
AWS Ruins Own Attempt at Sabotage - mooreds
https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/aws-ruins-own-attempt-at-sabotage/
======
techsupporter
The reference to Hall’s annual salary being “in excess” of $100k is in
response to a modification of law passed recently, and addressed in the linked
Geekwire article:

> A new law passed by Washington state last year put restrictions on non-
> compete agreements, with a series of exceptions, including a provision that
> allows such agreements to be enforced in cases when an employee earns more
> than $100,000 a year. Hall earned “well in excess” of that amount in 2019,
> and was projected to surpass that in his 2020 compensation, as well, Amazon
> says in its suit.

> The suit shows that the legislation “has done nothing to stop this abusive
> labor practice by the state’s most influential employers,” said angel
> investor Chris DeVore, managing partner of Founders’ Co-op and the former
> managing director of Techstars Seattle, who has been outspoken against non-
> compete clauses.

Amazon lobbied heavily for that carve-out specifically because it wants to
hang non-competes over its employees’ heads.

(The law was passed in response to some fast food franchisees hanging non-
competes on their hourly employees but, in its original form, would have
barred almost all of them. Obviously Amazon could not stand for that so bought
itself an exemption.)

~~~
ex3ndr
How on the earth such lobbism is legal?

~~~
skrebbel
Personally I think the more interesting question is "where on earth is such
lobbyism legal".

Clearly in the US. I have the idea that in at least some European countries,
it's less prevalent and definitely less public / blatant. Not entirely sure
though, eg we Dutch like to think our country isn't very corrupt but somehow
we just don't seem to notice when our ex ministers get cushy jobs at the
bigcos they helped to deregulate.

I think the US is kind of unique in how obscenely public the corruption is.
Elected judges who fund their campaings with money from companies they help
win trials, super PACs, the list seems endless. No wonder y'all are
libertarians.

~~~
tracker1
I was definitely much more communist/socialist leaning when I was younger. The
more I experienced how corrupt government systems can get, the more
libertarian I became... been registered LP for a long while now.

I now believe that the best way to reduce government corruption is to reduce
government. I also feel that government support for corporations should also
be limited, and corporations should be carved out as a "non-living entity"
class separate from personhood.

I'm more pragmatic that the more an-cap side of things, I feel that the
government should at least orchestrate essential infrastructure, and that
should include internet, telecom and roads/highways. Most of that PoV is
rooted in domestic security.

~~~
sgt101
what's your view on healthcare? I feel it's essential infrastructure - but is
that your sense?

~~~
tracker1
Pragmatically speaking I have a few thoughts that would generally improve
things without raising spending, and decreasing government red tape...

1\. I would like to see the spending the government currently does regarding
healthcare (govt employees, elected officials, medicare, medicaid, va, etc)
rolled into a non-profit healthcare corporation. It's important to include the
government officials and staffing here, as they get the same as everyone else
to discourage tiered services.

2\. From there, I would make it a requirement that Insurance Corporations act
and negotiate as a fiduciary on behalf of their clients. One of the serious
lapses in the Obamacare legislation that has let insurance companies largely
not try to negotiate prices down in order to raise the oceans in terms of
costs/profits.

3\. I would seriously reform/eliminate extension patents. (competition)

4\. I would make dual-sourcing a licensing requirement from the FDA. (security
+ competition)

5\. I would make 50% US production for all medications a requirement for FDA
approved use (security).

6\. Any company can purchase coverage policies from the Non-profit insurance
corp that covers govt employees and current welfare coverage programs.

7\. Require no more than a 20% pricing variance between customers in a 15
month window for a given procedure by a medical provider. (no dual-books for
insurance covered and private pay)

While there are other steps that can be done... part of it is to merge and
adjust spending directly based on current spending, but having a non-profit
corp that also covers govt employees is a baseline. By breaking it off, you
can allow for a stronger level of competition of services.

Reducing patent protections, and making dual sourcing and partial domestic
production requirements you again encourage competition. The requirement for
dual-sourcing is partly security and partly to ensure competition.

Now, this is emphatically not a Libertarian ideal, and would not cover
everyone, but what it would do is expand competition and reduce incentives for
poor behavior. It should have the side effect of lowered costs over time. From
there, individual states could create their own expansions or services beyond
this, as could specific cities.

Over time, I'd prefer to see the FDA shrunk and sane guidelines in their
place... Allowing for input based on relatively trusted testing to
allow/disallow certain medications and reduce the incentives to produce less-
good drugs only to expand patent exclusivity.

