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No I am absolutely certain, I was offered more than 2x for the same position by another tech company.

I was so surprised by Amazon's offer I conducted a small survey amongst friends and acquaintances to find which of my offers (there were more) was 'normal'.

The thing is, you can, as Amazon shows, have an enormously successful business by treating employees badly and not paying top of the market. Of course you can. Paying more does not always get you the best, and for many many tasks you don't need Jeff Deans, you just need someone to work hard and get it done.

There is tons of talented people willing to work for less than the top to get a chance to prove themselves, to learn something, to get their shot. It's just that they tend to leave Amazon (c.f. retention rates) after that, and Amazon seems to be doing ok with that. It's just a fundamentally different approach to employee management.