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Amazon's Leadership Principles

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Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#161

Post by Raphael »

mabbo wrote: post #110
aanm1988 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OH absolutely. They are contradictory enough that you can get dinged on one for following another at review time. Frugality means putting up with lousy hardware and cramming people into working environments to the point where people start bringing up OHSA w.r.t. number of toilets. Customer obsession means getting an email about a feature used by a couple percent of users and having to spend a week scrambling because…

On almost all your points, I do agree with you. But for one: > are right a lot/disagree and commit don't seem to matter if the opposing argument is your manager wanting to do other stuff "Disagree and commit" means that when you don't agree with the decision being made, you make that clear, you state why, but then you commit to the decision that was made and work with your team to achieve the goals. It means you don'…

I always considered it "disagree and roll and over".

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#162

Post by ryandrake »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #81

"[Leaders] Are Right, A Lot" How is this even a principle ? Just "be right", a lot ?

I agree it feels out of place in that list. Most of the rest of the principles are prescriptive: "Do this" or "Take that action" or "Keep this in mind", whereas this one is an after-the-fact measurement. The rest of them are things you can wake up one day and decide to incorporate into your life. "Being right" is not such a thing. They should probably re-write it with something like "Use good judgment" or "Seek diverse perspectives."

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#163

Post by sevensor »

kkelleey wrote: post #26

The emphasis on "customer obsession" is clearly working, since it has topped the polls for best corporate reputation two years in a row. http://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-tops-harris-poll-corpora... I work for Amazon, and I personally am a huge fan of the "LPs" . I consistently find myself mentally consulting them when I'm not sure what to do in a particular situation. I also think it really helps to work in an env…

How does Amazon's purported customer obsession square with its vast offering of counterfeit goods? Just off the top of my head, I can recall reading articles about counterfeit perfume, pet accessories, books, CDs, DVDs, and clothing. This is not to mention my personal experience with counterfeit electronics (blue smoke!) At this point I'm not sure there's any product category I'd trust, with the possible exception of things Amazon puts its own name on. Is this by design? Do they aspire to sell only Amazon-branded goods?

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#164

Post by felixgallo »

ex_amazon_sde wrote: post #105
felixgallo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for Amazon, and my management line all the way up to Jeff is sensible, comprehensible, and human; I have good work-life balance and am able to offer that to my reports; my compensation is fair; and I would escalate immediately if I ever saw anyone abused, mistreated, or cheated. Amazon's a big company and I'm sure there's terrible managers out there and true harrowing stories. And there are problems, here and…

> But if there was a pervasive, total cultural failure at Amazon, I'd have seen it by now. Ex Amazon SDE here. Did you fail to notice the incredible turnover rate among engineers? Most stay less than 18 months. (I've seen the real numbers from tools that mine employee IDs and join date).

I'd be interested in seeing those numbers. Could you post them somewhere? Anecdotally, I haven't seen anything like that in my org.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#165

Post by omgwhat »

kkelleey wrote: post #26

The emphasis on "customer obsession" is clearly working, since it has topped the polls for best corporate reputation two years in a row. http://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-tops-harris-poll-corpora... I work for Amazon, and I personally am a huge fan of the "LPs" . I consistently find myself mentally consulting them when I'm not sure what to do in a particular situation. I also think it really helps to work in an env…

If you were "customer obsessed" I would be able to buy a fucking Chromecast on Amazon, but instead you're too busy trying to force Google to shoehorn your absolutely shitty Amazon video service on there.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#166

Post by adamsea »

thesmallestcat wrote: post #155
GCA10 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did some warehouse work as a teenager. I wasn't a number. I was fresh meat in a violent, snide culture where there weren't any coherent processes or data. I'm a tough bloke, so one-armed Wally and angry Floyd did not ruin my summer. But if I were to go back into a warehouse again, I'd much rather have metrics and a data-driven system of accountability that applies to everyone. It beats an unstructured tyranny where…

So you're saying the choices are postmodern dystopia, or being beaten by your coworkers. Methinks there's some ground between.

I'm pretty sure what he was trying to say is that, as bad as Amazon's warehouses may be, his experience was worse, and, perhaps, that back in the day, warehouses were worse.

What conclusion you or the OP choose to draw from that is a different question.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#167

Post by sctb »

throwaway6556 wrote: post #78
knucklesandwich wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Leaders are willing to take a 100x salary compared to their line employees because they know they can hustle hard enough to live up to the expectations. > I'm very excited to see the helmet cam video of Jeff Bezos serving a customary 8-10-12-14 hour shift at the Dallas Amazon Fulfillment Center and walk out with a smile. Can you do what you ask of others? That's leadership. Sometimes I just have to sit and marvel a…

The shilling is high with this one. I think he's using the "repeat it until it becomes true" tactic.

Please stop commenting like this, no matter what you're responding to.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#168

Post by jhall1468 »

jrimbault wrote: post #158
jhall1468 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't a 100x difference in salary. Bezos salary is something like 80k. His income is derived almost entirely by stock grants, which are awarded based on company performance. The fact that he's a billionaire is because he founded the company.

That's still income. If you want I can rephrase more generally. There shouldn't be a 100x difference in income between People.

> There shouldn't be a 100x difference in income between People.

That's a political argument, not a valid business argument.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#169

Post by sctb »

knucklesandwich wrote: post #32
6stringmerc wrote: post #12

Leaders are willing to take a 100x salary compared to their line employees because they know they can hustle hard enough to live up to the expectations. I'm very excited to see the helmet cam video of Jeff Bezos serving a customary 8-10-12-14 hour shift at the Dallas Amazon Fulfillment Center and walk out with a smile. Can you do what you ask of others? That's leadership. No, really. Principles not tested in the fire…

> Leaders are willing to take a 100x salary compared to their line employees because they know they can hustle hard enough to live up to the expectations. > I'm very excited to see the helmet cam video of Jeff Bezos serving a customary 8-10-12-14 hour shift at the Dallas Amazon Fulfillment Center and walk out with a smile. Can you do what you ask of others? That's leadership. Sometimes I just have to sit and marvel a…

Let's please try to have a thoughtful, on-topic discussion, even if you disagree with something that was said.

Re: Amazon's Leadership Principles

#170

Post by stuffedBelly »

nojvek wrote: post #153
krapp wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the reason Amazon is so successful and highly regarded is the degree to which they exploit their warehouse employees. This exploitation results in customer orders being stocked and shipped quickly and in costs being reduced. Amazon is obsessed with the customer , remember, not the employee.

I see Amazon as a company that wants to give a great service to humans but their humans in Warehouses aren't up to the task. I predict in a decade a large part of their warehouse will be automated for the labor heavy skills. There is an inherent desire to enslave to leverage work off automation. Robots would be perfect slaves for corporations. Whoever makes electric muscles and sells it at scale is going to be the ne…

True. Look at assembly lines in automobile industry. Robotic arm companies are already making billions.
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