Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace

The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push

white-collar workers to get them to achieve its ever-expanding ambitions.

At Amazon, workers are encouraged to tear apart one another’s ideas in meetings,

toil long and late (emails arrive past midnight, followed by text messages asking why

they were not answered), and held to standards that the company boasts are

“unreasonably high.” The internal phone directory instructs colleagues on how to

send secret feedback to one another’s bosses. Employees say it is frequently used

to sabotage others.

The company’s top performers dream up innovations that they roll out to a quarter-
billion customers and accrue small fortunes in soaring stock. Non-performing staff

leave or are fired in annual retrenchment of the staff. Some workers who suffered

from serious health issues including cancer and other personal crises said they had

been evaluated unfairly or edged out rather than given time to recover.

The company, founded and still run by Jeff Bezos, rejects many of the popular

management approaches that other corporations at least pay lip service to and has

instead designed what many workers call an intricate machine propelling them to

achieve Mr. Bezos’ ever-expanding ambitions. “This is a company that strives to do

really big, innovative, ground-breaking things, and those things aren’t easy,” said

Amazon’s top recruiter. “When you’re shooting for the moon, the nature of the work

is really challenging. For some people it doesn’t work.”…..to be continued….

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