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Comment by UnpossibleJim | Hacker News Reader

Do you think that this culture will shift with his retirement, or do you think that this culture is so embedded within the fabric of Amazon itself, that there is no separating this kind of behavior from the company without a dismantling of the corporate structure itself?

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Andy Jassy used to lead AWS before becoming Amazon's CEO.

AWS has a reputation of being a difficult place to work, even more so than Amazon's other divisions.

So no, I don't think anything will change.

https://www.newstatesman.com/business/companies/2021/02/he-l...

Yes, those poor AWS employees sure have it tough vs that warehouse division.

> Yes, those poor AWS employees sure have it tough vs that warehouse division.

Pointing out that someone has it shittier is typically an excuse for shittyness.

Or in some cases letting said shittiness manifest because the person doing the pointing isn't themselves subject to it and/or could stand to lose ground when someone decides to do something about it.

Yes that’s why I thought it odd to say the AWS devs have it hardest in the whole company. It’s not a competition though it always feels a bit silly to pretend back breaking physical labor is easier than sitting in an air conditioned office in a chair.

The strongest plausible interpretation is they meant for equivalent jobs.

Inside Amazon AWS is considered a better place than other places actually

Company culture always decays over time to reflect incentives. Not to denigrate Andy Jassy as a Harvard MBA turned Marketing Manager who moved up to become a CEO. But upper management always ends up with the kinds of people who tend to reach upper management in any company.

That said, Amazon’s culture is closer to the norm than most startups so in the short term things are unlikely to change much. At least until some new management fad becomes popular or they run into a significant issue.

Unless they dump the entire senior management and bring new folks in, its not changing. That culture is at the core of Amazon, and perhaps even a contributor to its success, at the detriment of its own employees of course.

I think we define success too narrowly for these sprawling organizations with massive social influence.

How much political scrip such an organization generates given esoteric economic measures should not outweigh real world impact

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