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I have some small insight into this. Often at Amazon you have the "Frugality" principal taking the wheel for short term savings, even with long term massive co

I have some small insight into this. Often at Amazon you have the "Frugality" principal taking the wheel for short term savings, even with long term massive costs. They're notoriously cheap, think like no free coffee cheap. One of Jeff's guiding principals that he infused the company with, is that workers are lazy and will take advantage of any moment to not be productive if you let them. If you're nice to your workforce they'll take advantage of your kindness to do nothing. This happens on the corporate side too with all the PIP stuff. In the long term I don't think this is going to work at all, either they need to change their policy and attitude or literally no-one will work there given the choice lol. (This is more on the SWE/Corporate side and less on the warehouse side, often Amazon is the only/best game in town on the warehouse side which makes things more tricky.) E.g. At their current attrition rate they will run out of workers in the whole country in a couple of years assuming they keep it up.

oh_sigh 5y ago
Actually, at the Amazon office in NYC, the one thing we did get was free coffee :) But it wasn't one of those fancy machines at other FANGs where you press cappuccino and you get a cappuccino. It was more like one salvaged from an old diner, where you would load a couple cups of grinds into a filter and it would percolate down into a gallon jug.
- hemloc_io 5y ago
  Haha same for us in the West Coast offices. I was working with a senior engineer who was shocked we had one of those big machines when we came in to the office.
nebula8804 5y ago
>In the long term I don't think this is going to work at all, either they need to change their policy and attitude or literally no-one will work there given the choice lol. I wanna see what happens when they cross this threshold. I don't think any company in modern US history has had to deal with this scenario? I suspect they know this and are running out the clock before they are forced to raise wages to compensate. Essentially squeeze as much margin as they can now until they are force to dispense a few more crumbs. Its insane how crazy they are getting with the recruiters. I am a loser who spends too much time on HN. A terrible mediocre dev with no really outstanding roles, yet these people are now finding my internal company email and reaching out. They somehow found my private phone number and are texting me. Who knows what will happen next? Maybe they will knock on my window in the dead of night lol.
- lovich 5y ago
  That’s just the recruiters trying not to get fired. As a fellow mediocre dev who also gets contacted by Amazon recruiters I won’t believe they are interested in changing their ways until they either let up on the mandatory firings or they lower their standards. At the moment they are acting like the corporate equivalent of when you keep opening your fridge even though you decided you don’t want to eat anything in there
  - nebula8804 5y ago
    The recruiters still won't be getting those conversions so yeah they can get more desperate but in reality its an extension of the company getting more desperate. Thats why I think they will exhaust every possible lead and only then raise wages to attract people who will tolerate their conditions.
- delecti 5y ago
  I had to get pretty stern with their recruiters to get it to stop. I was getting contacted at least once a month for a while, and it was getting close to once a week. I had to ask several different recruiters to get put on their "no contact" list, but what finally worked was mentioning the email alias of the previous recruiter who I had asked. My email ended with this: > The recruiter who contacted me last week (John Doe, jdoe [not the actual name, obviously]) said he would do that, and that is clearly not the case. I'm finding these persistent emails rather obnoxious. It's now been almost 3 months, and I'm very glad for the reduced spam.
- hemloc_io 5y ago
  Me too, I've heard rumors of like 80% of an engineering team disappearing. How many times can that happen before we end up in a situation where there's no work capable of being done lol.
pmoriarty 5y ago
"One of Jeff's guiding principals that he infused the company with, is that workers are lazy and will take advantage of any moment to not be productive if you let them. If you're nice to your workforce they'll take advantage of your kindness to do nothing." The guy sounds like a total jerk. Zuckerberg seems like a complete jerk too. Bill Gates was reportedly a real jerk while at Microsoft too. Steve Jobs was supposedly a huge asshole. What is it about assholes running the world? Do nice guys really finish last? How many truly nice people ever make it very far in business (not to mention politics)? Do you really have to walk over a mountain of other people's backs to make it to the top?
- saxman001 5y ago
  Mark Zuckerburg addressed this question very well on the Lex Friedman podcast. He pointed out that facebook did some science around this and discovered that many top level decisions are lose-lose from a public perception standpoint. On key policy questions the losing interest group almost always manages to create a stink that outweighs the happiness of the winning group. Couple this with the well documented negative bias of the news, and it's not surprising that most corporate public figures have bleak reputations. Note that I'm not actually defending these men. I'm simply pointing out that there are some structural reasons for the strong negative perceptions of these executives.
  - GoodJokes 5y ago
  - giraffe_lady 5y ago
    or it could be that the only reasons to go for a billion when you already have a hundred million are pathological? I know this is extremely simplistic and insufficient as a complete explanation, but I truly think it's a major component.
    - beeboop 5y ago
      I don't think it necessitates pathological, though I am sure there are higher rates of it among the wealthy. I don't think someone worth $100 million keeps working because they're incentivized by the money as much as they're incentivized by "success". They enjoy the power and prestige and reputation and having people work for them. They enjoy getting to make big, powerful decisions. They like having their big ego. Of course many do genuinely just want that $400 million yacht and won't get there unless they make a few billion first.
skrtskrt 5y ago
on the warehouse side, Amazon is only the best game in town when it is the only game in town. Other warehouses have higher wages, better hours, many are unionized, etc.
- hemloc_io 5y ago
  Huh things may have changed since I worked in warehouses. (I used to live/work in a blue collar area before going to school for software dev years ago, I did construction over the summer and other people did warehouses and deliveries, and still do.) From my past exanecdotal experience Amazon has had the best pay but the worst working conditions, that's usually the bargin you get. Maybe their conditions got worse with additional surveillance and other warehouses catching up in wages has changed the calculus for people.
tclancy 5y ago
>is that workers are lazy and will take advantage of any moment to not be productive if you let them Some times I think the biggest villain of the Twentieth Century (ok, 19th-20th) was actually Fredrick Winslow Taylor.
Uily 5y ago
We get free coffee in the offices but it sucks and you have to pay for everything else (including good coffee).

