
Jeff Bezos Responds to the Amazon NYT Article - anirudhgarg
http://www.geekwire.com/2015/full-memo-jeff-bezos-responds-to-cutting-nyt-expose-says-tolerance-for-lack-of-empathy-needs-to-be-zero/
======
aaronbrethorst
Reposting my comment from Geekwire:

    
    
        Notably, no one else on this comment thread is
        willing to attach their real identity to it.
        I've been contacted by Amazon recruiting many
        times. I'm a Seattleite with 10+ years of
        software engineering experience. And I'll say
        the same thing here that I say to every AMZN
        recruiter who contacts me: no way, no how.
        Amazon is a sweatshop, and anyone who thinks
        otherwise—especially Jeff—is deluding themselves.
    
        I wish that Amazon featured *anywhere* on my
        list of 'prospective employers that I'd consider
        working at someday,' but given the reputation
        that they have with my friends, there's
        absolutely no way I'd ever consider working
        there under any circumstances.
    
        If my feelings are anything like other
        prospective senior and principal-level
        employees here in the area (and I assume
        they are), then it concerns me deeply about
        Amazon's future.

~~~
blazespin
Agreed, I did 3 months at Amazon and ran screaming for the hills. To this day
I am stalked by recruiters trying to get me to come back, even after
explaining to them that only people with deep, neurotic lack of self worth
would ever do that. Amazon does not hire just the best, they hire the
brilliant geeks who don't realize they are brilliant and have personality
problems such that they don't understand when they are being screwed over.
Well, except for the aws team. They are pretty ok from what I recall.

~~~
hkmurakami
I was advised to take a 3 month summer internship because I'd learn a lot
while I was there. I was also advised that my life would be miserable during
those 3 months and that I should not work there full time.

A wise tradeoff for the right person, imo.

------
yazaddaruvala
Jeff if you're reading, how about a new leadership principle?

Work Hard; Live Hard

Description: Have a good work life balance. When you're able and its
appropriate, work hard. If you're not able, for whatever reason, or if it
isn't appropriate to be working, please don't be working.

What is deemed able: If you're sick, you're not able. If you're tired, you're
not able. If you're grieving, you are not able. etc.

What is deemed appropriate: Work <strike>50</strike> 40 hour weeks _on
average_. While working regular hours, work hard. There may also be weeks you
need to deliver, there may be weeks you need to be oncall: please work hard
(i.e. more). However, if you constantly "have to deliver" or are consistently
fighting fires, then something is wrong. This shouldn't be happening.
Consider: are you setting bad dates for yourself? is your manager/team setting
bad dates for you? Either way, fix that tomorrow. Meanwhile, quote this
leadership principle and go home.

Scared your manager wont like your new attitude shift? Just quote "Its in
Amazon's blood, Work Hard; Live Hard, I have a Kelly Clarkson concert to go
to!"

P.S. Please realize I haven't given this much thought, every idea requires
refinement, and this post is 40% in jest. Meanwhile, if you'd like to help
Amazon potentially find a new leadership principle on the internet,
constructive criticism or humor are my favorite types of responses ;).

------
deepuj
Amazon's attrition rate is among the highest in the industry. So, despite how
he makes it sounds in the memo, the news should not have been of much surprise
to him.

In a nutshell, he fails to acknowledge that there is a problem, and passes the
risk of reporting to employees.

~~~
hinkley
I read his response as an open confession that he's out of touch with his own
company.

I'm not sure how he intended it to be read. I'm waiting to see if his "you'd
be crazy to work at a place like that" actually results in improvements, or an
increase in attrition.

My experience there (also 3 months) was that there were all these young kids
who had no idea what a healthy work environment looked like and so they didn't
know what they were missing out on.

------
nunodonato
Great to see that the HN community is quite aware of the terrible work
conditions in Amazon. I do wonder, though, how many of you still buy in
Amazon, nevertheless.

Its important to note that when you buy a product, you are essentially voting
with your wallet, saying "yes" to a company, its values, ways of operation,
impact on the planet, etc etc. Its easy just to pass this as an internal
amazon problem, but if you still buy there, you are supporting it anyway.

I've stopped using Amazon 2 years ago, dont miss it, and dont think I will.

