I’ve been a fan of Jeff Bezos for a while. Wrote about this some here. I use Amazon’s affiliate program. I barely make anything off it, but I am sending them business. I also buy most of my books from them. I vote for them with my money, sort of speak. I pay decent attention to what Bezos and Amazon are up to.
If you’re unaware, The New York Times ran an article which made Amazon look not so great.
Unsurprisingly, there were some retorts sounding like the older brother. “Oh come on, it’s just some good ol’ ribbing going on. They’re too sensitive.” Or maybe it’s the older sister,
Perhaps why the tech world doesn’t do well with women.
While the above makes me laugh hysterically, I get it’s excessive. If what was in the Amazon article didn’t seem excessive, well, that’s not something I’m going to try and convince you of here.
Next, I’ve seen a lot debating the article’s veracity, but the last few years more and more has been coming out on Amazon that’s hard to get on board with. The fact they were lining up ambulances outside their warehouse rather than install air conditioning…I mean, how are you going to positively spin that? Because I save some money on my next Prime delivery? While watching House of Cards makes me wonder if another tech company planted the seed for this article, with the motive of dissuading talent from Amazon (Microsoft is also in Seattle; that show has messed with my head), this Times article merely seemed to be a tipping point. The type of stuff described had been swirling around for a while.
Bezos didn’t really even offer a rebuttal. He did link people to a current employee’s very long rebuttal. I think the rebuttal was telling. Some quotes, with bolding mine:
“There is no “little-known experiment”. That’s just silly. No one at Amazon has time for this, least of all Jeff Bezos. We’ve got our hands full with reinventing the world.”
“There is no intricate machine, and I have no idea what Jeff’s ambitions are, other than to continue to grow Amazon. Most of us work here because we want to solve the world’s most challenging technology problems.”
“Yes. Amazon is, without question, the most innovative technology company in the world. The hardest problems in technology, bar none, are solved at Amazon. This is why I’m here. My mentor, an Executive at one of the biggest software companies in the world, told me in our monthly 1:1, as recently as 3 days ago: “There isn’t another company with the size, complexity, and Engineering strength of Amazon. It is the undisputed world leader.” And it is true. Our sheer size and complexity dwarfs everyone else, and not everyone is qualified to work here, or will rise to the challenge. But that doesn’t mean we’re Draconian or evil.”
Bolding not mine-
“In 1997, Amazon revolutionized the way the world shops. Today, we’re the world’s most innovative technology company that just happens to sell books, among other things.”
I think this is where the tech industry runs into some of their problems. It’s where Steve Jobs had issues, why so many loathed Bill Gates back in the day and why he went full bore into philanthropy, it’s where the shitbird who runs Uber has problems, it’s why Mark Zuckerberg donated a hundred million dollars the same day The Social Network came out, it’s part of why people throw rocks at Google’s buses; it’s where Amazon probably has issues.
It reminds me of something I heard Amy Schumer say, regarding being at the Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people gala, with Kanye and Kim.
“That’s what’s so funny. It’s like these Ebola fighters and like people who made real change. And then it’s like me and Bradley Cooper.”
If Bezos thought Amazon was doing what was bolded above, why does the guy have a space company on the side? One he’s poured over five hundred million dollars into? An amount that could pay for how much air conditioning? Although, it does seem more than any profit Amazon has ever made. BOOM!
Image credit: http://www.ibtimes.com/amazon-nearly-20-years-business-it-still-doesnt-make-money-investors-dont-seem-care-1513368
Because even he doesn’t genuinely believe his employee’s above quotes. (Whether he’s able to get his employees to believe it is a different matter.) Even he knows there are other much more complex problems out there than whether you get a delivery by drone. Like going to Mars and making life multiplanetary. Or countless problems in healthcare, many which are largely technology based. Surprise, surprise, Bezos has invested in neuroscience research. Supposedly some “cancer” thing is going around too.
