[jasonv]

I think in this case, the "From:" is the "it's important" part and the "?" is the "What's up with this?" part.

I've been a CEO and CTO, but usually in <100 employee companies, so as busy as I might've been, I could ask, "What's up with this?"

I think among all his possible sins, at Amazon scale, "?" itself wouldn't rank super high.

[sheeshkebab]

It’s a passive aggressive and unprofessional - you don’t want your employees talking to each other this way, so don’t start it either.

[stepstop]

Is it though? He only has one side of the story so the (?) is asking for the other side of the story (which they might not be aware of). How do you do it as a CEO?

[wondringaloud]

You spell out your question like a human being, to treat the other human being with respect.

[TravHatesMe]

I agree with you 100%

The larger issue is that Jeff's subordinates will then treat their subordinates in the same way. If this becomes common, it will extend to other behavior or communication. This will result in horrible company culture, where bosses treat their underlings like shit. Do not normalize this type of behavior! That is not good for employee retention, nor employee productivity/morale. It all comes from up top.

[moreaccountspls]

I'm no fan of Amazon, but it's the third most valuable company on the planet. Whatever they're doing is obviously working for them, even if I personally wouldn't want to work there.

[moises_silva]

I used to think along the same lines, but morality and economic success are different things. Sometimes a few 'things' they do, moral or not, are the deciding factor to reach such high valuations, and then we fixate over things like the '?' email and try to explain it as 'the secret' management technique or whatever that made them successful, when in reality they were successful in spite of it not because of it.

[jasonv]

I remember having an ongoing debate with someone who reported to me about the etiquette of emails.

He held that every subsequent email in a long thread should start with, "Hello [name]," before the first paragraph. I thought that was reasonable for the first email, but when things got to the 3rd or 4th response, it was normal to just write your response, first paragraph starting on the first line.

Most of the company did that. He and I had issues. We never resolved this (I gave in on this, as I was trying to resolve our lack of alignment on many fronts), but I find it completely normal in most of the companies I've worked in since.

Especially since those of us who are emailing each other all day long are doing it over and over again, day after day, and getting the friendly formalities when we see other in real space, or on calls.

There's a passive aggressiveness to holding out for higher formalities when the cultural context is otherwise totally fine with shorthands that come with working and communicating with some people a lot.

[bebna]

Yeah, at some point it just becomes a conversation.

[nicoburns]

I'd actually prefer to recieve '?' because it allows me to respond with what I consider relevant. As someone unfamiliar with the details of the topic, he's unlikely to know what's relevant, so specific questions are likely to be more of a distraction than anything.

[yomly]

Having actually worked on a handful of "sev-b" tickets I really don't think the "?" is a big deal.

Jeff's email is public and the original correspondence is copied in unchanged.

I'm not even convinced Jeff sent it as I don't think Jeff reads his public email. At a company of size > 100-1000 I don't think the CEO really has the bandwidth to stop and offer insight into the nature of the problem - does "please look into this" or "forwarding" or "cc xyz" or "?" really add much value?

In hindsight they were mildly fun - the forward chain would create a chain of accountability, starting with Jeff to Diego all the way down to an L4 in their 20s to fix a customer problem - each with their neck on the line but without much influence to solve the actual issue at hand.

It really was less an email and an alternative ticketing interface.

[onion2k]

Is it though? He only has one side of the story so the (?) is asking for the other side of the story (which they might not be aware of). How do you do it as a CEO?

A single "?" could mean anything from "This looks interesting, could you give me some additional data." to "What the actual *&($ is this? Explain or your entire team is gone." A little more context would be helpful.

[devalgo]

With words, like a normal human being instead of a one sided power play?

[quicklime]

Yes, it is. I’m sure Jeff understands exactly how these emails make people feel.

If he’s just innocently asking for the other side of the story, he should put together a complete sentence that demonstrates that, rather than sending a single ambiguous character that he knows could be interpreted as “you fucked up, fix this right now or you’re fired!”

[sailingparrot]

> How do you do it as a CEO?

The same way as non-CEOs? Write a 4 words sentence asking for more details?

[tyingq]

It's a tech company. Maybe they could manage a short URL that explains the long list of rules associated with a "Jeff ?" email. And paste that URL instead of a '?'.

[happytoexplain]

Surely one can comment on an example of communication even if the person it came from should be morally judged only on their great sins? It's inherently valuable to talk about examples of communication, especially from a leadership angle - and so conversely this conversation is not exclusively a judgement of a famous person.