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Thoughts on (Amazonian) leadership

daemonology.net

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Re: Thoughts on (Amazonian) leadership

#71

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

diskzero wrote: post #63

I worked at Amazon before the two newest principles were added, so I can't comment on Strive to be Earth's Best Employer and Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility. I was asked about the principles during my interview(s) and they were discussed extensively during my onboarding process. I found there were groups of peeple who were very sincere about them and groups that were quite cynical. Some co-workers had no…

All organisations have principles. Beyond a certain size - and sometimes long before then - they're never the stated ones.

And while you may have used the stated principles to create a good environment, there's nothing in Amazon's principles that prevents someone else using them to create a bad environment.

For example - conspicuously absent from them is any concept of worker welfare.

Re: Thoughts on (Amazonian) leadership

#72

Post by JustExAWS »

Muromec wrote: post #60
crossbody wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to multiple it by the probability of that new service actually succeeding, which is low. And even then, do you expect it to move stock price by more than 10%? Otherwise it's not going to meaningfully impact your RSU compensation

You are correct with regards to amazon. In earlier stage companies, your rsu can 3x overnight once you ship

In early stage companies - ie private companies - your RSUs are Monopoly money that will statistically be worthless. In a public company, my RSUs are immediately available to liquidate (which I did).

Re: Thoughts on (Amazonian) leadership

#73

Post by JustExAWS »

Muromec wrote: post #57
mvdtnz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there something inherently bad about "visa workers"?

It’s captured audience who will not push back as hard as they maybe should. That and depressing wages of course

I saw this myself. When Amazon started Amazoning with me and I knew the PIP was coming, I didn’t panic. I did just enough to make them think I was taking the “focus” seriously, waited until my next vest and then the “severance or PIP offer”.

For those who don’t know how toxic Amazon really is, once you get the try to work through the PIP or severance offer, if you try to work through the PIP and fail (and you will), your severance amount is decreased to a third of the original.

But you can appeal the failed pip and if your appeal is denied, that gets cut to another 1/2.

So $40K would have quickly become less than $7K.

All of my coworkers on H1B were scared shitless it would happen to them. I was doing my 40 hours a week during my focus, refusing extra work, going on vacations and of course putting feelers out to all of my former clients (working in AWS’s consulting department) and former coworkers.

I had already paid off all of our debt, built up savings, sold all of my AMZN stock, and moved to state tax free Florida.

I knew someone would give me a job or a contract. H1B visa holders can’t work contracts and maintain their status.

Re: Thoughts on (Amazonian) leadership

#74

Post by bmitc »

Amazon is a cult, fullstop. My interview there was the most miserable, antagonistic one I have ever had. And even then they wanted you to regurgitate their principles as if the recruiter didn't over prep you on them.

Re: Thoughts on (Amazonian) leadership

#75

Post by TrainedMonkey »

throwaway439080 wrote: post #69
cperciva wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Leadership Principles are less "principles" and more "operational guidelines". Aside from maybe "Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer" (which is a recent addition) they're not saying what Amazon wants to achieve; they're recommendations for effective ways to get things done.

"Strive to be Earth's Best Employer" coming from Amazon leadership is maybe best understood as a joke. Amazon is a meat grinder, even more so since the big tech layoffs started. (This kind of comment always elicits current Amazon engineers who disagree because they haven't personally experienced this. To them, I say: Stay at Amazon long enough and it /will/ happen to you. To those currently in the grinder: I hit the…

In many ways they are the best employer, just for shareholders and not employees.

Re: Thoughts on (Amazonian) leadership

#77

Post by scarface_74 »

pvtmert wrote: post #41
mikert89 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

leadership principles are relevant to high level amazon employees, L6 and below they are used as a control mechanism/justification to call out low performance

As a ~4 year tenured L5, I agree. There is annual performance review system called Forte. During forte, each person is rated in each leadership principles (LPs) by their peers and manager, possibly from away-team members. As the parent mentioned, nowadays the scope is extremely limited. Citing Ownership (ie. this/that team has the ownership...) reasons. I see LPs are currently weaponised to limit promotions/pay-raise…

You don’t see the problem with being a “four year L5”? That’s not to insult your skillset - just the nature of Amazon. There is a 99% probability that you are getting paid much less than new L5 hires.

Why are you still there?

Re: Thoughts on (Amazonian) leadership

#78

Post by la64710 »

bendbro wrote: post #42
la64710 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s bullshit … just another scaremongering post against employees with some kind of visa. Leadership depends upon individuals not upon their immigration status. From direct experience I can say there are leaders and non leaders on bothe sides. BTW ec2 was first conceived and made in South Africa.

H1Bs risk deportation when they are fired. It is inconceivable for this to not impact their performance and behavior. Combine that with Amazon's Jack Welch style stack rank and firing of the bottom and it becomes even worse

Amazon has big enough global footprint of offices all over the world that even if someone loses their visa they can easily relocate back to their own country and work on the same projects from any of the massive offices there. And this actually happens all the time. Folks in Amazon move around as needed across border. The idea of h1-b servitude does not hold much relevance for companies like Amazon who have built massive offshore centers in the last few years.

Re: Thoughts on (Amazonian) leadership

#79

Post by neilv »

hibikir wrote: post #21
pm90 wrote: post #7

I have principles-fatigue after going through a number of companies that promise to abide by certain good sounding principles only to backtrack at the slightest pushback. I would actually trust a company more if it had no defined principles. Perhaps just honesty and transparency.

Possibly a better alternative than, say, Bridgewater when Ray Dalio was in charge. Adherence to principles was part of a high percentage of decision making conversations, but since is book is so big, they might be best compared to theological arguments in the middle ages, with different specialists arguing with different quotes from different parts of the book. All in all, once an organization gets big enough, power…

> All in all, once an organization gets big enough, power does what power wants, and power wants what is good for them in the short term, regardless of what is good for the organization.

This has the ring of truth.

Has anyone solved this problem?

Is anyone trying to solve this problem? (Or is everyone in a position to work on the problem just playing the game?)

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