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Having done a bit of time at Amazon, I'm so perplexed by some of the news coming out around them now. * Amazon.jobs || https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles ht

Having done a bit of time at Amazon, I'm so perplexed by some of the news coming out around them now. * Amazon.jobs || https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles Ownership, Insist on the Highest Standards, Earn Trust, Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit... Their response to whistle blowers should have been, "Hey thanks for bringing this up internally, that's what the internal communication tools were for. We're trying, but clearly these are unprecedented times and we need to do better. Thanks for bringing your voice and your data to the table so we can improve." I don't love the idea of airing dirty laundry without going through internal channels first... but assuming these people did that first, they should never have been shown the door. Amazon is a startup at scale, and if you take away the ability for people to openly raise concerns, you ruin the culture. It shouldn't just be about the stock price, y'know? Amazon was a great place to work, and grew, because people challenged authority and found better ways of doing things. It's a mistake, and hugely damaging to the brand, to lose sight of that.

bambataa 6y ago
It’s almost as if company values are empty words.
- dylan604 6y ago
  And they wonder why employee loyalty is a thing of the past. In previous generations, it was not uncommon for people to start and end a career with one company. Companies respected that loyalty, and the employees worked hard to earn it. Now, a 2-3 year stint at the same company start to look weird on your resume.
  - toyg 6y ago
    > they wonder why employee loyalty is a thing of the past I think that line stopped applying 20 years ago, dude. > a 2-3 year stint at the same company start to look weird on your resume. I wish I could be as disinhibited as you are, about changing jobs. I've had 3 jobs in 15 years...
_curious_ 6y ago
"Amazon is a startup at scale" What does this mean?
- pbourke 6y ago
  It’s part of the Amazon mythos: “it’s still day one.” It’s intended to keep the company flexible and responsive to new opportunities.
  - frandroid 6y ago
    > Like most myths, it’s both false and true. That doesn't _mean_ anything.
    - pbourke 6y ago
      I removed this sentence from my comment 30s after posting, but here's what I meant by it: Myths, despite being wholly or partially fictional, can contain some elements of truth. They can also provide insight into the values, aspirations, tropes and path to power within a group. In Amazon's case, I think it is much more startup-like than peer companies. It's been willing to pivot, to give up margin, to place serious bets on new businesses, to focus intensely on growth, etc. Also, obviously, Amazon is a 500k-employee megacorp, with all of the institutional dynamics that go with that. It's clearly not day one, but just as clearly people within Amazon take the idea seriously. So yeah, false and true. I should mention that I worked there for over 5 years, but that was a while ago. The whole "day one" thing has been around the whole time.
roosterdawn 6y ago
Not sure why you're getting downvoted and I 100% agree. And furthermore, I would be very surprised if your point is not eventually echoed by senior leadership, at least internally. This is the only correct course of action, and based on leaked documents, senior leadership made a reactionary misstep in the opposite direction (that ostensibly they regret, once it was leaked) and doubled down on it. The fact that said member of senior leadership even publicly recanted his original idea indicates that folks understand that mistakes were made. The question is how the company is going to respond and rectify them going forward.
- exolymph 6y ago
  > Not sure why you're getting downvoted The person you responded to is getting downvoted for being blindingly naive about corporations.
coffeefirst 6y ago
Well, yes. We increasingly live in a world where people would rather say the right thing than do the right thing. And why not? Talk is cheap. The entire time I've been in this industry, tech companies talked a big game about being a force for good but made all their decisions based on cold, hard statistics. It's weird that this is being downvoted, because it raises a real point: There wouldn't be whistleblowers if you could get anything done from inside.
ex_amazon_sde 6y ago
Ex Amazon here. I agree with most of the principles and find them meaningful rather than "deliver excellence" platitudes. But some some principles clearly apply only to the workers and not management. Earn Trust, Have backbone and Frugality especially. > Amazon is a startup at scale That's a PR slogan. > It shouldn't just be about the stock price, y'know? Amazon is a for-profit company. Workers engage in frugality, stockholders enjoy the billions. > because people challenged authority Amazon is quite data-driven when it comes to engineering but very vertical and disciplinarian. Try challenging Bezos, or talking about unions, for example. Remember point 6 of the SOA memo? --- 5) All service interfaces, without exception, must be designed from the ground up to be externalizable. That is to say, the team must plan and design to be able to expose the interface to developers in the outside world. No exceptions. 6) Anyone who doesn’t do this will be fired. 7) Thank you; have a nice day! --- The company is well know for firing easily, both directly and through stack ranking.
- dbg31415 6y ago
  Well, yes... but anyone who doesn't use service-oriented architecture should be fired, right? (= I mean... we've all seen some of the shit Amazon put out back in the day, the one-offs, the impossible to maintain or integrate with shit some team in a silo built... easy to have silos when every team has to be small. I don't know, I really feel like the SOA memo wasn't so much a threat as just a joke to bring home the point that not using SOA is dumb and impossible to work with. And I honestly felt like Amazon was a startup at scale. Man, I really loved my time there. Met some of the best people I ever worked with.
  - ex_amazon_sde 6y ago
    I largely agree on using SOA (although Amazon sometimes goes too far) but this thread is not about design.

