4 ms·

So the core thesis of the article is fundamentally flawed, since the decision maker for hiring is not the same person who decides on firing. In other words, Inc

So the core thesis of the article is fundamentally flawed, since the decision maker for hiring is not the same person who decides on firing. In other words, Inc. is perpetrating a lie, along with all the other publishers who jumped on this bandwagon. That's fine, we all make mistakes. But here's the interesting part: Inc. has a perverse incentive not to be too diligent in their reporting, because if they look too deep underneath the carpet, they could come across the truth that the OP shared. Once you learn how things really work, you can't spread your BS anymore because you can be sued for libel. But if you just pick up someone else's lie and expand on it without bothering to verify the fundamental thesis, you're 100% covered. Inc. was careful to start their reporting with: 1) hey look, we're linking to someone else who said this before us 2) and please note, there's the obligatory "appears--at least on the surface" statement, so if this comes back to bite us, we told you you shouldn't have believed us in the first place. Here's your startup idea: find a way to hold journalists accountable even when they operate within the legal grey area of journalism, which is becoming prevalent and will only continue to grow in intensity and harmfulness. PS: I get it, you hate Amazon. So do I. Try to think for yourself for a minute and let's engage in this conversation as if we were talking about your favorite high school teacher who just had their career destroyed because some dude needed to get a few extra pageviews.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
zdragnar 5y ago
> find a way to hold journalists accountable even when they operate within the legal grey area of journalism Step one: treat any article that quotes anonymous sources with deep skepticism. The sheer number of retractions and stories that turn out to be blatantly false (especially in the realm of politics) has become absurd in the past few years. No startup needed, just some (un)common sense.
- aerosmile 5y ago
  That works great in theory. But look at all the comments here. Hundreds of people posted comments, and thousands read them within a few hours. A few months from now, SEO will ensure that this page will have been visited by a few million people googling "Amazon hire to fire." The majority of comments doesn't start with "hey guys, this is obviously all just fake BS," and instead you see a lot of hatred being pointed at Amazon. And this is just HN, which is going to have smarter people than any other place reporting on this topic. So, no, the suggestion you made is not a workable solution and we need a better one.
bestcoder69 5y ago
Step off your soap box and RTFA. The linked BI reporting mentions interviews they did with managers (btw you seem to be confusing op-eds and reporting, Mr. Fix-Journalism Startup Idea Guy). Or do your own verification- this practice is discussed frequently on Amazon’s teamblind lounge, for example. Get someone in your network to let you take a peek. Unlike HN (which you just trust intrinsically for some reason), that site requires you verify your employer before posting.
- aerosmile 5y ago
  Ouch. Are you always this cranky? Someone suggests a startup idea and you instantly revert to name calling? The linked BI article is gated, and no, I am not going to spend a penny on that POS publication. While I would be generally curious in learning what your gated sources at Amazon have to say, it's ridiculous to be mad at me for not having done that research. If there are interesting patterns that can be extracted out of internal Amazon forums, then I would hope that a journalist would have a go at it and earn their living with rigorous reporting as opposed to skating on the edge of libel boundaries. And btw, when you call people names, be aware that this often says more about you than the person you're trying to insult. Seems like you have a particular aversion against people with startup ideas, which automatically means that you were never successful with any of your own - people who make startups work for them don't have as much of a chip on their shoulder. That's ok, startups are hard and most people don't win - I have a lot of respect for anyone who even gives it a try. But please use your experience to help other people as opposed to just being bitter about it and putting others down.
  - bestcoder69 5y ago
    Ok so you won’t read the article. Sorry to waste your time by suggesting you do that before proclaiming the reporter (whose reporting you didn’t read) isn’t doing their job. Startups are great, but their chances of success are higher when the founders know what they’re talking about.
