Values work really well if the company is actually serious about them. Having a third party consultant write down your values is usually an indication that you're not too serious about it.
Amazon's values work because management is deadly serious about implementing them. You may not enjoy working at a company organized around those values, but they keep the majority of people focused where Bezos wants them focused. Apple has a very different set of values; still works. Ditto Google.
At companies under a certain size, you don't need to write down your values to make sure everyone knows what they are. One of the common causes of growth failure is forgetting to keep an eye on your values as you grow, and then all of a sudden half the new engineers don't seem to understand why you need to keep latency as low as possible.
Here's an interviewing tip. If the company you're interviewing at has core values, ask how they apply to the team you're looking at. Bonus points if it's a core value that doesn't seem to apply -- maybe something about product if you're interviewing for a datacenter job, say. If the answer is weak, the company might have lost track of how it wants to do business.
Amazon's values work because management is deadly serious about implementing them. You may not enjoy working at a company organized around those values, but they keep the majority of people focused where Bezos wants them focused. Apple has a very different set of values; still works. Ditto Google.
At companies under a certain size, you don't need to write down your values to make sure everyone knows what they are. One of the common causes of growth failure is forgetting to keep an eye on your values as you grow, and then all of a sudden half the new engineers don't seem to understand why you need to keep latency as low as possible.
Here's an interviewing tip. If the company you're interviewing at has core values, ask how they apply to the team you're looking at. Bonus points if it's a core value that doesn't seem to apply -- maybe something about product if you're interviewing for a datacenter job, say. If the answer is weak, the company might have lost track of how it wants to do business.