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Comment by underwater | Hacker News Reader

Amazon's very first stated leadership principle is Customer Obsession: Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.

This, and the myriad of other stories about Amazon, leave me scratching my head. They aggressively filter candidates based on questions designed around these principals. Either they're completely failing on a cultural front, or the values and their hiring process are a weird in-joke.

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Don't scratch your head too hard you'll get a bold spot.

It is nothing but a sort of well intentioned sounding yet ultimately meaningless corporate speak instituted a long time ago by Bezos - kind-of sort-of true for a while and then the headcount gets huge.

Now it something you might hear at Uncle Enzo's CosaNostra Pizza HQ.

Some of those 6 character vendor names do resemble Sumerian…

it was important while there was competition... now it gets in the way of profit

Say what you will, they make damn sure you get your pizza

During my time, this principle was followed. With one small exception: Amazon Marketplace. There everybody was extremely hands-off, at best the marketplace sellers were considered Amazon's customers, not the people buying through the marketplace. That being said, if sellers used FBA, things like returns and so on followed the same rules like Amazon's own business. I didn't really agree with that approach, but it does seem to work out quite well for Amazon so far...

Well, who is the Customer?

When a company motto becomes a joke it's time to move on

Almost like they have collapsed into a cesspool of backstabbing, overwork, turnover, burnout, betrayal, hire-to-fire, stack ranking, inevitable pip, etc.

Even if you survive that, they'll fire you right before you vest.

Amazon is a company focused on efficiency, to the point of being cut-throat, sure. But do you have anything to back your claim? Because as far as I can tell, this is simply not true.

do they have mandatory stack ranking?

I said they are borderline ruthless, didn't I? So yes, as far as I know they do. Fun, if they try to use it in Europe so., because usually you have to pay people make them leave over here. Reasons for termination are hard to come by.

Lately so, a much as I disagree with stack ranking and so on, I came to realize that the oposite of handling those things (pretending to be ultra-nice and so on) just moves the backstabbing to a different room, one without any rules. So yeah, in a sense Amazon is doing a lot of things right, as hard as it is for individuals.

Edit: Amazon did have stack ranking while I was there, no idea if still do, but I assume yes.

> usually you have to pay people make them leave over here

Dunno. I think that's just how most companies do it, because HR is a shitshow all over the world. (Because it's hard and concentrating it into a department staffed with skilled HR professionals just seems to "solve it" even if the cost is enormous, and one management fix for this deficiency is "stack ranking" in the US. Diffuses legal responsibility, easier to defend, mechanical, etc.)

"Managing out" people works, but that would mean taking responsibility for the decision.

And it's possible - even in the so-called socialist hellscape of Europe - to agree upfront with the employee that the employer can terminate the employment without any wrongdoing. (Even if there's a union, the employer has to agree on this with the union, but employers don't do this, because it would mean taking responsibility for performance, and that would raise a lot of annoying questions throughout the whole hierarcy.)

> mandatory stack ranking

Everywhere I have worked had this stupid system.

- Sold $10mil on your target of $1mil, bottom of your team because Jane and the other 8 members sold $11mil, culled as one of the bottom 5%. Other department where they all missed their targets, bottom 5% fired and the rest stay.

four people that worked there, programming and management

Could simply be that Amazon is just very generous about refunds, so either way the customer is happy. Someone gets something they think is a bargain. Others get prompt refunds.

Politics has certainly shown that honesty isn't really related to trust.

I returned a laptop battery that didn't match the description recently and I'm not happy. I don't have what I wanted to buy, I maybe already got back my money (didn't check yet), I lost time to fill forms, print a label, etc. I have to spend time again to find another battery and hope for the best.

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