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I have no idea where I read it, but I think it was about Bezos and a situation just like this. The quote was something like "why would I fire the person that c

by e40 10y ago

I have no idea where I read it, but I think it was about Bezos and a situation just like this. The quote was something like "why would I fire the person that caused the outage? They just learned a very valuable lesson and got great on the job training, why would I fire them now?" When I read it I remember thinking how true it was. That person would be very unlikely to commit the same error, and might even work to prevent others from making that error.

umanwizard 10y ago
Also, when I was at Amazon, we were taught that "Person X broke the site" is the wrong way to think about things. There should be enough testing, redundancy, code review and so on to avoid issues given that humans are fallible. So the system failed, not a particular person, and the solution is to dive deep into why the system failed, and improve it. Obviously there are exceptions for willful extreme negligence or policy violations.
- bonniemuffin 10y ago
  Definitely true -- if it's possible for a single person's change to break Amazon's search, then something is wrong with the system of testing, code review, deployment, etc. It's never just a single person's fault, even if they wrote the causative line of code.
  - goldenkey 10y ago
    Well with Amazon's cult-think, every single person is a "leader" yet also, no one is as important as the shitty middle manager above them. So someone will take the fall but it'll be spun into some type of reckoning consisting of: Ownership, Dive Deep, and Earn Trust [1] As long as you can add to your cult karma, you can do anything at Amazon! https://www.amazon.jobs/principles https://www.amazon.jobs/principles [1]
- goldenkey 10y ago
  Is that included or in addition to the leadership commandments training cult? [1] [1] https://www.amazon.jobs/principles https://www.amazon.jobs/principles
  - umanwizard 10y ago
    In addition. What's your point?
    - goldenkey 10y ago
      Just wanted to see if it was spun as some type of use of the leadership commandments. Because most things about people or process are spun to somehow derive off of the commandments, at least that was my experience working for them recently.
late2part 10y ago
This is not correct about Amazon/AWS from what I've been told. I have several friends that work at, or worked at AWS within Amazon. When something goes wrong, I hear it's a blame game. I hear that it's a witch hunt and the person that's responsible gets held accountable, even if they didn't cause it. Example: Employee is in charge of project, project hires subcontractors, subcontractors screw up, Employee is fired. Sounds unfair. Sounds unreasonable. Happened.
- lukeschlather 10y ago
  I used to work at AWS, and this is not at all typical. I was in meetings with various high-level directors and the mantra was always the same: Why did this happen? If the answer is "somebody made a mistake" we need to figure out how we can automate so nobody can make that mistake again. Now, that's not to say there's not a lot of pressure. People are held accountable. But they are held accountable for fixing the underlying issue and making sure the same mistakes aren't made again. I've never heard of someone getting fired for making a mistake. People get fired when the same expensive mistake is made repeatedly by the same person. (And really, based on my experience, that might not even be enough. I think in order to get fired you probably would have to fail to understand the nature of the mistake when everyone else in the room understands.)
- ryanczak 10y ago
  Who ever told you that was incorrect. Amazon's root cause analysis process focuses on understanding the failure and implementing corrective actions. A process with a human in the critical path is a broken process.
- sudhirj 10y ago
  Mixing up engineering and sales/marketing/management. The consequences of making mistakes and the result of them are different in both fields.
- goldenkey 10y ago
  This is 100% correct. The average stay at AWS is less than a year. Each employee has color coded badges based on length of stay. You can also use the LDAP tools to fetch each employees years of employment. The average is pretty sad and spun as "we are hiring more than ever. our oldest employees left when their stock became worth a ton" But of course the real reason is that Amazon's work environment is basically chock full of shitty middle-managers, many who are adopted from Microsoft or salvaged somehow from better tech companies in the valley. They even have these leadership principles that are basically a bunch of no-brainers that they force down the employees throats at every opportunity. They use them as a criteria for performance reviews, even before actual hard metrics. Shitty middle managers will keep stressing the leadership principles because (1) that's what they are told to do (2) they need to rate their subordinates on them (3) because these principles are qualitative, the only insurance they have is that they spewed them enough to get through. Amazon, to sum it up, is just, shitty employees from other tech companies. And dumb/average intelligence follow-the-pack type drones - many who can hardly speak English and are on work visas..and they put many of these terrible speakers as managers!! (Amazon loves cheap labor, and will use it for ANY position possible) When your leadership principles are sold as prolific and something every employee "should study" (Bezos words') you really can't expect to hire intelligent folk who don't want no-brainer basic business and character traits hamfisted to them as if it is the new work of Plato himself. [1] https://www.amazon.jobs/principles https://www.amazon.jobs/principles
chillacy 10y ago
The story seems to be repeated around a lot, but it does appear in this book attributed to IBM founder Thomas Watson Sr: https://books.google.com/books?id=YDIMGv5mBvEC&pg=PA101&lpg=PA101&dq=why+would+i+fire+you+i+just+spent&source=bl&ots=4voNnffO8c&sig=fp3NkdMCnXLlpRMGHt-UK6i4RIc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqo8m7m4rNAhVRNFIKHUBsB-0Q6AEITjAI#v=onepage&q=why%20would%20i%20fire%20you%20i%20just%20spent&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=YDIMGv5mBvEC&pg=PA101&lpg=...

