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

What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 270 posts

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#101

Post by whatok »

TravelTechGuy wrote: post #59
whatok wrote: post #13

Did I miss out on some additional fallout after the article was initially published? I don't see why they're addressing this two months later.

My $.02: maybe they are starting to feel the fallout in their recruiting efforts about now. I get about one recruiting email from Amazon a month on average, and I assume others do as well. It's enough that 10% of candidates reply with "I wouldn't feel comfortable working there", or " I don't think it's a culture fit - I don't like crying at my desk, as is apparently encouraged over there" for them to realize they hav…

Yeah that makes sense and also offers an explanation of their choice to publish on Medium.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#102

Post by roymurdock »

eclipxe wrote: post #84
roymurdock wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The details provided in the response are probably being disclosed legally (doubt Amazon PR would screw up that badly), but it shows really poor taste that they would even respond to the NYT piece which was pretty clearly hyperbolic, emotional, and somewhat cherrypicked; even more so that they would adopt the same tactics of naming and shaming ex-employees. The fact that it was also published on medium by the head of…

The tech crowd (at least on HN) didn't see through the cover-piece...the comments here were overwhelmingly along the lines of "I knew it! Horrible environment". A lot of confirmation of existing anti-Amazon bias.

I'm assuming they published it on medium as a blog post targeting the tech community because they were trying to persuade potential future employees that Amazon is a good place to work.

Yet Carney smeared the NYT and ex employees rather than highlighting the positives (I'm sure there are many, but I don't know what they are because he didn't mention them) of working at Amazon.

Better yet, Amazon could have just carried on being a good place to work. If your company is doing good, important things its going to take a lot more than a biased NYT piece to really deflate employee sentiment and drive down the quality of your applicants. "Show not tell" is usually a good principle to operate on.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#104

Post by danso »

amyjess wrote: post #86
danso wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't it be the PR person? Someone at the level of Jay Carney is ostensibly more than just a mouthpiece, but someone who gathers the information and weighs in on what's useful and relevant to disseminate to the press. This isn't always a nefarious thing; sometimes employees have incomplete information but aren't in a position to confirm it with the executives. At this phase, where the story has run and the da…

I think a lot of people's problem with this is that it's not very transparent. You don't find out who Carney is until the very bottom of the article, and it's presented as just another journalistic article published by Medium and not an official rebuttal by the company. If the whole thing was prefixed with "Following is Amazon's official rebuttal to the New York Times article", I don't think many people would have a…

Fair enough...I saw his name at the top and immediately knew who he was but only because I work in media. However, Carney would be right to assume that his main audience -- the media -- will also recognize his role.

That said, I don't know if this is them trying to be intentionally deceptive or if this is just a clunky use of the medium (no pun intended). It is his first post on Medium, and it's written not in the first-person (as a way to make a personal connection with the reader) but uses "we", e.g. "We were in regular communication with Ms. Kantor from February through the publication date in mid-August"...I don't think there's much evidence to show that they are trying to hide the author's bias or position, other than it's on Medium and not on news.amazon.com.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#105

Post by serge2k »

fweespeech wrote: post #75
dekhn wrote: post #4

There are several shockingly inappropriate things in this article. In particular, the PR person at Amazon is saying that they would have shared employee's personal records (including evaluations) as well as other employee's termination conditions (which I consider unrelated to their quotes). Amazon: what Carney just posted was very inappropriate. I am completely amazed you did this (assuming it was done with approval…

> There are several shockingly inappropriate things in this article. In particular, the PR person at Amazon is saying that they would have shared employee's personal records (including evaluations) as well as other employee's termination conditions (which I consider unrelated to their quotes). Yep. Additionally, its pretty clear Carney was hired as a political PR wrangler for the sole purpose of cleaning up messes li…

> For a data driven company, it shows they either failed to collect related data and/or that data shows the article was accurate despite the poor choice of sources.

They do an annual survey of SDEs, and they do release that data internally (aggregated/anonymously). SO they do have data. The problem is if they release data taht says "Oh well X% of our engineers are happy with the company" Then when happens when someone says why not (X+Y)?

It's data without comparisons to give better context.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#106

Post by theptip »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #89
danso wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't it be the PR person? Someone at the level of Jay Carney is ostensibly more than just a mouthpiece, but someone who gathers the information and weighs in on what's useful and relevant to disseminate to the press. This isn't always a nefarious thing; sometimes employees have incomplete information but aren't in a position to confirm it with the executives. At this phase, where the story has run and the da…

As it stands, Amazon/Carney have made a defamatory statement about an individual while providing no evidence of their claims. Claiming to have the results of an internal investigation is not evidence. Now, the entire investigation will need to be made public and scrutinized. This will likely allow legal entrance into all of Amazon, as all internal policies will need to be examined.

Defamation is by definition making a false statement that damages someone's reputation. You're claiming too much, since without any evidence, we can't tell whether the statements are true or false.

