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Yet by every account that mattters it doesn't, right? I understand that people who are there can certainly wish that the place and culture were different in som
by ChicagoBoy11 10y ago
Yet by every account that mattters it doesn't, right? I understand that people who are there can certainly wish that the place and culture were different in some significant way, but the only barometer that should have some weight is the ease or difficulty that Amazon has in attracting and retaining top talent -- and that to the extent that it is harming their ability to deliver results. Which, from the outside, it certainly doesn't seem to be limiting.
The counterargument is that of course the things which makes Amazon's work culture toxic to people are orthogonal to their success and not a cause of it. My former boss was very well aware that she could sometimes be downright mean and nasty to our staff, and I cringed every time she justified it by citing what people thought the same of Steve Jobs: While true, we can't avoid the fundamental problem of causal inference, and there is no saying that had Jeff been actively striving to make a more welcoming culture, or if Steve or my former boss were nice people, that they wouldn't have experienced even greater success.
- devopsproject 10y ago> but the only barometer that should have some weight is the ease or difficulty that Amazon has in attracting and retaining top talent They have terrible retention. One of the worst and in many years the absolute worst. A few years back workers were passing out from working in 100 degree temps. They were disciplined for performance and instead of installing air conditioning, they lined up ambulances and paramedics to take falling bodies to the hospital. https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/inside-amazons-very-hot-warehouse/ https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/inside-amazons-ver... This is grotesque.
- AndrewKemendo 10y agoTo be clear their retention is only bad in the fulfillment centers. Those are generally low skill, low pay, seasonal employees meant for short term stints - of which there is a near infinite supply. For their core engineering, BD etc... teams in Seattle, retention is great.
- devopsproject 10y agoIf you are going to make those claims, please provide a source. This is pretty good rant from the technical\engineering side: https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX There is no need to fetishize amazon and if amazon is your model I feel sorry for your employees.
- ronlaflange 10y agoNot sure how relevant this rant is; the last time Steve Yegge worked at Amazon was in mid-2005. For reference, this was even before AWS launched publicly.
- devopsproject 10y ago2015 - https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html?_r=1 https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-...
- krapp 10y ago>Those are generally low skill, low pay, seasonal employees meant for short term stints - of which there is a near infinite supply. Low skill, yes, low pay, God yes, seasonal - not usually. At least where I am, they aggressively hire for full time positions, and clearly intend for non-temporary employees to consider it as a career. Retention is poor because of the environment and the workload. And theft. Apparently there's a lot of theft. But that's bound to happen when you surround people with expensive merchandise, work them like dogs and refuse to pay them a decent wage.
- Stryder 10y agoSlavery lasted for thousands of years, and it's REALLY hard to argue with the "business results" of slavery. Having "success" be the metric is a very slippery slope.