oh_sigh 5y ago

Actually, at the Amazon office in NYC, the one thing we did get was free coffee :) But it wasn't one of those fancy machines at other FANGs where you press cappuccino and you get a cappuccino. It was more like one salvaged from an old diner, where you would load a couple cups of grinds into a filter and it would percolate down into a gallon jug.

hemloc_io 5y ago
Haha same for us in the West Coast offices. I was working with a senior engineer who was shocked we had one of those big machines when we came in to the office.

nebula8804 5y ago

>In the long term I don't think this is going to work at all, either they need to change their policy and attitude or literally no-one will work there given the choice lol. I wanna see what happens when they cross this threshold. I don't think any company in modern US history has had to deal with this scenario? I suspect they know this and are running out the clock before they are forced to raise wages to compensate. Essentially squeeze as much margin as they can now until they are force to dispense a few more crumbs. Its insane how crazy they are getting with the recruiters. I am a loser who spends too much time on HN. A terrible mediocre dev with no really outstanding roles, yet these people are now finding my internal company email and reaching out. They somehow found my private phone number and are texting me. Who knows what will happen next? Maybe they will knock on my window in the dead of night lol.

lovich 5y ago
That’s just the recruiters trying not to get fired. As a fellow mediocre dev who also gets contacted by Amazon recruiters I won’t believe they are interested in changing their ways until they either let up on the mandatory firings or they lower their standards. At the moment they are acting like the corporate equivalent of when you keep opening your fridge even though you decided you don’t want to eat anything in there
- nebula8804 5y ago
  The recruiters still won't be getting those conversions so yeah they can get more desperate but in reality its an extension of the company getting more desperate. Thats why I think they will exhaust every possible lead and only then raise wages to attract people who will tolerate their conditions.
delecti 5y ago
I had to get pretty stern with their recruiters to get it to stop. I was getting contacted at least once a month for a while, and it was getting close to once a week. I had to ask several different recruiters to get put on their "no contact" list, but what finally worked was mentioning the email alias of the previous recruiter who I had asked. My email ended with this: > The recruiter who contacted me last week (John Doe, jdoe [not the actual name, obviously]) said he would do that, and that is clearly not the case. I'm finding these persistent emails rather obnoxious. It's now been almost 3 months, and I'm very glad for the reduced spam.
hemloc_io 5y ago
Me too, I've heard rumors of like 80% of an engineering team disappearing. How many times can that happen before we end up in a situation where there's no work capable of being done lol.

pmoriarty 5y ago

"One of Jeff's guiding principals that he infused the company with, is that workers are lazy and will take advantage of any moment to not be productive if you let them. If you're nice to your workforce they'll take advantage of your kindness to do nothing." The guy sounds like a total jerk. Zuckerberg seems like a complete jerk too. Bill Gates was reportedly a real jerk while at Microsoft too. Steve Jobs was supposedly a huge asshole. What is it about assholes running the world? Do nice guys really finish last? How many truly nice people ever make it very far in business (not to mention politics)? Do you really have to walk over a mountain of other people's backs to make it to the top?

saxman001 5y ago
Mark Zuckerburg addressed this question very well on the Lex Friedman podcast. He pointed out that facebook did some science around this and discovered that many top level decisions are lose-lose from a public perception standpoint. On key policy questions the losing interest group almost always manages to create a stink that outweighs the happiness of the winning group. Couple this with the well documented negative bias of the news, and it's not surprising that most corporate public figures have bleak reputations. Note that I'm not actually defending these men. I'm simply pointing out that there are some structural reasons for the strong negative perceptions of these executives.
- GoodJokes 5y ago
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  or it could be that the only reasons to go for a billion when you already have a hundred million are pathological? I know this is extremely simplistic and insufficient as a complete explanation, but I truly think it's a major component.
  - beeboop 5y ago
    I don't think it necessitates pathological, though I am sure there are higher rates of it among the wealthy. I don't think someone worth $100 million keeps working because they're incentivized by the money as much as they're incentivized by "success". They enjoy the power and prestige and reputation and having people work for them. They enjoy getting to make big, powerful decisions. They like having their big ego. Of course many do genuinely just want that $400 million yacht and won't get there unless they make a few billion first.

skrtskrt 5y ago

on the warehouse side, Amazon is only the best game in town when it is the only game in town. Other warehouses have higher wages, better hours, many are unionized, etc.

hemloc_io 5y ago
Huh things may have changed since I worked in warehouses. (I used to live/work in a blue collar area before going to school for software dev years ago, I did construction over the summer and other people did warehouses and deliveries, and still do.) From my past exanecdotal experience Amazon has had the best pay but the worst working conditions, that's usually the bargin you get. Maybe their conditions got worse with additional surveillance and other warehouses catching up in wages has changed the calculus for people.

tclancy 5y ago

>is that workers are lazy and will take advantage of any moment to not be productive if you let them Some times I think the biggest villain of the Twentieth Century (ok, 19th-20th) was actually Fredrick Winslow Taylor.

Uily 5y ago

We get free coffee in the offices but it sucks and you have to pay for everything else (including good coffee).