5 ms·

He actually dispenses the idea with work-life balance. That’s different than “superficial comments on work-life balance.”

hinkley 9y ago
I’ve met a couple people who quit Amazon in under a month. One saw a poster that said, “work harder, smarter, or faster. But you can’t pick just two” Like Microsoft, the cultural foundation is masochistic bullshit. They’ll never unwind that. And if that’s the only way to be rich then I’ll settle for successful and call it a day.
- manigandham 9y ago
  Don't work there then... everyone has their own preferences. The moral judgements seem silly.
  - majewsky 9y ago
    It'd be fun to do a long-time study to see if working at highly competitive places like Amazon increases mortality rates among employees.
    - dogruck 9y ago
      Bezos advocates an alternative perspective, which I think you missed. Don’t view work as a necessary evil that you must cope with and minimize. Instead, embrace it as a core aspect of life. Let work elevate your personal life, and let your personal life elevate work.
      - krapp 9y ago
        > Let work elevate your personal life, and let your personal life elevate work. That's nonsense, though, and it's coming from a man whose company will push employees into 60 hour weeks for arbitrary lengths of time, often with little forewarning, because they expect work to be personal life, because "customer obsession."
      - hinkley 9y ago
        Sounds like a cult. One that’s a cross between John Calvin and Chairman Mao. This route attaches all of your self worth to your job. You don’t control your success at work. And if you think you do I encourage you to evaluate your attachment to the illusion of control. One day, when a series of setbacks at work happens, it will shake that self worth. And you will look up and realize you have sacrificed other things chasing after something that isn’t as rewarding as it used to be. You’ll realize that you had time to get Good at your job and something else too, but habit took over and you believed the bullshit of people who got rich off of your hard work and then forgot all about you. And you don’t have your music or art or woodworking or running or your old friends to fall back on. Because you were at work for the last 15 years. I’m not saying this because I am a lazy bastard, worried about other people making him look bad. I’m saying this as someone who tried it. Don’t do this. You’ll end up as a person full of regrets, trying to warn others not to do the same.
        manigandham 9y ago
        Again, is it so hard to believe that people are different and some people like to work? There are real cults out there, Amazon isn't one of them.
  - Sir_Substance 9y ago
    The moral judgments are important on a societal level if we ever hope to address problems like suicide being one of the leading causes of death for westerners between 25 and 44 years old.
    - WalterBright 9y ago
      Mathematically, something has to be the leading cause of death ages 25..44. What should it be? A leading cause may emerge simply because other leading causes were fixed, not because things are getting worse.
      - mathgeek 9y ago
        Agreed. If there's some non-related disease killing more people aged 25-40 than suicide does, the world is probably a more dangerous place than it is today.
      - Sir_Substance 9y ago
        >Mathematically, something has to be the leading cause of death ages 25..44. What should it be? I'm a bit late here, but I think we could reasonably hope for things that are essentially random, such as car accidents, food poisoning, house fires, chronic birth defects or DIY mishaps. If you look at the actual causes of death[1] You can see that in that age bracket, this is broadly the case. "Unintentional injury" is #1, followed by suicide, followed by homicide, followed by cancer (which includes lung cancer ofc) and then heart disease. (The exact ordering varies a bit depending on source, but accidents->suicide->lung cancer->heart disease is definitely a broad trend) Your point is well made, but when suicide and homicide are above heart disease in the deaths of a nation famed for a national scale chronic weight problem, it's not hard to say that the US could probably do more on the mental health front. I'm of the opinion that the same is true for most of the western world. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/10lcid_all_deaths_by_age_group_2010-a.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/10lcid_all_deaths_by_...
    - manigandham 9y ago
      ...ok? Is working at Amazon a leading cause of suicide? Perhaps we should teach personal responsibility first.
  - hinkley 9y ago
    You know, I did that for 18 years and the situation only got worse It’s also easy to say when you aren’t in the same city as Amazon. There are ex Amazonians everywhere and they have strange ideas.
- natalyarostova 9y ago
  2.5 more years until I get my stock... It is nice to have a good chunk of change to start a family with, but I hope to eventually find a job where I'm able to maintain enough time for side-projects and personal hobbies.
  - dogruck 9y ago
    Try not to live your life counting down 2.5 years of your future. In hindsight, those 2.5 years will be just a heartbeat. I suggest doing your best to find ways to enjoy the immediate presence, and the future will take care of itself.

