Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Way

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 88 posts

Re: Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Way

#51

Post by veidr »

This story has got to be really hurting Amazon by now. (I don't mean this specific piece, but the exposure of Amazon's terrible cult-like culture and workplace environment as a whole.)

Most engineerish people I know, myself included, had already heard through the grapevine that working at Amazon sucks (friends, friends of friends, posts on forums like this).

But now everybody knows it sucks -- Amazon is a shitty place to work, and any decent software engineer has many better options is now as close to an objective fact as it gets.

This must be hurting their recruiting already, and you have to think it will hurt them for years to come. (And if that is true, then it may eventually change the judgement of whether this style of management "worked".)

Re: Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Way

#52

Post by chambo622 »

MCRed wrote: post #23

My experience at Amazon was straight up abusive. It is a hostile work environment and it should not be tolerated. If you have any self respect, do not go to work there. The only way abusive companies can learn is when their abuse is discovered and they have trouble hiring good employees. The apologists and the rationalizers and the Amazon PR machine are out in full force. this is not surprising, because the core meth…

> Reality is, he's a master manipulator, a poor business man, and terrible at technology and leadership.

Your argument really breaks down here. Reality contradicts these assertions.

Re: Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Way

#53

Post by MichaelGG »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #36
MCRed wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, your internship is not representative. They are trying got trick you into working there. You were treated special in a number of ways. Further, AWS is isolated to some extend from the abusive nature of the company by being a separate division. A lot of what you say is right out of the amazon weltanshaung-- its cult has seeped in to some extent. You're giving us rationalizations for the abusive nature of the wo…

It'd be more appropriate to respond to this comment's assertions than downvoting it.

Without backing up his claims, it isn't a very useful comment. Insisting that this person's being tricked into a cult, without any details - that's the kind of stuff we don't need on HN.

In another comment, he says he had worked for Amazon. Adding such a line and explaining why the intern was being tricked into a cult would be useful and wouldn't have been downvoted.

Also, complaining about downvotes is silly. I downvote and flag a fair amount. No one is owed an explanation. I know that we might _want_ one (I feel like that when I get -x points on a comment), but it only increases noise.

Comparing HN to Scientology is stupid. I sorta feel that HN maintains whatever quality it has by being ruthless on downvoting. From personal experience, I should definitely be downvoted more, as it makes me rethink commetns and not write as much shit. Not that I have much to say, but I have found that being downvoted makes me more cautious, and I'll edit or delete or simply not post on HN, whereas on other sites, I don't care. It's better for borderline comments to get shot down and have false positives than allowing more junk on the site.

Re: Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Way

#54

Post by x5n1 »

veidr wrote: post #51

This story has got to be really hurting Amazon by now. (I don't mean this specific piece, but the exposure of Amazon's terrible cult-like culture and workplace environment as a whole.) Most engineerish people I know, myself included, had already heard through the grapevine that working at Amazon sucks (friends, friends of friends, posts on forums like this). But now everybody knows it sucks -- Amazon is a shitty plac…

Amazon needs to unionize, it's obvious that Bezos and his management don't respect his workers. This sort of company deserves a union. And I think both white collar and blue collar workers there would support such a union.

Re: Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Way

#55

Post by danielweber »

orthoganol wrote: post #50
greggman wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I probably shouldn't post this but what the heck. I quit on the spot twice when a company was dickish. Once I had a friend, previous co-worker, that would visit. He'd come into my office and we'd play games (this was a game company). This had happened about once every month or 2 for a year or so. One time I had to go to the restroom. I came back and he was gone. The new boss had escorted him out of the office. I quit…

I've done the same, heated in the moment. Basically our two most senior devs quit, so a large burden shifted onto me, and I was suddenly the most tenured dev on our team, with knowledge of systems no one else had and could not even easily get since the others (and others before) had quit. But curiously they promoted the new guy instead of me. Ok fine... I told my boss, an arrogant VP at the company, that I should be…

I've never thought "I left that job too early." I have often thought I left too late.

One job in particular I should have called their bullshit was when the CEO had one (in a long line of) hissy fit and said he was quitting in a month's time. I was trying to keep the company together, but what I -- the senior developer and the sole maintainer of the company's one revenue-generating product -- should have done was send out an email saying "I am taking a leave of absence and will reporting back to work in one time, after the CEO has left. The new CEO is welcome to contact me about an earlier return time."

