Standard practice at Amazon is to quiet read the materials at the start of the meeting. I think the logic goes that you want to make sure everyone reads the mat

Standard practice at Amazon is to quiet read the materials at the start of the meeting. I think the logic goes that you want to make sure everyone reads the material, so you may as well have everyone read the material at the same time, and discuss it when it is fresh in mind. As a related effect, it encourages people to write tightly focused documents that can be read in 15 minutes. It's not a horrible practice.