~~~
Coding_Cat
I see this argument come up a lot in these kinds of discussion, but the
problem with 'vote with your wallet' are numerous, including (not all might
apply to the HN crowd):

1) market competition: if there's no (better) competitor and you need the
services provided for whatever you need, how can you vote with your wallet?

2) Price: I'd love to buy ethically sourced-everything, but I simply cannot
afford it and will never be able to (on my current income) as long as
unethically sourced remains this much cheaper and the norm. Income and market
prices adapt to each other.

3) Knowledge & time: It is incredibly time and energy consuming to find out
all these things. Amazon has now made the news, but how do you know which
competitors are better? Look at food, even with all the labels we have these
days there is still a lot of misleading information out there.

4) All of the above and more applied to everyone: As I mentioned, the above
probably doesn't apply to most of the HN crowd, but any of these reasons (and
probably a lot more I missed) would be enough to stop someone from voting with
their wallet. In order to do so you must have the knowledge, time, energy and
availability. Something not everyone has. If but a small minority can (and
wants) to vote with their wallet, it will almost never be cost-effective for
companies to change.

Whatever happened to good old fashioned legislation? One can make a similar
argument for voting (time & knowledge limitations mostly), but they should be
less severe barriers.

~~~
nunodonato
Those arguments are valid, but apply to only a fraction of the cases.

Really, how many of us _need_ to buy office supplies, diapers, or groceries
from amazon? How many times do you _need_ to have a book delivered to you in
less than X hours? We have these fabricated needs and companies that provide
services to fulfil them, which really says a lot about the power of their
marketing.

Again, not disagreeing with your arguments, I just think they dont apply to
the majority of the cases, where you _can_ avoid amazon and just shop
elsewhere (slightly less convenient, I must say - its a matter of values, and
voting with your wallet)

------
hkmurakami
Amazon seems to be informed by Bezos' time on Wall Street in many ways. The
most prominent of these to me are the expectation of overly arduous hours, a
highly contingency based compensation structure (annual bonuses vs back loaded
RSU vesting schedules), and knowing which buttons need to be pressed in
Analyst calls and the bare minimum amount of information that needs to be
given.

As an AMZN shareholder, these are big benefits. As an employee, I would expect
things to break down a bit.

------
bluelu
Out of the very few people I interviewed from amazon, I had one candidate who
didn't like his job since he had to do be alert (pager) during the nights (not
mentioned when hired), and his boss ocassionaly gave him work on friday
evening to be finished till monday, so he had to stay on the weekend to finish
it. When he talked to human ressources about this situation, HR actually fired
him, and that's why he applied to us at the end. I actually didn't believe him
at that time, but I guess there was some truth to it at the end after all.

------
Mithaldu
That request to email him sounds farcical as hell to me.

The CEO of a gigantic company, who's most likely already absolutely swamped in
email, is asking people to email him at his direct, known-to-public address,
which is most likely managed by a team of secretaries, instead of providing a
specific target address along with instructions on how to send mail there
anonymously.

I don't think anyone would dare take him up on that offer in the first place,
and if he's really this deluded about it, he might end up taking zero incoming
mails on this topic as "proof" that everything is fine.

That remark about contacting HR is also a little funny, since it seems like
employees already consider HR to be enemy agents.

~~~
venomsnake
The email was [redacted]. We don't know what it is.

But in a way it is a time for action. Pushing your people to the extreme and
caring about them are not mutually exclusive. Depending on Mr. Bezos' actions
in a few days we will understand if the amazon toxic culture is policies
stripped from a lot of nuance when made into soundbites or got that way by
design.

And a CEO could indeed be somewhat isolated - at that level you see reports
that have already passed a couple of levels of sanitation.

~~~
Mithaldu
> The email was [redacted].

Please clarify. The article does mention an email address. Twice.

~~~
venomsnake
Sorry. It was removed in the topic here on HN that quoted it. And i thought we
were in it.

~~~
Mithaldu
Ah. Happens. Have two upvotes from me for standing by your mistakes, no matter
how tiny. :)

------
daviross
_“But if you know of any stories like those reported, I want you to escalate
to HR. You can also email me directly at jeff@amazon.com. Even if it’s rare or
isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero.”_

This seems a bit "Closing the barn doors after the horses are gone".

Alternately, this rings a bit hollow given the turnover rate: _I strongly
believe that anyone working in a company that really is like the one described
in the NYT would be crazy to stay. I know I would leave such a company._

For as much as there's an emphasis on data, that seems like a worthwhile value
to track.

