What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by marcosdumay » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:42 PM UTC

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…

You know, the bias against anecdotal evidence is great and everything, but it only applies if somebody somewhere has a credible anecdote opposite to the claims. Otherwise, it's as good as data.

So, look at the ex-employees opinions, and see if there's one. (And no, PR pieces are not credible.)

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

#172

Post by debaserab2 » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:43 PM UTC

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.

I believe you're referring to this:

https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2iea97/i_am_a_former_r...

I dunno, I think if you go out and try to call out your former employer on a public forum (that they own), they have the right to lay out their side of the story at least. It would have been more evil for them to remove the comment entirely - which is exactly what many companies would have in this situation.

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

#173

Post by afsina » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:43 PM UTC

forgotpasswd3x wrote: post #74

hnamazon123 wrote: post #30

I recently quit Amazon. I don't doubt that New York Times purposely misrepresented or omitted facts to make this story. Their stories tend to be very agenda driven and the facts tend to be subservient to the narrative, a policy which is deemed acceptable because it "starts a conversation" or the story is "probably true for someone". This is typical of the left wing. However, I did in fact have an absolutely awful exp…

> Their stories tend to be very agenda driven and the facts tend to be subservient to the narrative, a policy which is deemed acceptable because it "starts a conversation" or the story is "probably true for someone". This is typical of the left wing. This is hardly an issue isolated to "left wing" media.

To be fair, when it comes to attacking corporations (biased or not) , this is mostly a left wing media thing.

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

#174

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:43 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #8

While selective storytelling has been a staple of traditional news media for ages, this article does tempt me to ask: why Amazon? Of all the workaholic culture tech companies of the last 20 years, why did the New York Times choose to center the exposé on Amazon.com? My entirely baseless suspicion is that unlike many other tech companies, Amazon is a direct competitor in its ability to drive information to their custo…

[deleted]

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

#175

Post by dekhn » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:45 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #141

zaroth wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding sharing employee evaluations, two things; if you go on the record with press discussing your evaluation and says it says one thing, but it actually says another, I think the company is entitled to respond. Anyway, it's not clear to me if the employee isn't on Amazon's side here (angry at being misquoted) so how do we know this wouldn't have been after getting permission from the employees in question? Obvio…

It may have been inappropriate to "share" some of the evaluations, even though they were so very vague and non-descript. But, it's also possible that the employee voided any contract between themselves and Amazon by speaking to a third party (NYT) about the inner workings of Amazon.

Yes, I think it was inappropriate of Amazon, but I absolutely believe they consulted their lawyers before making this post.

It's the signal they're sending to future employees that matters here.

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

#176

Post by pm24601 » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:45 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #141

zaroth wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding sharing employee evaluations, two things; if you go on the record with press discussing your evaluation and says it says one thing, but it actually says another, I think the company is entitled to respond. Anyway, it's not clear to me if the employee isn't on Amazon's side here (angry at being misquoted) so how do we know this wouldn't have been after getting permission from the employees in question? Obvio…

It may have been inappropriate to "share" some of the evaluations, even though they were so very vague and non-descript. But, it's also possible that the employee voided any contract between themselves and Amazon by speaking to a third party (NYT) about the inner workings of Amazon.

Amazon just did real harm to Mr Olsen's employability. To be so casual about this is typical Amazon. Also this is classic ad hominem attack. If the message is true attack the messenger.

Jay wouldn't need to attack Mr. Olson personally if the message was wrong.

Why does Jay lead with an attack on Mr. Olson? Could it be that that is the best he can do?

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

#177

Post by puredemo » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:46 PM UTC

ablation wrote: post #28

What a bizarre, at times completely inappropriate article to have posted. All it does is leave me amazed at - and a little embarrassed for - Amazon's PR department.

I'm basically an Amazon fanboy, but with the failure of the Fire phone, the continually over-wrought nature of AWS UI, and now this hamfisted response to the NYT, they are really losing their appeal.

Amazon: Your current employees had already written much better responses than this within 48 hours of the NYT article coming out. What is this drivel supposed to accomplish? Why is PR rant hosted on Medium? Why are you exposing old employee personnel records? Why are you putting political operatives like Carney in charge of your PR?

Get it together guys. The NYT article is ancient history now and didn't merit further response. It was an obvious hit piece but your reaction has been quite poor.

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

#178

Post by russelluresti » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:49 PM UTC

I love how the start of this article reads like something out of Character Assassination 101.

Step 1: start by bringing up something negative about a person that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the issue at hand.

Okay, so the guy resigned because he did something bad. How does that make what he experienced while there not true? Oh, that's right, it doesn't. And the admission of fraud isn't a "crucial piece of context." You and I both know that. Unfortunately, you think the reader is dumb enough not to know it.

Step 2: Assert statements in the form of a question so that you can deny every making the assertion.

"Did Ms. Kantor’s editors at the Times ask her whether Mr. Olson might have an axe to grind?" Here, we don't actually assert that Mr. Olson has an axe to grind. We don't assert he's purposely lying to get revenge. We just highly insinuate it and make the reader believe it by putting it in question form.

This is an obvious attempt at character assassination and to cast doubt in the minds of the reader without actually saying he was lying.

If Mr. Olson is lying - sue him. You're within your rights to do that. But you're not suing him. Or the Times.

So, what's the point of this? Propaganda. And sleazy propaganda at that.

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

#179

Post by cognivore » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:51 PM UTC

"Here’s what the story didn’t tell you about Mr. Olson: his brief tenure at Amazon ended after an investigation revealed he had attempted to defraud vendors and conceal it by falsifying business records. When confronted with the evidence, he admitted it and resigned immediately."

It doesn't matter. If the devil tells the truth, it's still the truth.

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

#180

Post by cruise02 » Mon, Oct 19, 2015, 5:51 PM UTC

afsina wrote: post #173

forgotpasswd3x wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their stories tend to be very agenda driven and the facts tend to be subservient to the narrative, a policy which is deemed acceptable because it "starts a conversation" or the story is "probably true for someone". This is typical of the left wing. This is hardly an issue isolated to "left wing" media.

To be fair, when it comes to attacking corporations (biased or not) , this is mostly a left wing media thing.

And when it comes to supporting corporations (biased or not), this is mostly a right wing media thing. Just because they do it from opposing sides doesn't make it ok.