    - aerosmile 5y ago
thereisnospork 5y ago
To borrow your words: your core thesis[0] is fundamentally flawed. There is no requisite for the person hiring to be the one firing for the person hiring to hire a sacrificial lamb. A rational actor could easily decide 'Hey, I like my team, if I hire this guy/gal who the firing manager definitely won't like[1] He/she'll be fired before anyone on my team.' Morality aside its the same as serving up a secondary 'bad' idea to your boss to give him/her the illusion of choice, and get him/her to go with the plan you want. [0]>So the core thesis of the article is fundamentally flawed, since the decision maker for hiring is not the same person who decides on firing [1]For personal or professional reasons.
jsight 5y ago
Yeah, its basically news laundering. One paper runs an article on an anonymous source or scientific preprint. They use the proper terminology to describe the level of confidence involved, which may be low. Then others pick it up by referencing the first news report. They no longer have to be specific, instead its just "news source X reports". Unless you follow the chain back to the source, you don't see the actual confidence level. Sometimes you don't even get an accurate picture of the original source.
- travisjungroth 5y ago
  This makes me want to create a tweet tumbling service. Send us a message and we'll send it to someone else, but no one can prove or disprove where it came from.
- Natsu 5y ago
  They'll do literal citogenesis sometimes, too, actually. It's happened in court, too. Oh, hey, look the press reported on the thing we leaked to them, that's proof that it must be reliable, judge!
tyuqfromhere 5y ago
It's fine to analyze Inc's reporting with a skeptical eye, but did it strike you at all that you're essentially doing the same thing you're accusing Inc of doing (taking information at face value without digging too deep), but with the parent's comment? Parent's comment is not fully correct, yet you are taking it at face value and not looking "too deep underneath the carpet", and in some ways are "pick[ing] up someone else's lie and expand[ing] on it without bothering the verify the fundamental thesis". The fact of the matter is that the Amazon HMs who decide on firing often are the same people who decide on hiring. Amazon may desire for that not to be true, but in practice, it is. And GP's comment doesn't actually provide any evidence against that. I've added more context here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27371455 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27371455, but the gist is that Bar Raisers are supposed to be an independent hiring evaluator, but IME they often just serve as meeting facilitators that will just back up whatever decision the HM makes, which makes the HM the ultimate decider.
- aerosmile 5y ago
  I am glad you bring this up. If I am wrong, people can downvote me and my voice will lose visibility (quite literally - the comment will get grayed out and will drop to the bottom of the page). What happens if the reporter is wrong? Assuming they don't spread their lies knowingly, legally they will be in safe territory. And they will still cash in on all the controversy they create with their fake reporting. So my view on this specific topic may or may not be right, but my claim that the journalism landscape is out of balance should stand regardless.
  - tyuqfromhere 5y ago
    Is that how you would feel if "we were talking about your favorite high school teacher who just had their career destroyed because some dude needed to get a few extra [upvotes on HN]"? Saying "my statement may or may not be right, I'll let the general public decide" is lazy and shirking responsibility. If you have reason to believe that your statements are wrong, you should retract those statements or at least put a disclaimer on them. I think that's the bar you would hold Inc to, and you should hold yourself to it as well.
jasonaten 5y ago
I think, and this is just an assumption so I might be wrong, but I think you might have missed the point of the article--which is that sometimes the things you incentivize conflict with what you say are your values. What Insider reported as happening at Amazon is an example of it. It's not even a news piece, it's an opinion column. You're free to disagree with it. That's totally fair. I'm not reporting on Amazon's internal hiring practices, I'm applying a lesson to what Insider reported. That's not a cop out - it serves an entirely different purpose. In this case, it's a lesson for managers. If you don't feel like I made that point, ok, but I think the core thesis of your critique is fundamentally flawed.
northern-lights 5y ago
No, the OP's comment is wrong.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

