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Did Bezos ever actually compare Amazon's work culture to Darwinism? The Times article quotes a former HR executive as saying that, not Bezos. I've often seen n

Did Bezos ever actually compare Amazon's work culture to Darwinism? The Times article quotes a former HR executive as saying that, not Bezos. I've often seen newspaper articles that report XYZ, and then follow-up articles that comment on or extrapolate from XYZ without ever considering whether the original journalist got it right. I think that's what's happening here. The Times says that a former Amazon HR executive compares the company's work culture to Darwinism, and the author of this piece assumes that because the HR executive used that phrase, Bezos himself 'equate[s] “Darwinism” with “ruthless competition”' and then argues that Bezos is wrong. But the commentator has not considered whether his original assumption about Bezos' beliefs reflects reality.

burnte 11y ago
I think that, while it's important not to put words in Bezos' mouth, altering that line in the article doesn't hurt the overall message, which is Bezos prefers harsh competition in the workplace, and that's counterproductive.
- seiji 11y ago
  High performing people often prefer environments with high stakes and high risk/reward. Being harsh is awful for people who can't stand it, but empowering for those who thrive that way.
  - spamizbad 11y ago
    > High performing people often prefer environments with high stakes and high risk/reward. Is there any research to support that statement? Genuinely curious. Seems like it could be true, but also not.
    - seiji 11y ago
      Imagine a situation where your job is CRUD development. You write PHP and CSS and JavaScript for a series of ad campaigns (say, every marvel movie for the next 10 years). It's repetitive drone work. Then compare that to a situation where you have to send a rocket to space in the next 6 months or the company is out of business and you'll be homeless. Which situation motivates you to do better work?
      - sgk284 11y ago
        Define "better work"? Sounds like that second situation will lead to some crappy architecture with bug-ridden code. The rocket will likely fail and explode. Meanwhile in the first scenario you've got breathing room to build some truly beautiful code that will pay dividends as the upfront cost is amortized over a decade of reuse. We see similar results in academia, where incredible research can be done because there is predictability and reliability in the environment in which it is being performed. High-stress rushed environments just lead to shitty work/life balance and, at best, mediocre solutions that will provide a stop-gap solution until there is time to do something better. Look at the incredible output from engineers at Google, Facebook, etc... Most tech companies do their best work once they've removed stress and timeline pressure from the equation. The trick is to get to that as early as possible in the company's life.
        seiji 11y ago
        It's about purpose. Either you are basically a human robot doing spec work or you can drive your own creative output for goals larger than yourself. People don't know what they are capable of until they are pushed beyond limits they thought they had. The future isn't made by cautious people, it's made by being better than anybody thought could be accomplished. "Create advertising units for campaign 3,401 of 16,032" isn't something where "beautiful" or "meaningful" comes into play. It's just drone work. get to that as early as possible in the company's life. We don't model startups on how a 30,000 employee company works. Completely different beasts.
      - HillRat 11y ago
        Pretty sure the latter situation ends with homeless engineers and dead test pilots. Einstein developed his seminal theories working as a patent clerk; not sure you can argue without evidence that an insane, high-stress workload is conducive to anything other than burnout.
        seiji 11y ago
        You do realize this is the website for 80-hour-work-week, launch-startup-in-3-months fans, right? This isn't the place for nonsensical "work life balance" (which really means "i'm lazy and don't want to do good work, i just want to waste everybody else's time").
  - lovemenot 11y ago
    Perhaps, but the author is reflecting on the productivity of the entire group rather than on the individual. I cannot say whether the chicken story really is pertinent to corporate culture, but at a glance this analogy feels relevant.
  - aswanson 11y ago
    Enjoying harshness for it's own sake is masochistic stupidity. What's the upside for the amazon opportunity? As far as I can read from what's reported, below market compensation for the reward of watching your fucking back every microsecond and possibility of...? Where do I sign up to get books and trinkets delivered to your door a day faster? Beats the shit, mission wise, out of trying to cure cancer...
    - seiji 11y ago
      What's the upside for the amazon opportunity? Jobs at public tech companies also come with large stock packages that become usable after just a few short years.
  - mcphage 11y ago
    > but empowering for those who thrive that way. The entire point of this article was that while it may be empowering for some individuals, the entire group output suffers, and as such is less effective than a system that empowers high performing groups instead. I mean, sure, it was taking a study and trying to overextend the result—but still, merely repeating that it's great for certain individuals misses the point entirely.