~~~
tracker1
NOTE: I've posted this list multiple times and written all the congress-
critters, but never really receive much if any response. They're specifically
incentivized by one of the largest contributing blocks to political
campaigns...

It would take a groundswell of support for such actions.

------
raiyu
I think saying that marketing isn't AWS's strength misses the point. As the VP
of product marketing he most likely had access to revenue by porduct line. As
a result he would know which segments of the product suite are growing
quickly, showing promise, and which others have missed the mark.

That information is extremely valuable to a competitor that is trying to catch
up to AWS'. This information can also be passed along verbally and be 99% as a
effective as having an up to date detailed revenue breakout spreadsheet.

So in this case he is taking some "secret sauce", which can be disclosed
without ever being able to prove that it was.

Imposing an 18 month window where that person can't work at a direct
competitor is sufficient enough to make that information somewhat stale and no
longer as effective.

I'm personally against non-competes, but I did want to point out that there is
cause for concern here. Also, as the VP of product marketing, he could have
gone on to any job he wanted in any other cloud provider that wasn't a direct
competitor, such as say Slack, Twilio, Box, Dropbox, I mean the list is pretty
long. So it's not like his hands were tied in the job market. And certainly he
signed the agreement originally, and should have modified it before hand if he
was concerned. So it is possible that his boss at AWS is a bit irritated that
he did not live up to the agreement that was signed. And as a VP you can't
really claim that you "didn't know" about the non-compete since you will be
doing a lot of hiring and imposing that very same clause on all of your hires.

~~~
skywhopper
That line of argument is mostly a joke based on Corey's history of griping
about AWS's terrible marketing.

The key argument to that point is made later in the piece. The boss of the
person who's now being sued _also_ left Amazon for Google recently, _also_ for
a similar position. He _also_ had all of that same knowledge. But he was based
in California, so Amazon couldn't sue him. But if this is really such a
critical factor worth suing over, why would Amazon allow someone in that
position to be based in California at all?

Also, to say that Slack, Twilio, and Dropbox aren't direct competitors is
absolutely wrong. The way the non-compete is written, Amazon could sue over
him going to almost any other company, because Amazon competes with literally
everyone these days.

In any case, given that his hiring boss told him it was not a big deal, and
given that HR knew where he was going and didn't warn him off, your
suggestions that he "should have known" ring hollow.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
Yes, the key point is AWS actually tries to enforce these non-competes. If you
are past a beginning engineer you'll be in terror of amazon suing you if you
leave. All my friends (who are experienced) have lived in worry after they
left. Noncompetes are a terrible, horrible idea.

The Washington state legislature considered legislation blocking them. They
got noncompetes removed for sandwich makers (companies literally made people
making minimum wage sign non-competes!), I think the threshold was 100k or
something. But amazon pushed very hard. Tell your wa state leg rep that you
want to end noncompetes.

~~~
kmonsen
Unless you live and work in California. Many think this is the main reason
Silicon Valley exists.

------
StavrosK
> Second, what Brian was reportedly told when accepting the job by Ariel
> Kelman (at the time, AWS’s VP of Global Marketing) was to the effect of “oh,
> don’t worry; AWS has never enforced that non-compete clause against someone
> at your level/in your role/in this department.”

My standard response to this is "great, then you won't mind if I strike it
from the contract".

