
Darwin regarded sympathy as the most important human adaptation - Hayekit
http://evonomics.com/jeff-bezos-got-darwinism-all-wrong/
======
GabrielF00
Did Bezos ever actually compare Amazon's work culture to Darwinism? The Times
article quotes a former HR executive as saying that, not Bezos.

I've often seen newspaper articles that report XYZ, and then follow-up
articles that comment on or extrapolate from XYZ without ever considering
whether the original journalist got it right. I think that's what's happening
here. The Times says that a former Amazon HR executive compares the company's
work culture to Darwinism, and the author of this piece assumes that because
the HR executive used that phrase, Bezos himself 'equate[s] “Darwinism” with
“ruthless competition”' and then argues that Bezos is wrong. But the
commentator has not considered whether his original assumption about Bezos'
beliefs reflects reality.

~~~
burnte
I think that, while it's important not to put words in Bezos' mouth, altering
that line in the article doesn't hurt the overall message, which is Bezos
prefers harsh competition in the workplace, and that's counterproductive.

~~~
seiji
High performing people often prefer environments with high stakes and high
risk/reward. Being harsh is awful for people who can't stand it, but
empowering for those who thrive that way.

~~~
aswanson
Enjoying harshness for it's own sake is masochistic stupidity. What's the
upside for the amazon opportunity? As far as I can read from what's reported,
below market compensation for the reward of watching your fucking back every
microsecond and possibility of...? Where do I sign up to get books and
trinkets delivered to your door a day faster? Beats the shit, mission wise,
out of trying to cure cancer...

~~~
seiji
_What 's the upside for the amazon opportunity?_

Jobs at public tech companies also come with large stock packages that become
usable after just a few short years.

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Hayekit
True. But there are a lot of reports from Amazon employees that they have a
policy of culling the herd. Even Nick Hanauer, an original investor of Amazon,
tells us that Bezos is pretty ruthless
[https://youtu.be/uIGeKMU9izo?t=10m56s](https://youtu.be/uIGeKMU9izo?t=10m56s)

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lambdapie
Can someone qualified comment on whether group selection is taken seriously
among biologists now? I haven't followed the debate much but Dawkins at least
has argued that group selection acts too slowly compared to individual
selection to be an important force in evolution.

In either case I don't think it has much bearing on Amazon. In both cases
evolution is just a metaphor/scienciness.

~~~
a_bonobo
Dawkins introduced selection on the individual level in The Selfish Gene
(great book, before he became all ranty and weird). This has pretty much
killed group selection, but EO Wilson is still clinging on. I think his latest
book was a bit too much cherry-picking in defense of group selection for some
people.

A few years back Steven Pinker wrote a thing about the "false allure" of group
selection based on muddy definitions:
[http://edge.org/conversation/steven_pinker-the-false-
allure-...](http://edge.org/conversation/steven_pinker-the-false-allure-of-
group-selection)

Jerry Coyne summarised the debate in NYRB:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/books/review/the-
neighborh...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/books/review/the-neighborhood-
project-by-david-sloan-wilson-book-review.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all)

------
dang
Whether or not the title is false, it's certainly clickbait, so we changed it
to a representative sentence from the article, in accordance with the HN
guidelines.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
Hayekit
It's a great idea to regulate click-bait. I wonder if others find it to be
click-bait though. The title represents the gist of the article. Click-bait
would be a title far removed from the actual arguments or content in the
article, IMO.

~~~
dang
It's clickbait because it uses a celebrity name to grab attention. The article
contains zero factual content about Bezos.

"X got Y all wrong!" is also an intrinsically baity construct.

If you don't think the title we gave it is representative, we're always open
to better ones.

~~~
Hayekit
Fair point. I don't know what would be a better title. How about "Does Amazon
act too Darwinian in the workplace"....?

