Bezos defends Amazon culture in letter to shareholders

Seen it

I've worked at a place that sounds a bit like Amazon.

The bosses put a lot of effort into convincing us the business was always on the edge, and we'd need to work harder for less if we wanted to keep our jobs.

When that got old there were performance reviews that everyone failed.

Eventually the only people left were the old timers protecting their generous pension entitlements, and the unmotivated. I left it far too long to leave, and didn't realize how unhappy I was until I found something better.

Highest turnover rate

I've been told by a recruiter that Amazon has the highest turnover rate in the industry. I believe that. I worked there for several months, and there's no way I'll go back. Horrid development environment that was broken most of the time, badly written and buggy code to work with, and an incompetent manager. And I keep getting recruiters from Amazon contacting me. Blech!

Now I'm working for a company where the turnover is incredibly low, and I have my own office.

Hey, shareholders, get a clue! Oh, yeah, they aren't canny enough to read El Reg.

Yes, but ...

Bezos claims:

"Someone energized by competitive zeal may select and be happy in one culture, while someone who loves to pioneer and invent may choose another."

Select a culture? Unfortunately very few people know what the corporate culture is *really* like until after they've joined the company. And then they're stuck for a year or two, unless they want a dodgy patch in their CV ...

Not all that different from where I work.... er, not

Hypothetically (because I can't post statements that might be taken to imply that I speak for my employer), I work for a US government agency, that for want of a better way of putting it, launches things into space. Things that observe and measure things we've never measured before, that see things we've never seen before, and that expand our mental horizons about the world we live in, its neighborhood, and the cosmos. And to get those things done, there are certainly times when lots of people on a project put in those killing hours, BUT they are recognized for their work, managers generally try to turn around weaker performers, and we aren't expected to work that long every week of every year. If you see us crying, it's because our own mistakes led to friends and role models getting killed, which seems a much more valid reason for tears than a tinhorn dictator of a manager putting you down.

And if you see us cheering and lifting glasses of champagne (sorry, non-alcoholic; the real thing isn't allowed at work), it's because we think we accomplished something more meaningful than a good quarter.

I finally figured out who Bezos is

Look at that picture - he's S. R. Hadden from Contact. He owns a space launch company, and looks like a slightly younger version of him, so I could see him living in space in his later years.

Two successes

And you picked kindle and Alexa?

I would say they are Trustworthy online shopping and AWS. Those were both world changing. Kindle is great but ultimately just a gadget so has to be number 3. Alexa is nowhere (yet).

Consistently failed...

... with mention of the Kindle. Similarly, Apple might have consistently failed, apart from the iPhone... I'm sure lots of companies would take nine failures if the tenth was going to be that successfully (and "Kindle" seems be used as generic term in much the same way iPhone means smartphone or Hoover vacuum cleaner; I imagine it has a bigger percentage of the e-reader market than iPhone has of the phone market).

And there's also the massive failure that is AWS.

And the assessment about Amazon TV is subjective. As an owner it's a pretty fantastic experience. I had an Amazon Prime subscription and an £80 box later Prime Video is just one of the extras I'm enjoying for no additional cost. (And I'd rate Prime Video over Netflix UK for content so far.) For me, it just works (and a nice touch that it was configured for my account when delivered). TV's a bit fragmented and you can hardly say Apple TV (or whatever) is ubiquitous.

Their working environment and culture is one thing but dismissing their products like this is a bit simplistic. Epic failures all then. Except the de-facto e-reader, AWS (which is more than holding its own against minor players like, er, Microsoft and Oracle), Amazon Prime subscriptions, Alexa (just release it in the UK!).

I don't know anyone ever having an Amazon Phone but I only know one person with an MS one.

While there's no doubt that Amazon is a successful company in terms of revenue and profit

Revenue, yes. Profit less so.

Investors have stuck with Amazon for years because of the (self-fulfilling) high stock price and jam tomorrow. At some point they might start demanding margins > 1%: sell the tat bazaar and focus on the digital stuff.

I could summarise this article in four words...

Bezos is a dick.

Not really news, though.

Amazon = Walmart?

"While there's no doubt that Amazon is a successful company in terms of revenue and profit, it had in large part succeeded by pressuring others to sell their goods at a lower price, bringing in more customers to Amazon's marketplace and further strengthening its hold on the market."

Two comments on the above:

-- Pressuring suppliers sounds like the Walmart model...

-- I have always heard that Amazon does not make a profit on the marketplace, but does make a profit on their cloud services.

Continuing the Walmart analogy regarding personnel practices, Amazon sounds like it learned a lot from Walmart: "We control your life - leave if you don't like it."

Typo?

"provided personal details about some of the most critical former employers in an effort to undermine their credibility". Should that be "employees"?