[throwaway6497]

I heard few stories from friends/colleagues who worked there

- There was a production outage once at Amazon and my friend's manager and her team (including my friend) gave a post-mortem to a large audience. Port-mortem sessions are open for everyone to attend. He mentioned, it was a free-for-all. Execs were hurling F-bombs every sentence and the team was publicly humiliated. The manager was in tears and was later demoted. I could see how my friend was feeling for her as a person/human being.

- One employee asked about possibility of providing free food ala Google/FB in a org level all-hands. Exec pooh-poohed Google for being highly irresponsible and that they can never sustain themselves spending so much on free food. Lazlo Block says it is one of the best things at Google.

- Frugality - I heard you don't even free get pop at Amazon. No paternity leave. Maternity leaves are much shorter compared to what people take at Google/Facebook out of fear. Poor health benefits and 401K matching compared to Microsoft/Google/FB.

- Sweatshop - People are over worked and are working on weekends/holidays a good chunk of time. 70 hr weeks seem to be the norm. Get only one day-off for Christmas and Thanksgiving.

Many Amazon execs are probably laughing their asses off looking at companies in the valley one-upping each other with great pay, quality free food, extending maternity/paternity leaves, generous health benefits and 401K contributions. "Look at these losers in the valley, and look at us, we pay employees pea-nuts, treat them like garbage, don't give a fuck about their well-being or families but still get a ton of shit done. Our stock is soaring! "

A good chunk of their engineers who are willing to take this kind of abuse are H1-Bs waiting for greencards. All new college grads wisen up after looking at their friends from Google/Facebook/Mircosoft, jump ship after a couple of years. Only people who stay there for a long time seem to be people who really like this kind of confrontational/psychopathic environment or incompetent engineers who rose into management, and cling onto their jobs.

[retailengineer]

22 days ago, you commented:

"For a 25-30 year time frame AMZN will beat S&P and Walmart by several X. AMZN, GOOG are companies which will have a huge impact on how we live. I have put some money into them. They are Berkshire Hathaways of our time."

So you seem fine with whatever (exaggerated and imaginary) evil things the execs are up to, as long as you profit from that as well.

[throwaway6497]

Thanks for bringing this up. I want Amazon to take better care of employees precisely because I have money invested in them; because I believe in a knowledge economy, the greatest asset a company has is its people, and in the long-term this will matter. Amazon can be a lot more valuable, if employees can build long-term careers there and are better cared for.

I am rational. I want my money to work hard for my family. If I believe, I can provide a secure future for my family by investing in AMZN then I will do that. Through all the mutual/index funds, I am probably invested in a lot of companies whose practices I disagree with. Examples: Avoiding taxes (double irish with a dutch sandwich), super low minimum wages and expecting public to pay for their care (walmart and food stamps use of their employees), abysmal working conditions (foxconn deaths/suicides), shipping manufacturing jobs to China/Malaysia/Philippines and exploiting low-wage workers there, advertising and selling unhealthy/processed and getting kids hooked to high-{sugar,salt,bad fat} diet. We have practically proved that the best engine to create wealth is capitalism. The dichotomy you have provided is a false one. I love all the good properties of capitalism but I am also aware of its acute shortcomings, if there is no government or regulation. This doesn't mean that I will stop being a rational economic actor.

Things I mentioned are what I heard from current/ex Amazon employees. What I wrote about benefits are facts (else people would have refuted them right away). Only exaggeration was about Execs laughing their asses off; I was just making a point.

[MCRed]

You really should look at the PE and grwoth of Amazon vs BH.

Amazon is a shell game, it is not really growing. It's a boring retailer... yet it is using PR to pump up its stock.

No way to know how long it can do this, except to know it can't do it forever.

Meanwhile Berkshire is a well managed company that actually turns an operating profit.

[peripitea]

This seems like a common misconception. Amazon's PE (and earnings in general) are terrible because they don't care about earnings at this point in their life; they are growing far too quickly in far too big a market to stop to take earnings. Slides 45-47 from this A16Z presentation illustrate this pretty well: http://www.slideshare.net/a16z/mew-a16z

Also, your assertion that Amazon is 'not really growing' doesn't really make sense or fit with any publicly-available data I can think of.

[drited]

Considering the expectations implied by Amazon's stock price, are you sure it's a common misconception? Surely if the misconception was common, the valuation metrics would be much lower?