EDIT: Reading on, I agree with the article: This "oh don't worry" is standard
to get you to sign, so act like they _will definitely enforce this in your
case_ and plan accordingly.

------
tasssko
> They’re never nicer to you then when they’re trying to hire you. If they
> mock your concerns about the non-compete? RUN.

This is so true, I hope if you take anything out of this its that during the
initial negotiating stages is really the only time you have any authority to
negotiate. It is expensive for a company to adjust contracts to you however
it's also expensive for you to defend yourself against them so don't be shy
and when negotiating and everything has a value. So, for example, you could
say the non-compete clause is inconvenient and restrictive as a result, you
want an extra $20,000/ year (i.e if you get 3-4 years that is 60k) to cover
potentially being unemployable for 18 months. Apply a monetary value to all of
these irritating inconveniences. You only live once no point being enslaved by
a contract.

~~~
willcipriano
Years ago I took a job that was headquartered outside of my state. Did a phone
interview or two and then got a offer letter by email that I accepted. A
couple of weeks later they flew me out to the HQ for my first day paperwork
and to meet everyone. When I arrived they had a number of contracts that I had
to sign as a condition of employment, I was in a position to agree with them
but made a mental note that in future I should get a copy of any contracts
that I am going to be required to sign on the first day before accepting a
offer. It would be terrible to give notice at a job and then on the first day
at the new role be given a contract that you have concerns about.

I ask "Before I accept a offer of employment, would it be possible to see any
contracts, employee handbooks, etc I would have to sign on my first day?" and
you would not believe the push back I get from that question. I often hear "We
don't share our employee handbook" or things to that effect. I explain that it
is impossible to evaluate a offer that has terms I can't see and often the
interviewer shrugs their shoulders and tells me that's just how it is.

I guess it works to weed out the jobs with bad terms. However I have a hard
time seeing how any of this is enforceable from a legal perspective.

~~~
realityking
This is an interesting dynamic that I only learned about when my current
company expanded to the US.

Here in Germany you generally sign a contract. The contract for a full time
job covers a lot of ground, I think mine is about 12 pages long. Some
highlights of the top of my head: \- my title \- my salary \- my location of
employment (can‘t change that without a new contract/my consent) \- IP
assignment (I negotiated different terms) \- non-compete during employment (I
don‘t have a post contractual non-compete but it would have to be covered here
as well) \- vacation \- my willingness to travel

What‘s not covered: \- discretionary benefits \- anti-herassment policy \- the
right to use my image (this is an optional thing I signed later)

First thing I did after I got the contract was the call up a lawyer focused on
employment law and have him review it for me so I know what footguns to press
back on. Fairly easy and no bad surprises.

~~~
tasssko
Yes, in the UK we have a similar "baseline" contract and there is such a thing
as an unenforceable contract due to stricter labour laws and the potential for
a contract to be unenforceable due to this.

------
brodouevencode
NCs are hard, and to Corey's point it's not like an employee can leave and go
to any industry while fully utilizing their skillset. I'm sure Brian could go
into something completely not related and do well, but would still not do as
well as he could if he had stayed in the same field. Agree mostly with Corey
on this one (trust me, agreements are rare), but as always he ends the post
with

> If you think I’ve gotten it wrong, okay: make your case on Twitter!

Absolutely NOT. Twitter is a cesspool where the Twitter mob will attack any
well-meaning and well-intentioned argument and is the last place anyone should
use for any meaningful discourse of any kind. Twitter has been around for how
many years? What problems has it really solved other than giving morons a
platform to announce their superiority.

~~~
QuinnyPig
Author here. I agree; the trouble is "sound off on a random HackerNews thread
that may or may not even be created in the first place" is a bit more hit-or-
miss.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
I have seen blogs where the author will submit their own post to HN, and then
put a link to that at the bottom of the post, thereby using HN as a comment
section.

------
hitpointdrew
>Brian is taking the exact same job at Google! This is what non-competes are
for!

