I read about all the crap Amazon employees have to deal with. So it's hard to view anything this guy does in a good light. IMO, anyway. I wonder how much this philosophy contributes to the horror stories we hear out here.
Amazon is the best run company I ever worked for. By far.
I am going through my second stint at Amazon and I enjoy working there. However, it is not the best place for everyone.
This will tell you a lot about whether this team is growing and successful, stagnant, or on fire.
Getting paged a lot is a hallmark of teams you don't want to be on, but in the last couple of years, Amazon has instituted policies that make it easier to internally transfer (no strict time limit on how long you have to stay with a team).
Getting paged is sort of a proxy for the real thing you want to know: how many people are voting with their feet.
Previously I believe you had to stay on a team for a year before you could switch. Now it's something like a month.
If you find yourself on a bad team, pop open jobfinder and don't be afraid to abandon ship! Don't needlessly suffer.
Ask how long the various managers have been in that org/under the same senior manager/director. A manager who you like that gets along with senior leadership is super important.
Ask questions during your interview. If you interview for an org, you'll be working with most of those people. Most of them won't lie to you because you'll just leave asap or be pissed off that they were full of crap.
This is all much more difficult to do if you're external, once you're in, it becomes easier to figure out if you want to work somewhere. I'm not willing to even consider an internal transfer unless someone I know will vouch for it. Too many horrible teams and a bad manager can mean you need to find a new company.
Bezos does not do the actual work, he facilitates the labour of others. And if he can do that and underpay them more than someone else would then we have a winner.
This is the system.
Strangely, they had to restore capitalist system and then to invite foreign specialists and managers to make the industry even a little bit operational. Turns out, there isn't much you can do with dumb labour alone.
We should tax land not income and stop forcing people to under-sell their labour.
Spare me the "Russia" extreme example. This isn't quantitative, we can dislike that extreme and also the extreme celebrated by the USA which fails so many.