
Amazon's Leadership Principles - spking
https://www.amazon.jobs/principles
======
kkelleey
The emphasis on "customer obsession" is clearly working, since it has topped
the polls for best corporate reputation two years in a row.
[http://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-tops-harris-poll-
corpora...](http://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-tops-harris-poll-corporate-
reputation-jeff-bezos-emails-kudos-congrats/)

I work for Amazon, and I personally am a huge fan of the "LPs" . I
consistently find myself mentally consulting them when I'm not sure what to do
in a particular situation. I also think it really helps to work in an
environment where everyone shares the same core values.

~~~
kpil
How could that be?

I stopped buying from Amazon after reading about how they treat their
warehouse employees.

To me, Amazon just represents monopolistic corporate greed, with no aspiration
of caring even just a little bit about anything else.

~~~
mabbo
I spent four years writing software for those warehouse associates. Spent a
lot of time inside those behemoth buildings, met a lot of good people and
worked pretty much every job for at least a few hours.

The thing to remember is that warehouse jobs suck everywhere. Amazon just
happens to be a large employer. And overall, if I had to work in a warehouse
I'd prefer to work in an Amazon one.

Now, if you want to hate on how Amazon treats human beings, go read up on the
delivery drivers. A year on developing that software led me to quit.

~~~
thesmallestcat
> The thing to remember is that warehouse jobs suck everywhere.

Keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep. I mean, sure, they're not
the most glamorous. But what sets Amazon apart is how, as with their other
operations, they've "streamlined" things, being "data-driven." By all accounts
I've read, in an Amazon warehouse you're truly a number, with metrics gathered
and ruthlessly analyzed. They've streamlined the recruiting/hiring process
too, so there's a line of people around the block waiting to take your job the
moment you slip up.

~~~
GCA10
I did some warehouse work as a teenager. I wasn't a number. I was fresh meat
in a violent, snide culture where there weren't any coherent processes or
data. I'm a tough bloke, so one-armed Wally and angry Floyd did not ruin my
summer. But if I were to go back into a warehouse again, I'd much rather have
metrics and a data-driven system of accountability that applies to everyone.
It beats an unstructured tyranny where overhead lighting is deliberately
broken so cruel stuff can happen in dark corners.

~~~
thesmallestcat
So you're saying the choices are postmodern dystopia, or being beaten by your
coworkers. Methinks there's some ground between.

~~~
adamsea
I'm pretty sure what he was trying to say is that, as bad as Amazon's
warehouses may be, his experience was worse, and, perhaps, that back in the
day, warehouses were worse.

What conclusion you or the OP choose to draw from that is a different
question.

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adtac
I interned there last year. They really want to get this point across. Like, I
had to sit through an entire day of orientation repeatedly telling me this in
different ways. We even had "fun" games to re-inforce the principles lol. I
was going to be there for a maximum of 2 months, but nope.

But hey, the tech was really cool. My team was amazing, we went on multiple
team outings during my short stay. Office hours were very relaxed - I came in
whenever I wanted and left the office when I liked. My manager gave me full
ownership of my task. I had all the resources in the company if I quickly
wanted to test something.

Just tone down on the principle force-feeding.

~~~
ethbro
_> We even had "fun" games to re-inforce the principles_

As an ex-consultant forced to go through corporate training at more clients
than I can count, I hope there's a special place in hell for anyone in HR who
creates/buys a game-based training product.

Why no, I do _not_ want to "drive a racecar down HIPAA Highway" to remind me
what an unauthorized disclosure is.

~~~
krapp
Somewhere in the bowels of Amazon's intranet I came across some HR training
games and tried to find out who made them, and with what. It seems like an odd
genre. I wound up on a mailing list but still haven't found anything out.

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brut
So how much do they pay for this kind of job? And how much latitude are you
given as a "leader"? Is it all talk or are they serious about this? I don't
really care if I can buy a private jet but I will put in a lot of hours if
that means I get to live a life never caring about money (> 200k a year).

I've seen this said before in other companies ("we want leaders") but when
it's time to put some resources into X or Y project, things slow down really
fast...

~~~
greyskull
Amazon tries to push Leadership Principles into every part of at least their
corporate world. It's supposed to drive decision making for basically
everyone, brand new engineers on up (I don't know if they push them lower down
the stack). What I'm getting at is it's not solely for "leaders" as in high
level folks.

> live a life never caring about money (> 200k a year)

I'm in my 3rd year as an engineer here (and of my career). Their target for me
is 175k as a new SDE II, but I'm already well above that considering AMZN
growth. If we're talking calendar year, as long as AMZN doesn't take a dive,
next year I'm easily hitting 200k (yes, I realize how crappy the reliance on
RSUs is). I'll probably hit 200k as an actual target next year. So, your
number isn't difficult to reach, which is both great and ridiculous.

