[wiggumspiggums]

"Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?" -Jeff Bezos

https://www.princeton.edu/news/2010/05/30/2010-baccalaureate...

"Fierce nerds" can be valuable. Sure. But the folks who truly stand out in my mind are a level higher. They're the ones at the top of their game, who know how to demand & command excellence, without being jerks about it.

I'm reminded of this episode of "The Chef Show" where Jon Favreau compliments Roy Choi behind his back. He tells Bill Burr that he had followed Roy around for a full day, going to all his restaurants and food trucks, and not once did Roy raise his voice to his staff. It's pretty cool to see how much admiration one artist/leader has for the other, not because of their technical skills but because they choose to be kind.

I don't think we need to settle for being "fierce nerds".

[lostlogin]

> "Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?" -Jeff Bezos

That an interesting read, thanks. I struggle to square what Bezos is saying with what Amazon has become. He is clearly incredibly clever but appears devoid of any kindness toward his low level employees. Am I missing something?

[imraj96]

That's the feel I get from reading Brad Stone's "Amazon Unbound" .There were multiple instances where Bezos appear devoid of kindness towards employees.

E.g '...In 2009, Onetto’s human resources deputy, David Niekerk, wrote a paper titled “Respect for People,” and presented it at an S-team meeting. The paper drew from Toyota’s proven Lean ideology and argued for “treating people fairly,” building “mutual trust between managers and associates,” and empowering leaders to inspire employees rather than act as disciplinarians. Bezos hated it. He not only railed against it in the meeting but called Niekerk the following morning to continue the browbeating. Amazon should never imply that it didn’t have respect for people embedded in the very fabric of how it operated, he said...'

"...Among the final straws for Onetto was a September 2011 story in the Morning Call newspaper in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The paper reported that the company’s warehouse in the Lehigh Valley had gotten so swelteringly hot that summer that workers were passing out and being transported to nearby hospitals by ambulances that Amazon had waiting outside. An ER doctor even called federal regulators to report an unsafe work environment..."

"...Before the incident, Onetto had presented a white paper to the S-team that included a few paragraphs proposing to install rooftop air-conditioning units in Amazon’s facilities. But according to Niekerk, Bezos bluntly dismissed the request, citing the cost. After the Morning Call article drew widespread condemnation, Bezos approved the $52 million expense, establishing a pattern of making changes only after he read criticism in the media. But he also criticized Onetto for not anticipating the crisis. Fuming, Onetto prepared to remind Bezos of his original proposal. Colleagues begged him to let it go, but he couldn’t. As they anticipated, the meeting did not go well. Bezos said that as a matter of fact, he did remember the paper and that it was so poorly written and ambiguous that no one had understood what course of action Onetto was recommending. As other S-team members cringed, Bezos declared that the entire incident was evidence of what happens when Amazon puts people in top jobs who can’t articulate their ideas clearly and support them with data..."

"...Bezos didn’t want another empathetic business philosopher to replace Onetto as the head of Amazon’s operations; he sought an uncompromising operator..."

[deanCommie]

Sounds like a very one-sided story based on an interview with Onetto and nobody else...[1]

> people in top jobs who can’t articulate their ideas clearly and support them with data..."

That IS a legitimate problem. Through the lens of Hindsight, and based on an interview with Onetto it's easy to retell this story as "Bezos was told upfront, had all the available information upfront, and chose to do nothing until it was too late."

But another way to present the same story is "Onetto didn't articulate the importance of his ideas. Did not present data to support it. And it led to a catastrophic outcome."

I'm not saying the latter interpretation is correct. The truth is somewhere in the middle - probably closer to the original telling of the story. But the key is that good ideas are useless unless you can convince the right people of them. Ultimately, Onetto did not convince Bezos of his ideas. The blame for that can't rest solely with Bezos, because clearly there is ample evidence throughout Amazon's history that people can convince him, and situations like this are an outlier.

[1] If his strategy for this book is anything like for his first: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1Q4CQQV1ALSN0/re...

[Aeolun]

> Ultimately, Onetto did not convince Bezos of his ideas. The blame for that can't rest solely with Bezos

I don’t think you need much information to understand that an un-airconditioned warehouse in a hot location is a disaster waiting to happen.

If someone is proposing a 52M dollar expense to install those, maybe it’s a good idea to ask more until you know why?

[Asymmetryk]

I actually think this is worse for Onetto because the "one-sided story based on...Onetto..." has Onetto extolling high abstract ideas for the ostensible wellbeing of employees when he obviously needed to be presenting hard cause and effect realities to his boss and caring for employee welfare directly on the ground. If you are discussing the lives of warehouse workers I just don't see how it's being responsible to spend your time writing academic papers only possibly able to affect very much more privileged employees if at all.

[a1369209993]

> > "Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?" -Jeff Bezos

> I struggle to square what Bezos is saying with what Amazon has become. He is clearly incredibly clever but appears devoid of any kindness toward his low level employees.

That seems perfectly consistent - he chose option A.

[dfxm12]

Am I missing something?

Probably how good his publicist is.

If I'm being really cynical, Jeff is suggesting these Princeton grads be kind so that he may become clever at their expense.

[ping_pong]

Are you only believing what you read in the media or do you know people that actually work at Amazon? The fact that Amazon employees in a warehouse rejected unionization speaks volumes. And I know plenty of Amazon engineers that love working there.

