrote about the emerging power asymmetries between the people that owned the machines and the people that operated them. I know you guys are not big for socialists authors in the states, but you should at least read the classics. PS: I'm not a communist.

sremani 11y ago

I am not sure I am adding much to the conversation, it may be unfair to Mr.Carney, but when I see a Politically involved person like Mr.Carney who worked as press-secretary, I do not trust his message. I simply do not. Even though I spent some time reading his entire posting, my biases were yelling at me, "do you want to really take this political hack seriously?". Amazon has to find a better spokesperson for public tussle, better in this case would be someone who is not already labeled.

cryoshon 11y ago
It isn't unfair. Amazon hired a spin doctor, and spin is what he produces. My guess is that Amazon will be just fine after this scandal, though-- they're too big to let a petty thing like "bad culture" impact profits.
- hobs 11y ago
  And there is enough people who see Amazon as "getting in the door" that they will tolerate a year or two of utter bullshit so they can jump ship to Google or other more humane jobs.
forgottenpass 11y ago
Amazon has to find a better spokesperson for public tussle, better in this case would be someone who is not already labeled. Why would you trust anyone else more? They'd be doing the same exact job for Amazon as Carney is (even if it differs slightly in the implementation). It's just deliciously transparent when they hire Carney to do it. Any other person would be bullshit artist too, Carney is just known for delivering bullshit. If someone sees a name on Amazon's PR mouthpiece and doesn't immediately drop their evaluation of that person's statements to Carney's level, they're simply being tricked.
larrys 11y ago
The more important reason why Carney is being used is that he is trusted by journalists and/or has had an important job and reputation that preceded him. As such he will be given certain leeway and the benefit of the doubt that won't extend to others (with less of a pedigree). This isn't about what the tech press thinks (or what even an Amazon customer thinks) it's about what other important decision makers (who follow the journalists that are impressed by Carney think). Separately, when does any PR hack speak the truth (if you want to call it that).

redwood 11y ago

It's somewhat disturbing to me that a former President's press secretary is just a gun for hire for the biggest megacorps. I mean obviously it's totally predictable but at the same time very disturbing.

leothekim 11y ago

It's odd that Amazon would stir this up again months after the original NY Times piece came out. Then again, maybe Amazon doesn't really feel like it has anything to lose. And maybe attacking the veracity of the NY Times would be in the best interest of someone who, say, owns the Washington Post.

ceejayoz 11y ago
I suspect they're hearing mentions of the article as reasons for people turning down recruiters and job offers.
comrh 11y ago
> The debate, a spokeswoman for The Times said, prompted a fresh flood of readers to the original article. They're shooting themselves in the foot with all this.
starklize 11y ago
Interesting point - looked up how the Washington Post covered the debate (spoiler alert: not in favor of Amazon): https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/10/19/amazons-weak-attack-on-the-new-york-times/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/10/...
codeonfire 11y ago
It reminds me of this ad from Halliburton during Gulf War 2. It's just pure unrestrained hubris. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRDBn3CcPSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRDBn3CcPSI

jroseattle 11y ago

I can't imagine this Olson story is over. AMZN publicly airs personal and damaging information about illegal activity (their words) of a named former employee, in an attempt to destroy his credibility as a source of their story. The former employee publicly refutes those claims, essentially saying that AMZN is intentionally telling a lie. Someone is not telling the truth, and I'm not sure there is much wiggle room in this scenario for both to be plausibly correct. No matter who is the truthful party, AMZN has taken on a lot of potential legal liability, and for what? In an attempt to refute one source of an article that has many sources. And a source that said people cry at their desk. Seems a very large bet to place with little to be gained. I would imagine Mr. Olson has already been contacted by lawyers galore.

deskamess 11y ago
It will likely be settled out of court. AMZN cannot risk having any of the NYT story ex-employees be bought up in a courtroom. The truth could be devastating and validate NYT. If I were Olson I would let the lawyers work on a simple 35-40% commission.