Some delusion about your work can be advantageous. Having an overinflated sense of your work’s importance can help push you along when things are tough. It can also cause you to have an overinflated sense of yourself, to think less of others who aren’t doing the same work, to care more about the work than the human(s) doing the work-
“I remember having a conversation with [Steve Jobs] and I was asking why it could have been perceived that in his critique of a piece of work he was a little harsh. We’d been working on this [project] and we’d put our heart and soul into this, and I was saying, ‘Couldn’t we … moderate the things we said?’
And he said, ‘Why?’ and I said, ‘ Because I care about the team.’ And he said this brutally, brilliantly insightful thing, which was, ’No Jony, you’re just really vain.’ He said, ‘You just want people to like you, and I’m surprised at you because I thought you really held the work up as the most important, not how you believed you were perceived by other people.’
That’s Jony Ive describing one of the most important things Steve Jobs taught him. As if being decent to people while still giving meaningful criticism are mutually exclusive. But when you’re changing the world by making phones easier to use, you get a license to treat people however you want, right? No. Space X, a company actually trying to put people on Mars, has a strict no asshole hiring policy. They seem to be doing alright with that. Because caring what other people think doesn’t make you vain. Worrying about how you treat people doesn’t make you vain. It makes you human. Not caring what other people think makes you at best a narcissist. At worst, a sociopath.
If you want to go solve the most difficult, important problems in the world, then go do it. If you have the ability, you should do it. But don’t pretend automating fulfillment centers, delivering my floating beer pong table sooner or differently (literally the last thing I had delivered from Amazon), having great customer service when I order sneakers, working on one of countless cloud computing services, selling and bringing every item on earth to my door step, is demonstrably improving the world. Bringing things to my doorstep might be making things worse.
If you’re my surgeon removing a cancer tumor, hey, I’ll give some more leeway in how you treat people. You still don’t need to be a jackass, but I’ll be more forgiving if you are. But if you’re Amazon, even you’re making my life better, I care less about getting my package a day, or a few hours sooner, at a few cents, or even a few dollars less, than I care about people not getting heat stroke or having a mental breakdown in the process. Hopefully Amazon does too. Plus, it’s good business. I might not be able to find another world class cancer surgeon. I can find another way to get my beer pong table.
kierfinnegan
August 21, 2015
Awesome
Kim
August 21, 2015
You’re preaching to the choir here. I replied on HuffPost that Amazon employs people at a very good wage. Paid to the young Turk crowd that expend workaday energy through their 20s and 30s to build savings and then take off somewhere else. The crooks on wallstreet/Beltway Av./and bankster blvd. made our great economy into a consumer economy. All of our manufacturing is gone and corp. pigs have outsourced everything related to jobs. Amazon has turned the corner on this, hires only U.S. on U.S. soil and pays well. $$$$ end of story. Don’t like whining employees who are doing well — in NM our high tech industries suffer from sequestration and not getting paid by Uncle Sam contractors. Our labs have laid off lots of engineers, scientists. All U.S. contract work. Amazon is NOT the problem….
reddyb
August 23, 2015
Hey Kim,
I’m not sure how well Amazon pays, or how American they are, is applicable here. If the point you’re getting at is that people who are doing well shouldn’t be as concerned with how they’re treated, or don’t have as much of a right to complain, that doing well is only a monetary thing, then we’ll have to disagree there.
getontheline
August 22, 2015
Good stuff Brian. I won’t comment on the importance of “problems” tech companies solve versus doctors saving lives; that’s a much bigger philosophical debate.
What I think deserves more analysis is the amount of effort/time white-collar workers discuss work/life issues with this Amazon article being the epitome of this notion. The NYT article has over 5,000 comments showing how much people “care” about getting treated fairly in the workplace. The more people write about this topic and the more people speak up about it, the more aware people are at work in terms of how they are getting treated by their managers and HR. Being in NYC, I come across a lot of random conversations waiting in line or just passing by strangers, and the conversations usually involve some sort of complaining about so-and-so didn’t do their work or someone’s manager being a dick. It makes me wonder if the politics of work are replacing getting actual work done.