bambataa 6y ago

It’s almost as if company values are empty words.

dylan604 6y ago
And they wonder why employee loyalty is a thing of the past. In previous generations, it was not uncommon for people to start and end a career with one company. Companies respected that loyalty, and the employees worked hard to earn it. Now, a 2-3 year stint at the same company start to look weird on your resume.
- toyg 6y ago
  > they wonder why employee loyalty is a thing of the past I think that line stopped applying 20 years ago, dude. > a 2-3 year stint at the same company start to look weird on your resume. I wish I could be as disinhibited as you are, about changing jobs. I've had 3 jobs in 15 years...

_curious_ 6y ago

"Amazon is a startup at scale" What does this mean?

pbourke 6y ago
It’s part of the Amazon mythos: “it’s still day one.” It’s intended to keep the company flexible and responsive to new opportunities.
- frandroid 6y ago
  > Like most myths, it’s both false and true. That doesn't _mean_ anything.
  - pbourke 6y ago
    I removed this sentence from my comment 30s after posting, but here's what I meant by it: Myths, despite being wholly or partially fictional, can contain some elements of truth. They can also provide insight into the values, aspirations, tropes and path to power within a group. In Amazon's case, I think it is much more startup-like than peer companies. It's been willing to pivot, to give up margin, to place serious bets on new businesses, to focus intensely on growth, etc. Also, obviously, Amazon is a 500k-employee megacorp, with all of the institutional dynamics that go with that. It's clearly not day one, but just as clearly people within Amazon take the idea seriously. So yeah, false and true. I should mention that I worked there for over 5 years, but that was a while ago. The whole "day one" thing has been around the whole time.

roosterdawn 6y ago

Not sure why you're getting downvoted and I 100% agree. And furthermore, I would be very surprised if your point is not eventually echoed by senior leadership, at least internally. This is the only correct course of action, and based on leaked documents, senior leadership made a reactionary misstep in the opposite direction (that ostensibly they regret, once it was leaked) and doubled down on it. The fact that said member of senior leadership even publicly recanted his original idea indicates that folks understand that mistakes were made. The question is how the company is going to respond and rectify them going forward.

exolymph 6y ago
> Not sure why you're getting downvoted The person you responded to is getting downvoted for being blindingly naive about corporations.

coffeefirst 6y ago

Well, yes. We increasingly live in a world where people would rather say the right thing than do the right thing. And why not? Talk is cheap. The entire time I've been in this industry, tech companies talked a big game about being a force for good but made all their decisions based on cold, hard statistics. It's weird that this is being downvoted, because it raises a real point: There wouldn't be whistleblowers if you could get anything done from inside.

ex_amazon_sde 6y ago

Ex Amazon here. I agree with most of the principles and find them meaningful rather than "deliver excellence" platitudes. But some some principles clearly apply only to the workers and not management. Earn Trust, Have backbone and Frugality especially. > Amazon is a startup at scale That's a PR slogan. > It shouldn't just be about the stock price, y'know? Amazon is a for-profit company. Workers engage in frugality, stockholders enjoy the billions. > because people challenged authority Amazon is quite data-driven when it comes to engineering but very vertical and disciplinarian. Try challenging Bezos, or talking about unions, for example. Remember point 6 of the SOA memo? --- 5) All service interfaces, without exception, must be designed from the ground up to be externalizable. That is to say, the team must plan and design to be able to expose the interface to developers in the outside world. No exceptions. 6) Anyone who doesn’t do this will be fired. 7) Thank you; have a nice day! --- The company is well know for firing easily, both directly and through stack ranking.

dbg31415 6y ago
Well, yes... but anyone who doesn't use service-oriented architecture should be fired, right? (= I mean... we've all seen some of the shit Amazon put out back in the day, the one-offs, the impossible to maintain or integrate with shit some team in a silo built... easy to have silos when every team has to be small. I don't know, I really feel like the SOA memo wasn't so much a threat as just a joke to bring home the point that not using SOA is dumb and impossible to work with. And I honestly felt like Amazon was a startup at scale. Man, I really loved my time there. Met some of the best people I ever worked with.
- ex_amazon_sde 6y ago
  I largely agree on using SOA (although Amazon sometimes goes too far) but this thread is not about design.