burnte 11y ago

I think that, while it's important not to put words in Bezos' mouth, altering that line in the article doesn't hurt the overall message, which is Bezos prefers harsh competition in the workplace, and that's counterproductive.

seiji 11y ago
High performing people often prefer environments with high stakes and high risk/reward. Being harsh is awful for people who can't stand it, but empowering for those who thrive that way.
- spamizbad 11y ago
  > High performing people often prefer environments with high stakes and high risk/reward. Is there any research to support that statement? Genuinely curious. Seems like it could be true, but also not.
  - seiji 11y ago
    Imagine a situation where your job is CRUD development. You write PHP and CSS and JavaScript for a series of ad campaigns (say, every marvel movie for the next 10 years). It's repetitive drone work. Then compare that to a situation where you have to send a rocket to space in the next 6 months or the company is out of business and you'll be homeless. Which situation motivates you to do better work?
    - sgk284 11y ago
      Define "better work"? Sounds like that second situation will lead to some crappy architecture with bug-ridden code. The rocket will likely fail and explode. Meanwhile in the first scenario you've got breathing room to build some truly beautiful code that will pay dividends as the upfront cost is amortized over a decade of reuse. We see similar results in academia, where incredible research can be done because there is predictability and reliability in the environment in which it is being performed. High-stress rushed environments just lead to shitty work/life balance and, at best, mediocre solutions that will provide a stop-gap solution until there is time to do something better. Look at the incredible output from engineers at Google, Facebook, etc... Most tech companies do their best work once they've removed stress and timeline pressure from the equation. The trick is to get to that as early as possible in the company's life.
      - seiji 11y ago
        It's about purpose. Either you are basically a human robot doing spec work or you can drive your own creative output for goals larger than yourself. People don't know what they are capable of until they are pushed beyond limits they thought they had. The future isn't made by cautious people, it's made by being better than anybody thought could be accomplished. "Create advertising units for campaign 3,401 of 16,032" isn't something where "beautiful" or "meaningful" comes into play. It's just drone work. get to that as early as possible in the company's life. We don't model startups on how a 30,000 employee company works. Completely different beasts.
    - HillRat 11y ago
      Pretty sure the latter situation ends with homeless engineers and dead test pilots. Einstein developed his seminal theories working as a patent clerk; not sure you can argue without evidence that an insane, high-stress workload is conducive to anything other than burnout.
      - seiji 11y ago
        You do realize this is the website for 80-hour-work-week, launch-startup-in-3-months fans, right? This isn't the place for nonsensical "work life balance" (which really means "i'm lazy and don't want to do good work, i just want to waste everybody else's time").
- lovemenot 11y ago
  Perhaps, but the author is reflecting on the productivity of the entire group rather than on the individual. I cannot say whether the chicken story really is pertinent to corporate culture, but at a glance this analogy feels relevant.
- aswanson 11y ago
  Enjoying harshness for it's own sake is masochistic stupidity. What's the upside for the amazon opportunity? As far as I can read from what's reported, below market compensation for the reward of watching your fucking back every microsecond and possibility of...? Where do I sign up to get books and trinkets delivered to your door a day faster? Beats the shit, mission wise, out of trying to cure cancer...
  - seiji 11y ago
    What's the upside for the amazon opportunity? Jobs at public tech companies also come with large stock packages that become usable after just a few short years.
- mcphage 11y ago
  > but empowering for those who thrive that way. The entire point of this article was that while it may be empowering for some individuals, the entire group output suffers, and as such is less effective than a system that empowers high performing groups instead. I mean, sure, it was taking a study and trying to overextend the result—but still, merely repeating that it's great for certain individuals misses the point entirely.