~~~
tux1968
Perhaps Bezos has convinced himself that the higher attrition rate reflects
the willingness of other companies to retain under-performers. At least I can
see how he could choose to believe that interpretation in the face of the data
that must have been known to him.

------
rackgen
> But if you know of any stories like those reported, I want you to escalate
> to HR. You can also email me directly at jeff@amazon.com

Really, and who's going to stick their neck out? I would rather get off than
wasting time trying to fix things which I don't have control on.

------
jasonjei
I seem to remember hearing rants of working as a developer at Amazon 3 years
ago. Here's a link to Steve Yegge's diatribe and Bezos's web services mandate:
[https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX](https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX)

Here's an excerpt:

His Big Mandate went something along these lines:

1) All teams will henceforth expose their data and functionality through
service interfaces.

2) Teams must communicate with each other through these interfaces.

3) There will be no other form of interprocess communication allowed: no
direct linking, no direct reads of another team's data store, no shared-memory
model, no back-doors whatsoever. The only communication allowed is via service
interface calls over the network.

4) It doesn't matter what technology they use. HTTP, Corba, Pubsub, custom
protocols -- doesn't matter. Bezos doesn't care.

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!

Ha, ha! You 150-odd ex-Amazon folks here will of course realize immediately
that #7 was a little joke I threw in, because Bezos most definitely does not
give a shit about your day.

~~~
zobzu
it doesnt seem like such a bad idea to me. generic communication between
services? yes thx ill take that.

and thats why so many use AWS.

~~~
aikah
People use AWS for the same reason people buy from Amazon. Because it's bloody
cheap, not because it's good.

------
WalterBright
> Those that choose to work there do so out of greed (rising stock price)

Seattle is full of tech workers who retired young from their appreciating
stock options, from Microsoft and Amazon and presumably other companies. At
one point I read that Microsoft had minted 10,000 millionaires in the Seattle
area. I don't know what the corresponding Amazon figures are, but I suspect
they are similar.

Note that AMZN is up about 60% just in the last year.

------
kevinlisota
He seems out of touch, given the comments I've heard from current and former
AMZN employees here in Seattle.

------
msoad
His email is in "CEO English". It doesn't mean anything and it doesn't help
anyone. Standard Corporate America practices. Nothing to see here...

~~~
cryodesign
He's offering people to report cases as described in the NYT article directly
to him, that's a good thing - unless of course he's just saying that for the
media.

What would be a better way to respond as a CEO? What would you have done?

~~~
msoad
First thing they should recognize they have an issue. When this many people
are complaining there is an issue

Second they could have offered an increase in benefits like paternity leave to
show they want to improve things.

He did neither of those

------
dunkelheit
What a PR nightmare for Amazon. One can only speculate about the damage done
to their ability to hire best candidates but considering that the CEO himself
responded it must be pretty substantial. Will it be enough to mitigate the
damage though?

~~~
joezydeco
There will be a slow trickle of AWS employees (working in a pretty isolated,
high-margin sector of AMZN) showing up on tech blogs saying "hmm, everything's
cool here, what's the problem?". It's already started on HN.

------
candeira
I've already read a couple of "the NYT storiy does not reflect my experience"
posts from engineers, both very senior (Tim Bray) and not so senior.

My take is that engineers (much in demand, can leave and pick up new work
anwhere in this sellers'market) are going to live in a different work culture
than anybody else (the general job market is still bearish, they can't
transfer any specialist skill so easily).

------
mark_integerdsv
>...still sounding exhilarated months later about providing “Frozen” dolls in
record time.

At the risk of a very lame pun, this leaves me cold.

Denigrating someone else's work isn't good reporting.

They may just be "Frozen dolls" but it's what Amazon does, they sell
everything to everyone.

Should an Amazon worker be more exhilarated by supplying much needed medical
supplies in record time? Perhaps, but in essence - the company's ideals should
(and clearly do) run through its entire business.

Working people to breaking point (which is what the article is about) can be
reported on without making a value judgement on what the company sells or how
important they think it is.

------
davidgerard
This has of course hit the mainstream press in turn. Amazon Chief Says
Employees Lacking Empathy Will Be Instantly Purged
[http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/amazon-
chief-...](http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/amazon-chief-says-
employees-lacking-empathy-will-be-instantly-purged)

------
sfjailbird
Amazon has appeared unsustainable for 20 years, both financially and in terms
of business practices. That might be Jeff Bezos' one key strength; how to make
people, both investors, partners and employees, tolerate endless amounts of
abuse.

------
javadi82
It would be great if LinkedIn also responds to the NYT article with data on
attrition rates at Amazon vis-a-vis other tech-companies. _That_ would be
irrefutable evidence.

------
ksec
This is not suppose to be a insult to people who work hard in Amazon, but I am
really interested to know,

Apart from AWS, ( technically a well defined and ran technology platform )
what exactly is Amazon doing to make it a sweat shop. If something similar
were to describe Apple or even Google / Tesla . Then i could understand as
they are constantly innovating, pushing hard at everything on a tight
deadline, while Amazon.........