~~~
brut
Thanks for the data point. I'm looking at openings in Canada and the only
numbers I've found during a cursory search were 'Salary Range: $80,000 to
$140,000/yr, commensurate with experience' for a 'Research Scientist II'
position.

~~~
camtarn
Pay varies a lot depending on the location, as well. It's meant to be
competitive with local industry rates.

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Bahamut
Some of these are contradictory - in addition, some of these aren't really
even leadership principles of much merit outside the company they're created
for.

Here is an example of a proven set of leadership principles that is a
worthwhile read:
[http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/leadership.htm](http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/leadership.htm)
. Someone who can embody all of these principles that the Marine Corps
espouses is someone I can respect immensely regardless of profession.

~~~
StreamBright
>> Ensure the task is understood, supervised, and accomplished

This might be a good idea for running a military unit but fails miserably in
IT. As a leader I hardly ever supervise my engineers, they have to understand
the tasks and only come to me if there something that they do not understand.
Giving them as much freedom as possible is one reason they like to work with
us, feedback we got from 90% of them. Sometimes if the task is impossible to
be done we expect them to come back, explain why and also provide an
alternative. This happens a lot too.

~~~
pythonaut_16
Supervision doesn't always mean micromanaging or looking over their shoulders.
You have to adjust your supervision strategies to the task and environment.

>> 9\. Exercise care and thought in supervision. Over supervision hurts
initiative and creates resentment; under supervision will not get the job
done.

You might give your engineers a lot of freedom but at the end of the day you
know what they're working on and you see their outputs.

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Nikhil_teja
While working at Amazon, these 14 principles had become a part of my
vocabulary :p Had to use them in Documents, self reviews etc.

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rodionos
This isn't a jibe at Amazon, but I wouldn't call it Principles. Principles is
something you adhere to when there's no financial gain involved. When defense
contractors use the terms Values, Excellence, Honesty etc - it just undermines
the effort.

There should be a better word to describe this, perhaps Weights and
Constraints when making decisions at Amazon. It's difficult to come up with
something as good as Azimov's laws but for humans.

~~~
golergka
I don't quite understand - what is it about financial gain that makes it
incompatible with principles?

~~~
rodionos
Principles is something that you keep regardless if there is money on the
table. If money plays any role in the decision process - it's called a
contract.

~~~
ckozlowski
I think a bit of that still holds true. Jeff has said repeatedly (most
famously in the 1997 shareholder letter) that we will sacrifice short-term
profits for long-term gain. And with that there's been many instance in just
the time I've been here where we're practically begging the customer to do
things that will save them money because it's the right thing to do. It builds
trust.

Of course we think we're earn more money over the long run doing things this
way. This is, after all, a business. But it's been a refreshing change of pace
in that I don't hear any worry about that long term. It has always been, even
in sales, "customer obsession", help them thrive. If we focus on our
principles and adhere to that, then the business will grow itself.

(Disclaimer: I work for AWS.)

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bertlequant
I know a lot of companies have ancronyms, bullet points, or a list of company
culture principals. What's everyone's reaction to all of this? Do you take it
seriously? Pretend to? Roll your eyes? Find value in them?

~~~
Twirrim
It's taken very seriously and used a lot internally. I've worked elsewhere
with those silly acronyms and the like. I've never worked anywhere before that
practiced what it preached. It was good to see.

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mataug
I'm not really sure why Amazon's leadership principles are on the first page,
but since we're talking about Amazon, Here's a video with RBC Capital's
managing director Mark Mahaney talking about why amazon could be the first
trillion dollar business.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8id_1gxOXc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8id_1gxOXc)

~~~
Lammy
They were mentioned in the popular article today about Travis Kalanick:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14178397](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14178397)

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Kurtz79
"[Leaders] Are Right, A Lot"

How is this even a principle ?

Just "be right", a lot ?

~~~
Denki86
"They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs."

~~~
Kurtz79
Which is very sensible, but then the principle would be "[Our leaders] Do not
assume they are always right".

~~~
andrewguenther
The wording of this principle is probably the one that gets talked about the
most internally. People always bring up changing it, but when they rolled out
a new revision of the principles two years ago or so, this one stayed the
same. It's a shame, because once properly explained it's probably one of my
favorite principles.

~~~
dap
It's not the only one, though. The last four are either commands ("Dive Deep")
or a completion of a sentence starting with "Leaders" (e.g., "Leaders dive
deep"). But "Frugality" and "Bias for Action" are just properties of good
leaders. The tenses (or parts-of-sentence) are all different.

------
antowa
I would say it is such a misleading principles. Don't believe it. The actual
'core' meaning of the principles is: work for Amazon without any complaint. It
turns developers in Amazon out to be ruled by the higher leaders. Very
capitalism.