No, that was never the initial intention of non-competes. There is only one
situation where non-competes make any amount of sense at all. No one should
ever sign a non-compete except for the following situation, you are selling a
BUSINESS to someone else. That's it. There is no good reason outside of that
to ever sign a non-compete. It is reasonable when buying a business to want
some insurance that the seller won't turn around and open a competing business
across town and steal all their old customers. It is NOT reasonable to say,
"Hey, we want you to work for us. But if things turn south you aren't allowed
to work anywhere else in your field."

~~~
hodgesrm
The California non-compete law has a carve-out for exactly this case. I signed
one of these after selling a company in California in 2014. It was pretty
reasonable--restriction from doing something substantially similar to the
business for 3 years or for one year after leaving employment at the buyer.

------
derefr
> I mean, think about it: What’s the secret sauce he’s going to take with him?
> “Release a bunch of things with terrible names then market them incredibly
> poorly to infrastructure engineers?”

Presumably, in the same vein that salespeople bring a “Rolodex” (i.e. a set of
established personal relationships with clients) with them when they switch
companies, wouldn’t a marketer bring along with them a Rolodex of channel
partners, advertising-agency higher-ups, etc.?

~~~
blakesterz
That "secret sauce" line really made me laugh. The other great one was:

"It’s only for 18 months! That’s a long time in cloud. GCP may well be
deprecated before then!"

This was way more interesting & entertaining that I thought it would be!

~~~
otoburb
>> _This was way more interesting & entertaining that I thought it would be!_

I don't know Corey Quinn personally, but if you peruse the rest of the blog
entries you'll see that all of his posts are entertaining. He has a flair for
this particular style.

------
URSpider94
If this guy has any sense, he disclosed the existence of the non-compete to
Google in the hiring discussion and made them agree to indemnify him in the
event of a suit. There will be a settlement, and Google will end up parking
him somewhere for 18 months, with pay, until he is free of the contract.

None of this excuses this practice.

~~~
dannyw
Maybe, maybe not. Google lawyers did not respond to the lawsuit on his behalf;
an independent law firm did.

~~~
henryfjordan
Googles lawyers would always use an outside firm. Corporate in-house counsel
are for creating corporate legal policy and coordinating with other lawyers
for the actual lawsuits. They rarely litigate themselves.

------
oger
Oh well - the damage is already done. To AWS. Not because Corey may know some
stuff, but because any new recruit will scrutinize their employment offers
from AWS for the non-compete clause and - given this precedent - deny it. It
will certainly become more difficult for AWS / Amazon to hire true talent,
especially from competitors. And I would be surprised if any industry insider
would not have a clear perspective on what is going on at his competitors. Job
postings, talks with salespeople from suppliers, local newspapers, discussions
with industry analysts — the whole stuff a proper marketeer will do to be good
at his role. And: Google will (as AWS) have a development roadmap that is
probably well planned for the next 12-18 months. IMHO Corey would not be able
to change the course of GCP and their marketing is certainly better than AWS.
And don‘t even get me started on the different target audiences of both
platforms... So in short: AWS made a big mistake but Corey will have to pay
the lawyers.

~~~
jschwartzi
I don't think Amazon cares about getting "true talent." They seem to want to
hire cogs in a great code making machine. The new graduates that grease the
gears certainly aren't savvy enough to know why a non-compete is bad.

~~~
ketzo
Yeah, but at some point, upper-level talent and management are important in an
increasingly competitive market, particularly if they keep leaving to your
direct competition.

 _Particularly_ in areas in which AWS is already weak -- like, as mentioned in
the article, marketing.

------
1cvmask
I can’t but agree with the hilarious sentiment of the author. Marketing is not
the forte of AWS (or Google). Their strength is their APIs and continuous
unrelenting investment in their infrastructure.

I would poach someone from say Apple than AWS for marketing purposes.

~~~
rjkennedy98
I have no idea where most of you guys work, but to claim that Google and AWS
have bad marketing seems to me to be totally insane.

