> it turns off the better class of potential hires
Definitely. Hearing such stories, even if Amazon came calling tomorrow to recruit me, I'd stay away. No one wants their former employer holding a veto over future employment.
I was offered a DevOps gig in Amazon's AI division several months ago, and asked their recruiter to never call me again (workplace treatment anecdotes, draconian employment contract requirements, etc).
I only get emails sometimes, but I end up ignoring them all because when I think about composing a reply that sums up to "bug off" I can't decide whether it'd be more effective to send all my complaints or cite just one of no free snacks, no personal side projects including games, no normal 40 hour weeks, presence of stack ranking, aggressive non-compete, or now being (at least internally) worse than Oracle. It's still surreal how I could enjoy a company so much from the customer side and yet have so much resistance to even entertaining the idea of working there...
I don't get this criticism of Amazon. They give cash-based bonuses in the first 2 years, and then after that the cash bonuses transition to equivalent amount of stock grants. If you really want Amazon stock you're free to buy it with the cash bonus.
Definitely. Hearing such stories, even if Amazon came calling tomorrow to recruit me, I'd stay away. No one wants their former employer holding a veto over future employment.