Because that probably might have actually gotten the CEO out, instead of him running the company into the ground for slow-motion over the next 8 years. (I had a significant ownership stake.) Oh, he stuck around after threatening to quit. It was his only management technique besides yelling.

Re: Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Way

#56

Post by sdenton4 »

libber wrote: post #22

I found this interesting, feels like the most realistic account so far - http://pastebin.com/BjD84BQ3 I just feel bad for amazon people I meet, the 2 year cliff and high pressure oncall simply isn't a thing at the other tech companies. At least for me and ive worked at a few of them (plural of anicdote isn't data but still) Life seems strictly worse at amazon.

(Actually, the plural of anecdote is data. Or at least it was originally...)

http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2011/04/the-plural-of-an...

Re: Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Way

#57

Post by x5n1 »

nickff wrote: post #3
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #2

I see a lot of comments on the Times regarding unions. We take a lot of things like weekends for granted, and many of these tech companies seem to treat them as a flexible inconvenience. I wonder if a hundred years from now we will look on the taxes to our mental health today as similarly as we imagine the truly backbreaking labor of the 19th century.

The level of stress, and the toll it takes on mental health that we experience today is very low compared to a time when productivity and income were 20x lower. Our lives have changed, and we are immensely richer than we were 100 or even 50 years ago. People have more mobility, options, and opportunity than ever before in human history. One can argue that certain policies or priorities have affected our lives for the…

> The level of stress, and the toll it takes on mental health that we experience today is very low compared to a time when productivity and income were 20x lower.

How could you possibly know this. Stress is completely subjective, and so is its effect on mental health. Lots of animals in the wild have a much more supposedly stressful life but curl up and die in captivity where everything is provided for. I would say the experience that we have with work is similar subjectively regardless of modern convenience. Especially workers working in Amazon warehouses on their feet 10-11 hours a day and at times with no air conditioning.

Re: Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Way

#58

Post by IndianAstronaut »

astrowilliam wrote: post #4

I've worked at a big internet company where the culture was very toxic and not a good place to work, let alone be a normal human being. Pushy, rude and underhanded people were plentiful and were willing to throw you so far under the bus at any given moment that you would never find your way back out. This became evident to me when I went on my lunch break after working there for about 4 months. Each employee was give…

Please post about this on Glassdoor.

Re: Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Way

#59

Post by danielweber »

zzalpha wrote: post #49
onaplane wrote: post #21

Okay, these articles are getting really ridiculous. I just finished a Summer internship at Amazon. While it's true that there's more pressure on employees than other places I've worked, it's really not that bad. It definitely doesn't feel cutthroat, and an 80-85 hour work week is definitely not normal! The vast majority (I'd say >70%, and I think that's conservative) of people work 35-45, depending on what needs to g…

So to be clear you feel your one anecdote as an intern invalidates the numerous accounts of career Amazon employees? And it's the articles that are ridiculous?

Lots of people are providing tales of their personal Amazon experiences. Many of them are bad. This one happens to be good.

The way groupthink happens is when the minority is afraid to express their thoughts.

Re: Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Way

#60

Post by Frondo »

Crito wrote: post #47
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #2

I see a lot of comments on the Times regarding unions. We take a lot of things like weekends for granted, and many of these tech companies seem to treat them as a flexible inconvenience. I wonder if a hundred years from now we will look on the taxes to our mental health today as similarly as we imagine the truly backbreaking labor of the 19th century.

I don't think a union would solve this . I'd sooner quit a shitty job than stay in it, and hope the union makes it better for me. Much faster turnaround when I take matters into my own hand. If this were the sort of industry where I couldn't be working again with higher pay within the week, then maybe I'd consider sticking around for organized action..

Of course it would. It'd solve it before you even got into the position, by mandating that you put in your 40 hours and then left to enjoy the weekend, see your family, etc.

And before anyone says "but I want to be paid on merit not seniority hur hur," remember, it's your union. You want your union to fight for merit-based pay and not seniority-based pay? Fine, go for it. Unions are democratic, so you shouldn't have too much trouble persuading others to vote for your ideas, as long as they're good ones.

Post reply on HN