To put it in perspective, there may be employees that hate working at Amazon, but there are also 100,000 employees. If only 10% of the employees hated working there, that's still 10,000 employees. But a 90% satisfaction rate for any company is amazingly high.

[pseudalopex]

I know people who work at Amazon. Not even the people who like it say it's kind.

[crocodiletears]

I've only once had an employer I would describe as kind. Even then, it was but for the generosity of an aberrant manager, and not a commercial institution.

In most low-skill positions (especially the ones which favor physical labor over soft-skills), you are a body to be instrumentalized until you either leave leave or are disposed of. That's the reality of most work. Retention is as high as it needs to be to ensure continuous operations, and employee happiness is either incidental or primarily a slogan. The human element is made to be as irrelevant as the market will allow.

The Amazon Warehouse workers I've known have described it as warehouse work. Little better or worse in their experience than working at any other distribution center, though some centers are naturally likely to be ran more poorly than others.

[bdavisx]

I've heard "cut-throat", but not kind.

[lostlogin]

> Are you only believing what you read in the media or do you know people that actually work at Amazon?

I’ve talked with people who work there as engineers. I haven’t any friends there.

The engineers seem well looked after, but engineers are not what I’d describe as ‘low level employees’.

I’m not sure that rejection of unionisation says as much as you are attributing to it and if reports are to believe, Amazon used a few dirty tricks.

Likely both sides did, but there is plenty to suggest that Amazon isn’t a kind or benevolent employer.

[jjtheblunt]

1.3 million employees a recent news article said. wow.

[Ar-Curunir]

"Do as I say, not as I do"

[username90]

Once you have achieved significant status and money you no longer need to be fierce since people listen anyway. But most people worth listening to doesn't have significant status and money, instead we wait until they found their own companies and become rich before we listen to them.

[philosopher1234]

This may be true for you, but not for me. I listen to many people who are not well known, and who are not rich, and who arae not startup founders. For instance, none of my friends are rich startup founders, neither is my partner, nor my therapist, nor my coworkers, yet I consider all their opinions valuable (more so than the rich "fierce nerds"). Most of the podcasts I listen to are not run by the rich and powerful, either.

[username90]

It is true for society in aggregate, which is why big companies often loses to small startups on their own strong points. That should be basically impossible if the big companies were anywhere close to rational, but as we know such things happens all the time.

[zem]

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.

-- Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

[systemvoltage]

I find this ironic coming out of Jeff Bezos. There are plenty of examples of people that are exactly opposite of what you describe as. Steve Jobs - massive jerk, but demanded and commanded excellence. I don't personally condone this type of personalities but they exist. Linus Torvalds is another example. There is much more to it.

[yupper32]

> He tells Bill Burr that he had followed Roy around for a full day, going to all his restaurants and food trucks, and not once did Roy raise his voice to his staff.

Sorry what are you trying to say here? It's admirable or difficult not to yell at your employees?

[klinskyc]

Chefs/Kitchens are stereotypically full of yelling, and (otherwise) well-regarded chefs definitely live up to that - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/dining/restaurant-workers...

[yupper32]

That still doesn't mean that not yelling should receive any sort of admiration. You don't get bonus points for doing what should be the bare minimum, regardless of what the current norms are.

[AussieWog93]

I don't see why not. Should the anti-slavery campaigners of the 1800s receive no admiration, despite social norms at the time, because vocal opposition to slavery "should be the bare minimum"?

What about companies now that go out of their way to make sure none of the workers in their supply chain are exploited? That should be the bare minimum - should we ignore the effort that they've gone to?

What about a family member who's been clean from drugs for 10 years? Should we celebrate with them, or just ignore their achievement because not being addicted to drugs is pretty much considered the bare minimum by broader society?

[yupper32]

Are you for real?

Man, who would have thought "not yelling at your employees isn't an accomplishment" would be controversial...

> Should the anti-slavery campaigners of the 1800s receive no admiration, despite social norms at the time, because vocal opposition to slavery "should be the bare minimum"?

Not even close to the same. This case would be like admiring all the people that happened to not own slaves. Congrats?

Anti-slavery campaigners were doing way more than the bare minimum. No one lost their lives over just not having slaves.

> What about companies now that go out of their way to make sure none of the workers in their supply chain are exploited? That should be the bare minimum - should we ignore the effort that they've gone to?

Not even close to the same. This case would be like admiring the factory manager for not exploiting their employees. Congrats?

> What about a family member who's been clean from drugs for 10 years? Should we celebrate with them, or just ignore their achievement because not being addicted to drugs is pretty much considered the bare minimum by broader society?

Maybe if yelling at employees was incredibly physically addictive.

Literally my whole point is that you all are saying, "Wow, it's so admirable that you're not a piece of shit!".

[AussieWog93]

I am 100% for real. Everyone is a piece of shit in one way or another - and rarely do people stop being a piece of shit until some sort of external judgement/pressure is applied.

The fact that this guy refused to shout at his staff, even though he was in an environment where shouting at staff is completely tolerated, is an admirable and frankly rare trait.

It shows he actually cares about other people, rather than doing what is socially acceptable/beneficial to himself.

[prtkgpt]

Bill Burr is a badass. Ruthless savage killer with words. But he’s a comic.

[zem]

it's definitely admirable, and given the number of people who yell i would say it's pretty difficult for a lot of people too

[prtkgpt]

Interesting! I think compliments given in general to fierce nerds is a valid idea. General rule of not to be pissing off people in life.

[xiaodai]

Will you be kind to your wife of 30 years or will you try to chase some journalist.