by e40 10y ago

umanwizard 10y ago

Also, when I was at Amazon, we were taught that "Person X broke the site" is the wrong way to think about things. There should be enough testing, redundancy, code review and so on to avoid issues given that humans are fallible. So the system failed, not a particular person, and the solution is to dive deep into why the system failed, and improve it. Obviously there are exceptions for willful extreme negligence or policy violations.

bonniemuffin 10y ago
Definitely true -- if it's possible for a single person's change to break Amazon's search, then something is wrong with the system of testing, code review, deployment, etc. It's never just a single person's fault, even if they wrote the causative line of code.
- goldenkey 10y ago
  Well with Amazon's cult-think, every single person is a "leader" yet also, no one is as important as the shitty middle manager above them. So someone will take the fall but it'll be spun into some type of reckoning consisting of: Ownership, Dive Deep, and Earn Trust [1] As long as you can add to your cult karma, you can do anything at Amazon! https://www.amazon.jobs/principles https://www.amazon.jobs/principles [1]
goldenkey 10y ago
Is that included or in addition to the leadership commandments training cult? [1] [1] https://www.amazon.jobs/principles https://www.amazon.jobs/principles
- umanwizard 10y ago
  In addition. What's your point?
  - goldenkey 10y ago
    Just wanted to see if it was spun as some type of use of the leadership commandments. Because most things about people or process are spun to somehow derive off of the commandments, at least that was my experience working for them recently.

late2part 10y ago

This is not correct about Amazon/AWS from what I've been told. I have several friends that work at, or worked at AWS within Amazon. When something goes wrong, I hear it's a blame game. I hear that it's a witch hunt and the person that's responsible gets held accountable, even if they didn't cause it. Example: Employee is in charge of project, project hires subcontractors, subcontractors screw up, Employee is fired. Sounds unfair. Sounds unreasonable. Happened.

lukeschlather 10y ago
I used to work at AWS, and this is not at all typical. I was in meetings with various high-level directors and the mantra was always the same: Why did this happen? If the answer is "somebody made a mistake" we need to figure out how we can automate so nobody can make that mistake again. Now, that's not to say there's not a lot of pressure. People are held accountable. But they are held accountable for fixing the underlying issue and making sure the same mistakes aren't made again. I've never heard of someone getting fired for making a mistake. People get fired when the same expensive mistake is made repeatedly by the same person. (And really, based on my experience, that might not even be enough. I think in order to get fired you probably would have to fail to understand the nature of the mistake when everyone else in the room understands.)
ryanczak 10y ago
Who ever told you that was incorrect. Amazon's root cause analysis process focuses on understanding the failure and implementing corrective actions. A process with a human in the critical path is a broken process.
sudhirj 10y ago
Mixing up engineering and sales/marketing/management. The consequences of making mistakes and the result of them are different in both fields.
goldenkey 10y ago
This is 100% correct. The average stay at AWS is less than a year. Each employee has color coded badges based on length of stay. You can also use the LDAP tools to fetch each employees years of employment. The average is pretty sad and spun as "we are hiring more than ever. our oldest employees left when their stock became worth a ton" But of course the real reason is that Amazon's work environment is basically chock full of shitty middle-managers, many who are adopted from Microsoft or salvaged somehow from better tech companies in the valley. They even have these leadership principles that are basically a bunch of no-brainers that they force down the employees throats at every opportunity. They use them as a criteria for performance reviews, even before actual hard metrics. Shitty middle managers will keep stressing the leadership principles because (1) that's what they are told to do (2) they need to rate their subordinates on them (3) because these principles are qualitative, the only insurance they have is that they spewed them enough to get through. Amazon, to sum it up, is just, shitty employees from other tech companies. And dumb/average intelligence follow-the-pack type drones - many who can hardly speak English and are on work visas..and they put many of these terrible speakers as managers!! (Amazon loves cheap labor, and will use it for ANY position possible) When your leadership principles are sold as prolific and something every employee "should study" (Bezos words') you really can't expect to hire intelligent folk who don't want no-brainer basic business and character traits hamfisted to them as if it is the new work of Plato himself. [1] https://www.amazon.jobs/principles https://www.amazon.jobs/principles

chillacy 10y ago

The story seems to be repeated around a lot, but it does appear in this book attributed to IBM founder Thomas Watson Sr: https://books.google.com/books?id=YDIMGv5mBvEC&pg=PA101&lpg=PA101&dq=why+would+i+fire+you+i+just+spent&source=bl&ots=4voNnffO8c&sig=fp3NkdMCnXLlpRMGHt-UK6i4RIc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqo8m7m4rNAhVRNFIKHUBsB-0Q6AEITjAI#v=onepage&q=why%20would%20i%20fire%20you%20i%20just%20spent&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=YDIMGv5mBvEC&pg=PA101&lpg=...