hinkley 9y ago

I’ve met a couple people who quit Amazon in under a month. One saw a poster that said, “work harder, smarter, or faster. But you can’t pick just two” Like Microsoft, the cultural foundation is masochistic bullshit. They’ll never unwind that. And if that’s the only way to be rich then I’ll settle for successful and call it a day.

manigandham 9y ago
Don't work there then... everyone has their own preferences. The moral judgements seem silly.
- majewsky 9y ago
  It'd be fun to do a long-time study to see if working at highly competitive places like Amazon increases mortality rates among employees.
  - dogruck 9y ago
    Bezos advocates an alternative perspective, which I think you missed. Don’t view work as a necessary evil that you must cope with and minimize. Instead, embrace it as a core aspect of life. Let work elevate your personal life, and let your personal life elevate work.
    - krapp 9y ago
      > Let work elevate your personal life, and let your personal life elevate work. That's nonsense, though, and it's coming from a man whose company will push employees into 60 hour weeks for arbitrary lengths of time, often with little forewarning, because they expect work to be personal life, because "customer obsession."
    - hinkley 9y ago
      Sounds like a cult. One that’s a cross between John Calvin and Chairman Mao. This route attaches all of your self worth to your job. You don’t control your success at work. And if you think you do I encourage you to evaluate your attachment to the illusion of control. One day, when a series of setbacks at work happens, it will shake that self worth. And you will look up and realize you have sacrificed other things chasing after something that isn’t as rewarding as it used to be. You’ll realize that you had time to get Good at your job and something else too, but habit took over and you believed the bullshit of people who got rich off of your hard work and then forgot all about you. And you don’t have your music or art or woodworking or running or your old friends to fall back on. Because you were at work for the last 15 years. I’m not saying this because I am a lazy bastard, worried about other people making him look bad. I’m saying this as someone who tried it. Don’t do this. You’ll end up as a person full of regrets, trying to warn others not to do the same.
      - manigandham 9y ago
        Again, is it so hard to believe that people are different and some people like to work? There are real cults out there, Amazon isn't one of them.
- Sir_Substance 9y ago
  The moral judgments are important on a societal level if we ever hope to address problems like suicide being one of the leading causes of death for westerners between 25 and 44 years old.
  - WalterBright 9y ago
    Mathematically, something has to be the leading cause of death ages 25..44. What should it be? A leading cause may emerge simply because other leading causes were fixed, not because things are getting worse.
    - mathgeek 9y ago
      Agreed. If there's some non-related disease killing more people aged 25-40 than suicide does, the world is probably a more dangerous place than it is today.
    - Sir_Substance 9y ago
      >Mathematically, something has to be the leading cause of death ages 25..44. What should it be? I'm a bit late here, but I think we could reasonably hope for things that are essentially random, such as car accidents, food poisoning, house fires, chronic birth defects or DIY mishaps. If you look at the actual causes of death[1] You can see that in that age bracket, this is broadly the case. "Unintentional injury" is #1, followed by suicide, followed by homicide, followed by cancer (which includes lung cancer ofc) and then heart disease. (The exact ordering varies a bit depending on source, but accidents->suicide->lung cancer->heart disease is definitely a broad trend) Your point is well made, but when suicide and homicide are above heart disease in the deaths of a nation famed for a national scale chronic weight problem, it's not hard to say that the US could probably do more on the mental health front. I'm of the opinion that the same is true for most of the western world. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/10lcid_all_deaths_by_age_group_2010-a.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/10lcid_all_deaths_by_...
  - manigandham 9y ago
    ...ok? Is working at Amazon a leading cause of suicide? Perhaps we should teach personal responsibility first.
- hinkley 9y ago
  You know, I did that for 18 years and the situation only got worse It’s also easy to say when you aren’t in the same city as Amazon. There are ex Amazonians everywhere and they have strange ideas.
natalyarostova 9y ago
2.5 more years until I get my stock... It is nice to have a good chunk of change to start a family with, but I hope to eventually find a job where I'm able to maintain enough time for side-projects and personal hobbies.
- dogruck 9y ago
  Try not to live your life counting down 2.5 years of your future. In hindsight, those 2.5 years will be just a heartbeat. I suggest doing your best to find ways to enjoy the immediate presence, and the future will take care of itself.