Saad_M 11y ago

This ongoing spat can't be good in the long term for Amazon's image. Wouldn't it of been easier if Amazon had been a bit humble and say: "Yes, things are not perfect, we will try and make it better for our employees." Rather than fighting it out in public with a newspaper.

bambax 11y ago
Carney should be fired (my guess is, he will be). His entire job is to try and make sure that kind of snafu never happens, or if it happens, to make it go away as quietly as possible. He worked with the reporters about this story for six months, and a very bad article was produced. He probably feels a little betrayed, and must have endured quite his share of head washing from Bezos. But now, two months later, he should really try to change the conversation; instead he's throwing former employees under the bus and revealing personal details about them, to make up for failures that are mostly his own. He's really doing a terrible job.
- CaptainZapp 11y ago
  He worked with the reporters about this story for six months, and a very bad article was produced. He probably feels a little betrayed But the guy was a damned reporter himself. He should know all the tricks of the trade and moreover, he should know that a reporter is never your friend. She's after the story and if you're in the way: tough luck! That said. You may be totally right. But such a reaction due to a bad case of bruised ego from a reporter is hard to fathom. [edit : fixed syntax]
- pinewurst 11y ago
  This is an interesting demonstration that rising to an elevated role is no proof of competency. Carney became a "brand" by working as press secretary, but seems grievously out of his depth actually having to do damage control; something that high-end PR usually handles with nonchalance.
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  How autonomous is he? I suspect he's just doing Bezos' dirty work here. I mean, right after this Bezos bizarrely pulled Chromecast from Amazon because his firesticks aren't selling, but claimed it was because of "consumer confusion." He also refuses to allow the Prime Video app to use Chromecast in any way. That's on top of getting a beating for his Fire Phone, which was laughed straight into the bargain bin. Amazon is run by a something of a meglomaniac and everyone knows it. Carney is just collecting a paycheck, imo, and knows this response is a bad idea. I think its obvious Amazon wants to be a tech giant like MS or Google but simply can't pull it off. This NYTimes piece just made hiring a lot harder for them, right or wrong. Bezos must be livid, especially since everyone has cloud services now, many of which make AWS look poor in comparison. What's Amazon's big claim to fame today? Being an online retailer and e-book seller? That's not tech powerhousing, that's just sales.

techterrier 11y ago

It's really not helping their 'we aren't a bunch of dicks we promise' line at all.

crabasa 11y ago

If you're curious as to why Amazon is behaving so foolishly given that this rebuttal serves only to extend the shelf life of the original story, you should consider that the founder and CEO of Amazon happens to own the Washington Post, one of the New York Times' chief competitors.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

DocSavage 11y ago

About a decade ago, the NY Times wrote a story about an event and a group I started. I was interviewed and my wife was present, occasionally saying something. When I read the piece that came out, it was clear the writer had a story line and anything that interfered with the story line was omitted. At least one of the quotes attributed to me was said by my wife. There was no Medium at that time so I wrote a rebuttal piece on my blog. The author of the NY Times story thought it was great that I had a chance to give my take on the whole thing, which I thought was grand because his piece was on the NY Times and mine was on a personal blog. Before then, I knew that you couldn't trust what's written in newspapers, particularly those that favor story telling to make the news more interesting. The incident really drove home that opinion. This is not to say that Amazon is a good place to work. There's been a lot of substantive reports that it isn't a decent workplace. However, it's not surprising the NY Times cherry-picks its quotes to backup the theme of the article.

mc32 11y ago

If the times wants to be the news of record, it should do a better job of reporting on news rather than editorializing or trying to sway opinion or garner a writing prize for "investigative" work. No doubt Amazon has bad managers and may have toxic work cultures, but for the Times to be shoddy in reporting is surprising in light of their house cleaning after the fake news reporting by at least one of their previous and now disgraced journalists, but no, it appears he was more symptom of the management of the NYT rather than mr Blair being a single bad apple. It's also surprising to see the management dive into what's degenerated into a spat. Report news, dont get into personality fights, keep composed, stay above the fray, if you purport to be a news org.

rdtsc 11y ago

The vigor with which Amazon is fighting back, for me at least, conforms that there are serious problems going on. It reminds me of cases when someone is guilty and at the slightest mention of the problem they start swearing up and down that they are alright, and everything is fine.

