His account seems much better than what I experienced. I still think he has swallowed too much koolaide-- and this is why Amazon focuses on the young kids they can make an impression on.
I've worked at Amazon and you are absolutely right. The implied "get it done" pressure, basically just socially awkward managers who have no self-value themselves, pushing the new people to work ridiculous hours. Not mentioning hours though, but basically getting unexperienced youth to waste away their lives at their jobs. It's sad.. it's definitely a mental and manipulative tactic. It's really cancerous because these exact kind of mentally defective people who spurry to get things done, usually last-licks from Microsoft, become managers. Then they apply that silly pressure to everyone under them, and elegance fades away. Literally horrible code, with little polymorphism, less elegant frameworks, etc. Just a side affect of "get it done." Anyhow, Amazon isn't rosy. It's a dumping ground, and yeah, the FLP process where people get culled is just a side affect of the value of work-life balance, human empathy there. I would never work at Amazon again.
I totally agree. I can see why he would blame a lot of this on himself, but I think it's a mistake. A good manager would have been keeping an eye on him, helping him set boundaries, reducing schedule pressure, etc. If this guy were the only one to have a problem at Amazon that would be one thing, but the sheer number of stories points to deep problems with culture and management.