If the statements Amazon made are false, then they are clearly defamatory, since they accuse the employee of criminal action. Do you really believe that Amazon's expensive lawyers didn't vet this post before it went out?

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#107

Post by jsprogrammer »

empath75 wrote: post #80
dekhn wrote: post #4

There are several shockingly inappropriate things in this article. In particular, the PR person at Amazon is saying that they would have shared employee's personal records (including evaluations) as well as other employee's termination conditions (which I consider unrelated to their quotes). Amazon: what Carney just posted was very inappropriate. I am completely amazed you did this (assuming it was done with approval…

They're going to have a hard time retaining and hiring quality employees if there's an unanswered NY Times article out there about how awful it is to work there. It's sort of a damned if they do, damned if they don't situation. But I think if you're fired for fraud I don't think you have a reasonable expectation that your employment details will remain private if you publicly slag the company that fired you for theft…

And they won't have a hard time retaining and hiring quality employees if all employees know that if you ever speak about your time at Amazon, some SVP for XXX might start selectively leaking portions of your personnel records?

>But I think if you're fired for fraud

Sure, but this is only a claim that Amazon/Carney have made. They have presented zero evidence for the claim.

Also, Amazon/Carney released information about other employees that they have not claimed committed fraud (nor have they claimed any wrongdoing by those individuals).

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#108

Post by philh »

chrissnell wrote: post #96
baldfat wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil's Advocate here: The people named in the article and refuted by Amazon put their personal story a public story. If someone "slanders" a business it can't reply with evidence? Must the company say it is a personal matter that we can't disclose, which reads they are guilty and don't want the truth to come out? End of Devil's Advocate Seems like they were making a statement of if you talk will will fully disclose…

The same thing happened with an ex-Reddit employee here on HN a few months back. The CEO (?) who responded came off looking far more evil than the guy that was fired. Best to take the high road in situations like these and show to the world how you really are a great company to work for.

If I'm thinking about the same event, I disagree. The CEO didn't come across as evil at all, in my eyes.

And I'm not comfortable with a meme that if you're attacked, you shouldn't defend yourself, because defending yourself will make you look bad. That just makes you easier to attack.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#109

Post by east2west »

jessriedel wrote: post #21
ucaetano wrote: post #6

It's actually weird to see a company firing back this publicly, releasing performance data (no matter if positive or negative) on previous employees, and it all being posted not by the CEO or a HR VP, but by the head of PR. [Edit: Not only it smells of whitewashing, but it also looks deceptive. And PR? Seriously? Not only it's a sleazy piece, but Amazon chose the worst possible position to convey the message. Get som…

As I remarked when it first came out, NYTimes article was almost completely anecdotal. That's not damning, but it does require you to trust the reporters to distill a large complicated mess to representative pieces. What part of Carney's piece do you think similarly depends on us trusting him? Do you think he fabricated the email from Kantor? Do you think he's outright lying about the context of Olson's dismissal to…

I agree with you that NYTimes piece is largely anecdotal but I will give my reasons for not believing a SVP of Amazon PR.

1. Personal attach on a former employee as the head of public relation for a multi-billion corporation from a personal blog seems cowardly. Did he give Olson a chance to respond? Is there extenuating circumstances? How did Amazon carry out the investigation? Who knew what when? He accused NYTimes lapses in journalistic standard; he isn't even pretending there is any standard.

2. His attack on reporters is unconvincing. His rhetorical questions sound conniving. The reporters might not have asked those exact questions but they must have examined the named sources' credibility and employment history. Amazon might have refused to give details about Olson's termination, ironically on employee's privacy concern, and then itself divulges specifics, though I am sure after being cleared by their legal department. Noticed that Carney went into hyperboles here rather than stating any facts. A few sentences describing Amazon's interaction with reporters would go a long way here. But no, nothing.

3. His refutation of other three named sources amounts to verbal parsing. Some parts of the review are good so no parts can be called bad. Written review is good so no verbal review can be abusive. No direct requirement so everything is employee's fault and they deserve everything they get. It is almost offensive to read this part. If this is the best Amazon can come up with, it must be bad.

4. Cheery picking Amazon's interaction with NYTimes' reporter. Select publication of correspondence and one-sided characterization of interaction is sly. Make public all correspondence, with proper permission, so we can get a full picture.

Fundementall Carney is a former reporter and whitehouse spokesman who is now attacking former employees in behalf of a giant corporation with enormous resources on personal blog. He is committing every bad act he accuses NYTimes of and a lot more. It is debatable whether NYTimes followed the ideal journalistic standards but it is clear Carney follows none here.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#110

Post by mlrtime »

neoCrimeLabs wrote: post #42

> What The New York Times Didn’t Tell You Am I the only one tired of click-bait titles that don't tell you anything about the article? Had to read the comments here to understand what the article was about and decide if it was worth reading. All it takes is 4 extra words to give the title context: > What The New York Times Didn’t Tell You [about working at Amazon]

It works, you clicked.
Post reply on HN