I've been at a company with bad marketing. Even though we were a unicorn with
10s of millions in revenue including almost of financial services, insurance,
and publishing companies as clients, basically no one knew who we were or what
we did. Our sales people would have to invest months and months of effort to
sell. We struggled to gain any developer community support at all.

On the other hand I've had AWS consultants tell me that they walk into
meetings without having to sell at all. Their clients are already eager to
leverage AWS in any way they can. Nor do they have the slightest fear of
putting mission critical and sensitive data in the cloud.

If that isn't marketing I have no idea what is.

~~~
outworlder
> Nor do they have the slightest fear of putting mission critical and
> sensitive data in the cloud.

To be fair, it makes more sense for many companies to leverage AWS and other
cloud providers, other than trying to do a job they do not understand and may
not understand enough even to hire for it.

------
NotSammyHagar
Don't work at amazon, because of non-competes. These almost always getting
dismissed - they are only to intimidate employees from leaving. There are
other reasons to work or not-work at a company, but this one is pretty clear,
amazon uses them for intimidation. In Wa state, google, microsoft, facebook
etc hasn't enforced them in my experience at all like amazon.

------
heipei
Fun fact: Non-competes in Germany are legal only for up to two years and only
if the previous company pays at least 50% of the previous salary for the
duration of the non-compete.

~~~
machbio
What happens in cases like AWS where the Base salary is 170k and Bonus is in
Millions of dollars - will the previous company only pay 85k and get away with
it ?

~~~
alwayseasy
Base salary is the basis unless the bonus is regular and even. At that point
they can consider the argument of using base+bonus as the "normal pay".

------
eitland
> I’ve seen some objections to my position in the past couple of days; allow
> me to turn them into strawmen and summarily dismiss them:

I find this post really funny.

On a more serious note: I often see people here not catching sarcasm. If this
is you, be warned that this post is full of sarcasm and irony.

~~~
QuinnyPig
Sarcasm is really my first language. There are dozens of us!

------
konaraddi
> I’d be in favor of a model wherein if AWS chose to enforce the non-compete,
> they’d be required to pay the former employee their full compensation for
> the duration of the restriction. That’s how it works in Europe, for
> instance.

This seems fair

~~~
fgonzag
And at the new company's salary too. If a company truly believes they need to
stop someone from working, then they should be willing to pay dearly for it.

------
throwawaygh
A VP at Amazon is likely making seven figures, has a hand in directing
decisions about high-level strategy, and has access to highly sensitive
revenue data. If all of that is the case here, then I actually think a non-
compete is reasonable.

That said, non-competes without 100% garden pay during the term should be
unenforceable. Also, trying to enforce a blatantly unenforcable non-competes
should have criminal penalties.

~~~
saagarjha
Sounds like you think NDAs are the way to go, then?

~~~
throwawaygh
No, I'm actually okay with non-competes. But they should be illegal if they
don't come with >100% total comp garden pay for the term of the non-compete.

Also, attempting to enforce a blatantly unenforcable non-compete should result
in criminal charges for whoever made the decision to push enforcement,
disbarment for their legal team, and substantial civil liability. The bar for
that should be very high, but the choice to enforce a non-compete should be
one that's only made when the legal team is _damn sure_ there's a compelling
argument that the non-compete is legally enforceable. Too many people are
handcuffed by definitely-garbage non-competes because they can't afford the
legal fight.

With >100% garden pay terms, I would personally prefer limited/short term non-
competes over infinite/long term NDAs, for example. I've explicitly made that
choice in the past.

------
znpy
When thinking about non-compete agreements imagine the same happening to
football/baseball/basketball players.

Would that make senses? Of course not.

~~~
diegoholiveira
What a player can offer to another team besides his own talent?

~~~
jfk13
Details of the former team's planned tactics, maybe?

~~~
diegoholiveira
It could be, but sports tactics change so quickly that I don't think it's
useful.

------
_bxg1
Serious question: why does anyone work for Amazon?