[jcfrei]

Amazon will never have the same impact on our lives like Walmart did. Simply because retail won't grow as much anymore as it did when walmart became big. We're moving into a digital economy (ironically to a small extent thanks to amazon and their elastic cloud) and there simply isn't as much revenue in a digital economy as there was in the traditional (physical) consumer goods economy. people earn less nowadays and consume less. walmart rode the heydays of consumerism in the US and I doubt retail spending will ever return to those heights: http://wallstreetexaminer.com/wp-content/gallery/economic-ch... amazon seems to me like the emerging, dominant player in a shrinking market. furthermore - looking at the digital consumer goods market - we see that in this market amazon is again playing second fiddle. this market is dominated by Google and Apple (which have much better offerings with respect to apps, music, etc.) and maybe EA and Valve for games (origin and steam respectively).

[soup10]

All companies are 'evil' in that they extract value for themselves at the expense of others. Amazon is probably less evil than Walmart though, since they are doing much more to reduce labor costs to distribute goods. Not that Walmart is necessarily evil either. Usually entirely a matter of perspective since large businesses have a huge effect on the ecosystem and have internal ecosystems there will always be many that see them positively and negatively.

[rezistik]

Would you say Amazon is more Berkshire Hathaway or more Carnegie Steel, at a time intensely innovative with extreme work expectations?

[marbletiles]

"Reducing labor costs" is what is making them evil, in part

[Lawtonfogle]

>So you seem fine with whatever (exaggerated and imaginary) evil things the execs are up to, as long as you profit from that as well.

As long as the evil is easy to ignore and the profit large enough, I would dare say this is common among most people. Especially if you don't have to admit it (and thus take the hit to social reputation).

[ElComradio]

The correct response to being chewed out this way is "If I suck so much you must have been a fucking idiot to hire me."

[TrevorJ]

How the heck does AMZ avoid hostile work environment lawsuits? Good lord.

[MCRed]

When you try to transfer, your boss puts in a report to HR about how you're such a bad employee (clearly the bosses are incentivized to do this, to keep employees from internally transferring.)

Once that happens you're on the clock- you're going to get fired, and they are just building a case against you.

Your boss and HR will become increasingly hostile (while HR pretends to be there to "help" and "mediate" but actually is working against you filling your file with bullshit that comes from your boss)

HR will start actively gas lighting you. The negative reports that are suddenly appearing in your file (eg: a previous boss who gave you a good review suddenly has criticized you in the file that only HR can see... why would he lie to you?)

They want you to think you're at fault for anting to work for a non-abusive boss.

Eventually they fire you and give you a meager severance check which is attached to a contract you sign where you promise to never sue them.

I think it's only a matter of time.

But it is a hostile work environment, my rights were violated regularly, and as far as I'm concerned, the company should be shut down.

No engineer with self esteem should work there. But people seem to think that it's glamerous because of the name and they don't know that it is better elsewhere.

I think their hiring process is tuned to find people who will fall for their mantras.

The culture is VERY cult like. Much more than Microsoft or Apple in this regard.

[farmergiles]

This is absolutely right and I have first hand experience with this.

I came back from my country after a 3 week vacation and during my 1:1 with my manager, she started criticizing things which she hardly ever mentioned. And then, a few weeks later, she and her manager pulled me aside and put me in a program where I would have to do much more difficult work (PIP) to save my job.

The PIP document was this scandalous piece of paper. Things which were a complete non-issue a few months back were made a huge deal. I had a seizure attack a few months before all this and my manager was well aware of my mental situation. Inspite of all this, she instrumented all this. I wouldn't blame here. She did this to save her own ass I guess. You've got to eat someone else's career to move yours ahead.

Bottom line is I wasn't able to cope up with the PIP work. I was made to resign and being an H-1B worker, I had to find a job to save my status. My health issues made me spiral into a depression and today I'm in a substandard job.

[aceperry]

Sorry to hear about your experiences there. But I think it's good that you've realized that it wasn't your fault and you have a good perspective on the whole experience.

[SeeDave]

"Hostile Work Environment" != Miserable working conditions.

From blm.gov,

"A hostile work environment is actionable in the EEO process when it is based on allegations of discrimination; e.g., race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability or sexual orientation1, or reprisal."

[smnrchrds]

So if a manager only shouts insults at women, it is illegal; if he shouts insults at everyone, it is completely legal?

[SeeDave]

Not a lawyer, but that seems pretty spot on.

[nu2ycombinator]

The public humiliation you are talking about happens only with AWS team, their dev's are scared to check in stuff.

[JOnAgain]

Disagree. Merchant Tech used to do it, too (circa. 2010)

[MCRed]

All teams do it, it's part of the stack ranking, my-team-vs-other-teams culture.