The very first comment on the NYT article resonated with me the most, where the commenter basically says work is not daycare for adults, and you go to work to get shit done. To relate this to training, you either lift the weight or you don’t. You might have a trainer helping you with technique and encouraging you along the way, but the goal is to lift the weight or accomplish some clear goal. If you get caught up with how much others are lifting, or complain about the brand of dumbbells in the gym, you shouldn’t be in the gym in the first place.
reddyb
August 23, 2015
I understand where you’re coming from. With the training analogy, that’s how I used to think of things. But as I got more ingrained with everyday people, I realized very few have such black and white goals. Often the goal is “be healthy.” Or to exercise regularly. Or lose 20lbs. That’s all. Not lift a certain amount or some other performance metric. For some, if they made it to the gym twice that week, goals = completed.
I think a more appropriate analogy may be this: Trainers don’t have to yell or demean their clients into getting them to achieve their goals. I can be very friendly with them and still get somewhere.
For many of my clients, I’m with them 2-3 hours every week. Yes, there are goals to keep in mind. But regardless of the goal, I don’t have to berate them if they’re lazy one week, or not working as hard as they should be. That’s not fun for anybody. Unless maybe if you’re power drunk or something. An example of this at the highest level of sports is Tony Dungy. He refused to yell on any consistent basis. Still won a Super Bowl.
I suppose my point is regardless of the goal or work being done, why does it have to be we’re getting shit done or we’re being soft? Few of us are doing heart surgery where a mistake means death. Where the stakes are so high. A surgeon yells at a subordinate because they screw up, and the patient nearly died. Alright. Fair enough. I yell at a 50 year old woman because she’s not giving enough effort on her push-ups? I look like a lunatic. I lose a client is probably what happens.
Why can’t it be we’re getting things done and having a good time? Getting things done; still treating people well. Sure, sometimes the goal maybe isn’t accomplished as quickly e.g. sometimes I get caught up talking to a client for 25 minutes and we both realize we didn’t get as full of a session in, but so what? We’ll get there eventually, both of us got to enjoy a conversation for a bit, and both of us continue to like each other. What a travesty. (Some trainers / coaches do seem to get off on their clients hating them. That’s not for me.)
Yes, of course some complain more than is reasonable. Some clients I’m much more stern with if they’re dicking around too much. But there are also some trainers or coaches who are straight up assholes, without needing to be.
Ven
August 23, 2015
Brian, what a tour de force and a humanity reaffirming post. Great stuff!!
reddyb
August 25, 2015
Thanks Ven! Hope you’ve been doing well.
Larry
August 27, 2015
Thanks for posting this, Brian.
Nobody’s been a bigger fan of Amazon than me. But I’ve walked away from more than one job in my life because the company/boss treated people so poorly. These were outfits that took themselves way too seriously, pretended to believe in work/life balance but really didn’t, and were generally miserable to work for.
And I’ve beaten cancer twice in 20 years, both times by doctors who knew how to treat people with compassion and understanding.
The best boss I ever had used to fret about not being promoted to where he should have been. When he finally asked an executive why, she told him “You want people to like you and be people’s friend. That’s not going to get you promoted here.” He’s now self-employed and doing just fine.
reddyb
August 30, 2015
Thanks for sharing Larry, and congrats on beating cancer twice!
My mom has gone through cancer, and the doctor interaction was a huge factor in who she handed her care to. In my personal experience dealing with surgeons, I avoided one surgeon in favor of another, due to his inability to sit down and talk with me. Especially with health stuff, I feel nobody wants to feel rushed or confused. A few extra minutes can really go a long way.
And as we’re saying here, it can be *good* for business!
Oliver Dalmata
September 3, 2015
We can debate Amazon’s methods all we want, but at the end of the day what we cannot debate is that this is the way free markets work. And it’s increasingly the way all organizations will have to operate.
reddyb
September 3, 2015
Why is that?