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Bye, Amazon

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Re: Bye, Amazon

#711

Post by x86_64Ubuntu »

toasterlovin wrote: post #654
uselesstech wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that were the case, you would think that Amazon would address the issues raised my employees instead of firing them. By firing them, they discourage others from coming forward so it’s not really possible to get a good picture of the situation.

Perhaps there's more to the story and we on the outside are in a really poor position to actually know what's going on?

So we are supposed to sit here and act like Amazon doesn't have a notorious rep in the street for how it treats it's employees, even it's software devs? And we are supposed to act like the US in general doesn't have a strong anti-labor tilt since Reagan in the 80s?

You are begging the reader to throw out any knowledge of the company and the country it's in so that they can arrive to a conclusion of "We don't have all the facts!!!!". That's not going to be very effective.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#712

Post by s1artibartfast »

gnicholas wrote: post #679

> What with big-tech salaries and share vestings, this will probably cost me over a million (pre-tax) dollars ... > The average pay [in his group, AWS] is very high, and anyone who’s unhappy can walk across the street and get another job paying the same or better. Not sure how to square these two statements. Is the lost money all in stock vesting? If so, why bother mentioning the salary? If not, how does that fit wit…

Last I hard, Amazon had a 4 year 5/15/40/40 vesting schedule. In my experience, stock compensation exceeds salary for most executives. If 50% of compensation was in stock, they would be walking away from 2.2 years salary worth of grants, which would have appreciated since the grant date. Amazon stock is also up >4x in the last 4 years.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#713

Post by [deleted] »

alex_young wrote: post #666

I really wish there was a stand-alone cloud provider to work with. AWS is a part of this unethical beast, GCP is a side project of a huge advertising company, Azure is under the wing of a major monopolist. I guess there is Linode, but their services are more of a traditional VPS than a cloud host. It's kind of crazy that most of the net income of Amazon comes from this business, but we've accepted that a stand alone…

[deleted]

Re: Bye, Amazon

#714

Post by sachdevap »

ashconnor wrote: post #366
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #2

> I quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers Assuming this is the real true reason (I would trust Tim, but you never know, so just being explicit here), it takes huge balls to do something like this. The economic loss has to be somewhat taken in relation to your total wealth (e.g. if you lose $1M by quitting but you already have $10M+ in the bank, it's not as hard as if you had zero in the bank), but still... V…

Assuming Tim is in Canada he's probably not eligible for Employment Insurance too.

I don't think employment insurance concerns him. He has earned way too much money for that to be a problem.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#715

Post by oneepic »

ssklash wrote: post #623
oneepic wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say that, but people gain a lot from working there. There are many pluses to working at these companies. Pay/benefits/relocation packages, provided on-the-job training and free access to a lot of technical courses, relatively-effective engineering practices (ethics are a separate issue), little-to-no dress code, free food, technical managers (not nontechnical ones) and a nice name on the resume when you leave…

> ethics are a separate issue They're kinda the main thing I'm talking about here. Everyone knows perfectly well you can gain huge amounts by working at FAANG companies, that's not in doubt. The question is at what cost, do the people doing it see their companies for what they are, and why do people continue to work there if they do. I'm sure being CEO of Phillip Morris or Palantir or Exxon-Mobile is quite lucrative,…

My point is that it's irresponsible to reduce these companies to their ads and data practices, because they also tend to be great places to work and tend to offer a positive culture and benefits. You should consider everything before deciding to work there.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#716

Post by birdyrooster »

chanmad29 wrote: post #704

Amazon deserves this criticism but I think there is nothing to single them out. Most for-profit companies would behave in a similar fashion unless there is a competition for these workers that will force Amazon to treat them better. Since Amazon is operating in virtual monopoly here, there is no incentive for them to behave differently unless there are stronger laws such as minimum wage etc..

On the contrary, Amazon's success is precedent setting and it is such a strong company that singling them out can cause the rest of the industry to shift.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#717

Post by khazhoux »

nicoburns wrote: post #153
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #2

> I quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers Assuming this is the real true reason (I would trust Tim, but you never know, so just being explicit here), it takes huge balls to do something like this. The economic loss has to be somewhat taken in relation to your total wealth (e.g. if you lose $1M by quitting but you already have $10M+ in the bank, it's not as hard as if you had zero in the bank), but still... V…

> Very few people would have the courage to walk away from big sums of money purely on principle. On the contrary, bucketloads of people do this all the time. The world would be a better place if more people did.

> On the contrary, bucketloads of people do this all the time

Anecdotally, I would say it's extremely rare for people to voice disagreement with their company's management by leaving. The most common way to "stand up" to leadership seems to be to grouse about it with co-workers at lunch.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#718

Post by three_seagrass »

toasterlovin wrote: post #654
uselesstech wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that were the case, you would think that Amazon would address the issues raised my employees instead of firing them. By firing them, they discourage others from coming forward so it’s not really possible to get a good picture of the situation.

Perhaps there's more to the story and we on the outside are in a really poor position to actually know what's going on?

By that logic, wouldn't Vice President Tim Bray then be positioned to know more of that hypothetically hidden story?

Re: Bye, Amazon

#719

Post by Vrondi »

treve wrote: post #600
twblalock wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Minimum wages should be raised and nonviable businesses should adapt or go under. That's a recipe for significantly increased unemployment which would affect the most vulnerable workers the most. For most people in a low-paying job, the alternative is no job. If they were able to get higher-paying jobs they would have already done so.

Then why have a minimum wage at all?

Because, before minimum wage, we had people being paid the price of a loaf of bread for an entire day's labor. We had people being paid in "company scrip" only spendable in the company's own store at inflated prices, instead of real national currency.

Re: Bye, Amazon

#720

Post by Vinnl »

bigiain wrote: post #114
Vinnl wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading through his post, it doesn't sound like the goal was to change things - he just didn't want to be co-responsible for them. That said, it doesn't sound like there was much more he could've done to change things from the inside-out; and even though it might not be the intention, this public statement does sound like it might contribute to changing it anyway.

> Reading through his post, it doesn't sound like the goal was to change things I think he did everything he could think of to change things: "At that point I snapped. VPs shouldn’t go publicly rogue, so I escalated through the proper channels and by the book. I’m not at liberty to disclose those discussions, but I made many of the arguments appearing in this essay. I think I made them to the appropriate people." wit…

Yeah that's what I meant: it doesn't sound like the goal was to change things by resigning. Rather, it was admission that since he could not change things, and he also didn't want to be part of them, the only option was to resign.
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