Everything I've heard is that it's a toxic work environment, with below-
average pay and draconian employee agreements. And that's not even getting
into the ethical issues. What in the world makes someone take a job there
instead of pretty much any other tech company?

~~~
symlinkk
You’re in a FAANG bubble if you think Amazon doesn’t pay well.

~~~
_bxg1
Every tech job pays well compared to most of the economy. But the OP described
Amazon's salaries as "frugal", in that context. My point is just that I don't
see any shining positive that makes all the downsides worth it.

~~~
marcinzm
Amazon will pay more than anyone outside of other large established tech
companies. Historically, accounting for stock increases, someone who has spent
4 years at amazon will probably have matched other large tech companies.

~~~
joshuamorton
I don't think that's true.

When I started working, Amazon stock was at ~$750 a share. When I started
working, Google stock was at about the same. Google would have granted
100-120K in stock, Amazon closer to 50K. Google gives annual refreshes of
~50K, while Amazon would not until the initial grant is mostly vested. So at
the end of this year, when both vests would be coming to a close, a Googler
who kept all their stock would have 160 shares from their initial grant, as
well as 25-40 additional shares from their refresh grants.

So that's ~180K in AMZN at today's prices vs. 230K in GOOG, plus another
40-60K in refresh grants. And the Google employee has a better salary and
bonus structure. Facebook is equivalent or superior to Google in pretty much
every aspect of this comparison (base pay, bonus, equity grant, equity growth,
equity refresh).

------
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23461326](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23461326)
is large, recent, and related.

------
klgjlads
“In 2019, Hall earned well in excess of one hundred thousand dollars per year,
annualized.”

This was shocking to me - I'd expect a VP to be making _much_ more, but if
they were, then you'd expect it to be included in the complaint. Is Amazon's
comp really this low? Or is "VP of Product Marketing" similar to "VP" at an
investment bank (lower rung of middle management, rather than an exec title)?
Something else?

~~~
senderista
Amazon salaries are capped at $160K for everyone. Obviously his total comp
(with RSUs) would have been much higher. I don’t know whether the law takes
total comp into account.

~~~
viejoqueso
Incorrect. The cap changes based on the state the employee resides and their
specific tax laws.

------
YetAnotherMatt
>>As mentioned previously, I’d be in favor of a model wherein if AWS chose to
enforce the non-compete, they’d be required to pay the former employee their
full compensation for the duration of the restriction. That’s how it works in
Europe, for instance.

Not true in The Netherlands.

------
LatteLazy
This article just seems to be a guys making snide comments about AWS, a
company he already decided to hate. I'm not defending NCs. I just find it
really off putting the author needs to make believe there is a plot here and
amazon can't even plot right. Sounds to me like he didn't do his homework and
produce the article he promised and instead pooped out this filler crap...

~~~
claudiulodro
He's a partner at a pretty reputable AWS consulting company. I think he knows
a thing or two about AWS and probably likes it OK.

~~~
LatteLazy
The article gives the impression he hates the place. Again, maybe that’s
justified. I’m happy to admit he’d know them better than me. But why write an
article about how much you hate AWS and pretend it’s “breaking news”?

~~~
QuinnyPig
Author here. A fair question!

I do like AWS--a lot. I snark, but that's my personality. If I genuinely hated
them, this level of focus on their business would be something pathological.

AWS hires amazing people, and build incredible things. I'm a customer, and a
happy one. Actions like this demonstrate a base level of being unworthy of
those amazing people that they've hired, and get my hackles up something
fierce. It's one of the few ways in which AWS unequivocally Is Wrong, A Lot.

~~~
LatteLazy
Thanks for replying here and sorry for being rude above.

I guess I missed the subtlety in the article :)

Mind is I ask: are all large corps in this space the same or are Amazon
particularly bad? It seems to me that get a bad wrap in retail more because
they have no PR than because they do things more harshly than other
retailers...

------
LatteLazy
Did the new company require a non-compete?