zdragnar 5y ago

> find a way to hold journalists accountable even when they operate within the legal grey area of journalism Step one: treat any article that quotes anonymous sources with deep skepticism. The sheer number of retractions and stories that turn out to be blatantly false (especially in the realm of politics) has become absurd in the past few years. No startup needed, just some (un)common sense.

aerosmile 5y ago
That works great in theory. But look at all the comments here. Hundreds of people posted comments, and thousands read them within a few hours. A few months from now, SEO will ensure that this page will have been visited by a few million people googling "Amazon hire to fire." The majority of comments doesn't start with "hey guys, this is obviously all just fake BS," and instead you see a lot of hatred being pointed at Amazon. And this is just HN, which is going to have smarter people than any other place reporting on this topic. So, no, the suggestion you made is not a workable solution and we need a better one.

bestcoder69 5y ago

Step off your soap box and RTFA. The linked BI reporting mentions interviews they did with managers (btw you seem to be confusing op-eds and reporting, Mr. Fix-Journalism Startup Idea Guy). Or do your own verification- this practice is discussed frequently on Amazon’s teamblind lounge, for example. Get someone in your network to let you take a peek. Unlike HN (which you just trust intrinsically for some reason), that site requires you verify your employer before posting.

aerosmile 5y ago
Ouch. Are you always this cranky? Someone suggests a startup idea and you instantly revert to name calling? The linked BI article is gated, and no, I am not going to spend a penny on that POS publication. While I would be generally curious in learning what your gated sources at Amazon have to say, it's ridiculous to be mad at me for not having done that research. If there are interesting patterns that can be extracted out of internal Amazon forums, then I would hope that a journalist would have a go at it and earn their living with rigorous reporting as opposed to skating on the edge of libel boundaries. And btw, when you call people names, be aware that this often says more about you than the person you're trying to insult. Seems like you have a particular aversion against people with startup ideas, which automatically means that you were never successful with any of your own - people who make startups work for them don't have as much of a chip on their shoulder. That's ok, startups are hard and most people don't win - I have a lot of respect for anyone who even gives it a try. But please use your experience to help other people as opposed to just being bitter about it and putting others down.
- bestcoder69 5y ago
  Ok so you won’t read the article. Sorry to waste your time by suggesting you do that before proclaiming the reporter (whose reporting you didn’t read) isn’t doing their job. Startups are great, but their chances of success are higher when the founders know what they’re talking about.
  - aerosmile 5y ago

thereisnospork 5y ago

To borrow your words: your core thesis[0] is fundamentally flawed. There is no requisite for the person hiring to be the one firing for the person hiring to hire a sacrificial lamb. A rational actor could easily decide 'Hey, I like my team, if I hire this guy/gal who the firing manager definitely won't like[1] He/she'll be fired before anyone on my team.' Morality aside its the same as serving up a secondary 'bad' idea to your boss to give him/her the illusion of choice, and get him/her to go with the plan you want. [0]>So the core thesis of the article is fundamentally flawed, since the decision maker for hiring is not the same person who decides on firing [1]For personal or professional reasons.

jsight 5y ago

Yeah, its basically news laundering. One paper runs an article on an anonymous source or scientific preprint. They use the proper terminology to describe the level of confidence involved, which may be low. Then others pick it up by referencing the first news report. They no longer have to be specific, instead its just "news source X reports". Unless you follow the chain back to the source, you don't see the actual confidence level. Sometimes you don't even get an accurate picture of the original source.

travisjungroth 5y ago
This makes me want to create a tweet tumbling service. Send us a message and we'll send it to someone else, but no one can prove or disprove where it came from.
Natsu 5y ago
They'll do literal citogenesis sometimes, too, actually. It's happened in court, too. Oh, hey, look the press reported on the thing we leaked to them, that's proof that it must be reliable, judge!

tyuqfromhere 5y ago

It's fine to analyze Inc's reporting with a skeptical eye, but did it strike you at all that you're essentially doing the same thing you're accusing Inc of doing (taking information at face value without digging too deep), but with the parent's comment? Parent's comment is not fully correct, yet you are taking it at face value and not looking "too deep underneath the carpet", and in some ways are "pick[ing] up someone else's lie and expand[ing] on it without bothering the verify the fundamental thesis". The fact of the matter is that the Amazon HMs who decide on firing often are the same people who decide on hiring. Amazon may desire for that not to be true, but in practice, it is. And GP's comment doesn't actually provide any evidence against that. I've added more context here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27371455 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27371455, but the gist is that Bar Raisers are supposed to be an independent hiring evaluator, but IME they often just serve as meeting facilitators that will just back up whatever decision the HM makes, which makes the HM the ultimate decider.

aerosmile 5y ago
I am glad you bring this up. If I am wrong, people can downvote me and my voice will lose visibility (quite literally - the comment will get grayed out and will drop to the bottom of the page). What happens if the reporter is wrong? Assuming they don't spread their lies knowingly, legally they will be in safe territory. And they will still cash in on all the controversy they create with their fake reporting. So my view on this specific topic may or may not be right, but my claim that the journalism landscape is out of balance should stand regardless.
- tyuqfromhere 5y ago
  Is that how you would feel if "we were talking about your favorite high school teacher who just had their career destroyed because some dude needed to get a few extra [upvotes on HN]"? Saying "my statement may or may not be right, I'll let the general public decide" is lazy and shirking responsibility. If you have reason to believe that your statements are wrong, you should retract those statements or at least put a disclaimer on them. I think that's the bar you would hold Inc to, and you should hold yourself to it as well.

jasonaten 5y ago

I think, and this is just an assumption so I might be wrong, but I think you might have missed the point of the article--which is that sometimes the things you incentivize conflict with what you say are your values. What Insider reported as happening at Amazon is an example of it. It's not even a news piece, it's an opinion column. You're free to disagree with it. That's totally fair. I'm not reporting on Amazon's internal hiring practices, I'm applying a lesson to what Insider reported. That's not a cop out - it serves an entirely different purpose. In this case, it's a lesson for managers. If you don't feel like I made that point, ok, but I think the core thesis of your critique is fundamentally flawed.

northern-lights 5y ago

No, the OP's comment is wrong.