Amazon's Stressed Out Culture Is Burning Out Employees
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Amazon's Stressed Out Culture Is Burning Out Employees
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Re: Amazon's Stressed Out Culture Is Burning Out Employees
#2Dear God, is it that bad? Sounds awful.
Does Bezos seriously forward any complaints received at jeff@amazon.com to the right person? I'll bet that is panic-inducing.
Re: Amazon's Stressed Out Culture Is Burning Out Employees
#3Dear God, is it that bad? Sounds awful. Does Bezos seriously forward any complaints received at jeff@amazon.com to the right person? I'll bet that is panic-inducing.
The mentioned book "The Everything Store" gives hundreds of examples of this corporate culture, culminating in the quote:
>"If you're not good, Jeff will chew you up and spit you out," notes one former employee. "And if you're good, he will jump on your back and ride you into the ground."
It's a good read on how not to lead a company, and I'm reasonably sure Amazon will fail once Bezos dies - the success seems tobe based on Bezos' enormous drive.
I would never work there.
Re: Amazon's Stressed Out Culture Is Burning Out Employees
#4Is there anything wrong with the CEO forwarding an email, adding just a question mark? It is shorthand for "Can you please tell me what is going on here and how it can be taken care of?". It isn't like if he typed out a whole sentence, it would cause the person who panics at a "?" to somehow not panic. They'll probably just read too much into the sentence and panic even more.
Re: Amazon's Stressed Out Culture Is Burning Out Employees
#5Dear God, is it that bad? Sounds awful. Does Bezos seriously forward any complaints received at jeff@amazon.com to the right person? I'll bet that is panic-inducing.
The mentioned book "The Everything Store" gives hundreds of examples of this corporate culture, culminating in the quote: >"If you're not good, Jeff will chew you up and spit you out," notes one former employee. "And if you're good, he will jump on your back and ride you into the ground." It's a good read on how not to lead a company, and I'm reasonably sure Amazon will fail once Bezos dies - the success seems tobe b…
"It's a good read on how not to lead a company"
But they are very successful. People say the same thing about Jobs, and again, they are very successful. People that say, "this is no way to lead a company" have to have counterexamples of equally successful companies that aren't run this way.
Re: Amazon's Stressed Out Culture Is Burning Out Employees
#6Before Bezos settled on the name Amazon, he wanted to call it Relentless. In fact, the domain http://www.relentless.com still leads to Amazon. That fact seems indicative of his leadership style, in light of this article.
Re: Amazon's Stressed Out Culture Is Burning Out Employees
#7Anecdotally speaking, I went to a party which had a few Amazon employees in attendance. After a few drinks, two of them let on to the group that they were quitting their jobs because they were sick of Amazon - and high fives were shared all around, including among the folks that weren't leaving. Doesn't seem like a happy group.
Re: Amazon's Stressed Out Culture Is Burning Out Employees
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
The mentioned book "The Everything Store" gives hundreds of examples of this corporate culture, culminating in the quote: >"If you're not good, Jeff will chew you up and spit you out," notes one former employee. "And if you're good, he will jump on your back and ride you into the ground." It's a good read on how not to lead a company, and I'm reasonably sure Amazon will fail once Bezos dies - the success seems tobe b…
"It's a good read on how not to lead a company" But they are very successful. People say the same thing about Jobs, and again, they are very successful. People that say, "this is no way to lead a company" have to have counterexamples of equally successful companies that aren't run this way.
Yeah but with apple you hear people loved working there even if jobs was harsh. Looks like there's a balance between getting the most out of people and just creating a toxic work atmosphere.
Re: Amazon's Stressed Out Culture Is Burning Out Employees
#9So out of curiosity, which major tech companies operate on a stack ranking system? It seems that Microsoft has gotten the most flack for it in the past, but it seems that many other companies also have it. Here's what I've heard, from different employees at different companies:
* Amazon - top 20%/70%/bottom 10% buckets
* Facebook - definite bucketed review system every six months
* Google - unsure if bucketed, but performance review every three months and again at end of the year.
* Yahoo - definite bucketed review system every three months and again at end of the year.
If anyone knows the performance review systems at any other company, please definitely feel free to call them out in the replies.
Re: Amazon's Stressed Out Culture Is Burning Out Employees
#10Before Bezos settled on the name Amazon, he wanted to call it Relentless. In fact, the domain http://www.relentless.com still leads to Amazon. That fact seems indicative of his leadership style, in light of this article.
The company's lore is that it was originally called Cadabra.com (as in abracadabra). But then people were confusing it with cadaver, so it was changed to Amazon.