cruise02 11y ago
Innocent people will swear that they're innocent when you falsely accuse them, too.
- rdtsc 11y ago
  I don't think in this case it is a false accusation. I have heard enough stories and it matches with some of those experience. Usually if there really is no problem, in most cases people will deny it, and rely on the fact that the situation will sort itself out as a misunderstanding. (Yes, that in some situation ends up biting back and all, but it doesn't deny that people will do that). However if they are guilty they will put their full force in denying it and go the extra mile (as in pull personnel files and share them, write articles about it on blogs months after the incident, and so on).
hga 11y ago
I strongly suspect you're correct, but I like the thesis that this is hitting their recruitment hard and that could be the primary driver. The two go together quite well, we hear that most people don't stay at Amazon for more than 2 years, so this could be an existential threat to their current model if they're no longer able to get enough new warm bodies to replace the attrition. That it was sparked by the first big, really prominent MSM expose strongly suggests its a perception problem of some sort, that article was just more of the same to those of us on HN.
- rdtsc 11y ago
  The article got a ridiculous amount of attention and in many way it conformed what I've been hearing about it from the word of mouth, it conforms with my interview experience there -- forgot I was coming that day, didn't call for almost 3 weeks after, forgot about me during lunch, a good number of interviewers seemed disgruntled and seemingly not happy. (Now, to be fair, I heard good things about it as well, and that is why I was initially going for an interview there, and it is a big company after all, but I am talking on average). In a way if they didn't have a problem, like let's say the same article came out regarding Google or Facebook, there would have been as much talk about it, and author and the news source would have been condemned and discredited, and it would have been blown over quicker. But in case of Amazon that article keeps coming back somehow.

bgentry 11y ago

One of the main reasons Amazon is able to treat its tech workers so poorly is their aggressive use and enforcement of non-compete agreements. Fed up with Amazon and want to jump to Google or Microsoft for better pay or better working conditions? Be prepared for a lawsuit, or at least a threat thereof. Unlike in California, non-competes are enforceable in Washington state. When will such anti-competitive, anti-free-market behavior be outlawed there? It's hard to imagine that a popular vote on such a referendum would not pass.

kraig911 11y ago

I think the industry knows that Amazon in terms of HR is on borrowed time. If they want to maintain their dominance it's time to invest more in their employees.

happywolf 11y ago

Amazon's arguments are flimsy at best, and it renews the focus back to this piece of news which most people have not talked about. Staying quiet or saying something more humble would dull the backlash a lot.

wallace21 11y ago

My best friend has been working there for six years. I've been asking her about these articles. In her experience: (1) she hasn't seen crying, (2) she's had coworkers with medical conditions who were treated very well, and (3) when she or a coworker has had a bad manager, it was no worse an experience than for friends at Google or Microsoft. Her opinion is that the original NYT piece was cherry-picked. She thinks that the anecdotes they used could be true, but that she just hasn't seen any of that in the past six years across different departments.

klenwell 11y ago

One HN Poll I'd be interested in seeing: Would you accept a competitive offer from Amazon? "Competitive" here meaning a salary and title as good or slightly better than your current job or next best offer.

alexwebb2 11y ago

I think a lot of HN commenters are being too quick to dismiss Amazon's objections - either because they have heard similar anecdotes from friends or because they distrust Mr. Carney. Amazon's core objections are that A) the NYT flat-out lied to them about the nature of the article they were producing, and B) the NYT failed to subject their sources to the usual standard of scrutiny. Reading between the lines, it appears to me that Amazon is accusing NYT of deliberately producing a hit piece on them in response to Jeff Bezos's purchase of the Washington Post. Does Amazon have serious cultural problems? I'm inclined to say yes, and Amazon's reluctance to admit as much is troubling. But I'm also inclined to suspect that the NYT article was indeed a hit piece that greatly exaggerated the issues at Amazon and that this came from a place of business strategy and not genuine journalistic investigation.

droithomme 11y ago

Not so much sparring as debunking.

pinewurst 11y ago

An interesting comparison, I think, can be made with the Microsoft bad culture article published by Vanity Fair in 2012: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer http://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2012/08/microsoft-lo... This article received a lot of exposure at the time, yet I don't remember MS hiring political hacks or trying to (at least overtly) discredit sources.

hga 11y ago
And, hey, Ballmer is gone, and stack ranking has officially been stopped.
dekhn 11y ago
Not exactly discrediting a source, but: http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-frank-shaw-on-why-he-slammed-david-pogue-2013-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-frank-shaw-on-why-... anyway I think we know how windows 8 turned out in the long run.

treebeard901 11y ago

Who wants to bet that Mr. Carney is crying at his desk this week?