~~~
confluence
Don't pay enough and a shit working environment.

The rest make larger gross margins, so they can afford not to treat their
employees like a massive cost center.

------
Vecrios
Sure, it might be the case that some employees are having the time of their
life and enjoying their jobs. However, all that talk about the sweatshop work
conditions of Amazon employees can't be all hearsay. To the very least, Jeff
should act and investigate the issue instead of completely refuting it.

IMO, investigating the issue and acting upon it is a better move for Amazon's
employees and PR.

------
niuzeta
I have been contacted by recruitment from Amazon and Friday's article got me
thinking.

This story is really pushing me to walk away from the process.

------
onedev
I guess he also doesn't recognize the industry-worst Maternity/Paternity leave
that their HR department has apparently had in place for years?

There were many truths in that NYT article (and probably also many stretchings
of the truth as well), but to try to sweep all of that aside seems extremely
disingenuous. What a nutcase this Bezos guy is.

------
beachstartup
i'm no expert in this manner, but jeff bezos strikes me as a classic
sociopath. that goofy smile, that deliberately saccharine and smarmy facade
that he constructs whenever he speaks in public... it all just seems so
ridiculous and fake. he doesn't seem like a normal person. to me he seems like
a prick trying to imitate what he thinks a nice person would act like.

and through my own professional experience, i know for a fact nobody with a
cutesy demeanor like that builds a company like amazon. i don't buy it for a
second. i don't buy this little emergency damage control email either.

also, just one little detail from the article that jumped out at me - any
company that specifically designs and defines a mechanism for anonymous
reporting (snitching) on your coworkers to your manager, knows how it will be
used - as a manipulative backstabbing tool. these people aren't naive, they're
professional assholes designing their own little lord of the flies workplace.

it's like someone took the gervais principle and optimized for it.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
A lot of CEOs are classic sociopaths. E.g. the following has been attributed
to Steven Anthony Ballmer:

    
    
       "Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy.
       I'm going to fucking bury that guy,
       I have done it before, and I will do it again.
       I'm going to fucking kill Google."
    

But that's bush league. I'm sure that many people would agree that Lawrence
Joseph Ellison would easily win any "sociopath contest".

~~~
puranjay
I struggled a lot with this in my business. I would look at and hear about
other successful businesses who were getting their employees to put in 18 hour
work days, assessing them on every single thing, and asking them to work on
vacations, birthdays, and other things.

I would feel like a failure because I couldn't push myself or my employees to
work that way. I wanted everyone to have a good time, to work, but also to
have fun with their work. It felt like I was doing something wrong.

Today, I've given up on that "18 hour workday" dream. I'm not built like that.
I don't care about maximizing efficiency or increasing profitability. I want
everyone to be happy, and I've realized that that's anti-thetical to the way
businesses usually work across the world.

I don't care. I'm happy. My workers are happy. The clients I have are
certainly happy. Others can work their 18 hour days and buy six figure cars
they can't drive. I'll stick to my 7-8 hours, read my favorite authors and
spend time with friends.

------
takee
Can we stop with the responses to the nyt article already? Boo hoo amazonians
are offended by that piece.

~~~
niuzeta
Jeff Bezos does not usually respond to this sort of article. It's quite new
and the Amazon-the-horrible-place-to-work theme has been growing for a number
of years(as I've been researching). I guess it's time to pop.