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yoandy
I find a lot of arrogance in this Principles, at some point of view it is even
evil. Have anybody knows of another company that throws their leadership
principles to your face?

~~~
andrewguenther
What about them do you find evil?

~~~
yoandy
Because in general the principles are centered in make a more profitable
enterprise while not taking care of many important human values. I don't think
raising the bar is more important than having a team in harmony where
everybody cares about everybody while at the same time is highly motivated for
the project success.

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yogrish
I feel this article from Ali Rowghani sums up Core Leadership principles.
[https://blog.ycombinator.com/how-do-you-measure-
leadership/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/how-do-you-measure-leadership/)

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blazespin
I take Reed Hasting and Netflix a lot more seriously and their principles.
They pay for performance. Amazon just grinds through as many people with low
self esteem as possible and pays a poor salary.

~~~
andrewguenther
Sorry, but this is bullshit, the pay is great (and based on performance) and
self esteem isn't a problem.

~~~
blazespin
Not from my experience and not from what I've seen on glassdoor. Can you cite?
I found amazon engineers universally having low self esteem. Which makes
sense, why w ould you want to work for a company that treats you so poorly?

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TheGRS
Do these leadership or company principles ever truly have any effect on
employees or products? I've seen them thrown around at my company on a few
occasions, but they never feel like they drive much beyond trying to be one of
those gaudy motivational posters.

~~~
somethingsimple
At Amazon they are like a religion. I don't know if every group is like that,
but someone very close to me works there and they tell me those leadership
principles are a part of daily work and are explicitly mentioned in day-to-day
activities. Amazon's leadership principles are also used during performance
reviews, and to evaluate candidates in interviews.

~~~
StreamBright
That applies to Google more. Amazon folks tend to understand that it is just a
job and do not spend most of their life on campus. There is definitely pride
attached to working for Amazon but there are very few people sticking to
working there over 5 years (not unheard of though).

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neocodesoftware
am amzn shopper. for a data driven company these 10 commandments are a priori?
are the results of decades clinical research? is there an extensive
bibliogrpahy? peer review? or is this newspeak? can't amzn do better? a ted
talk has more data. thats my backbone. i disagree and i am committed to
emoticons. :)

~~~
aanm1988
They slap "unless you know better ones" on everything, so if you have go ahead
and bring it up.

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NumberCruncher
[http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-05-23](http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-05-23)

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6stringmerc
Leaders are willing to take a 100x salary compared to their line employees
because they know they can hustle hard enough to live up to the expectations.

I'm very excited to see the helmet cam video of Jeff Bezos serving a customary
8-10-12-14 hour shift at the Dallas Amazon Fulfillment Center and walk out
with a smile. Can you do what you ask of others? That's leadership.

No, really. Principles not tested in the fire mean nothing (i.e. "The Man Who
Corrupted Hadleyburg"). I know how much grinding I put in and I'd be happy to
strap a Fitbit to Bezos and run a day shift side by side.

Dogfooding is a principle I'll never abandon.

~~~
knucklesandwich
> Leaders are willing to take a 100x salary compared to their line employees
> because they know they can hustle hard enough to live up to the
> expectations.

> I'm very excited to see the helmet cam video of Jeff Bezos serving a
> customary 8-10-12-14 hour shift at the Dallas Amazon Fulfillment Center and
> walk out with a smile. Can you do what you ask of others? That's leadership.

Sometimes I just have to sit and marvel at how many layers of ideology some of
you folks are on.

~~~
khazhou
Please explain.

~~~
knucklesandwich
Looking at his comment history I'm started to think I misread irony for
sincerity, but its still not clear to me where that's delimited.

The 100x line sounds like the kind of deluded optimism about meritocracy you
hear from a lot of people in tech, and the line about "dogfooding" is like a
startup school trope that is kind of beside the point when you're talking
about basic human decency towards your workers. You shouldn't have to "test"
the ethicality of overworking your employees or paying yourself a huge amount
of money while your worker' wages stagnate. Then again, I'm a socialist and
find the entire idea of these companies to be ethically compromised because
they aren't worker coops.

~~~
otalp
He was clearly being sarcastic, I don't know how you can think that he was
serious.

~~~
knucklesandwich
lol thanks for popping in. It sounded like he was being derisive, but not
sarcastic. Sounded like he was legitemately trying to level a critique about
Bezos not dogfooding, in other words (instead the fact that he's a garbage
human being). Fair enough if I'm wrong, but the same kind of shit has and will
continue to be said here in complete sincerity.

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nandemo
_Those are my principles. If you don 't like them I have others._ \-- Grouch
Marx

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wired8
Isn't Silicon Valley on tonight?

