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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Company culture can change over time but that does not mean it will change for the better over time. The problems I mentioned - cutthroat culture, stack ranking, PIPs, forced cuts, high attrition - have all been a thing at Amazon for at least the last 15 years.

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I guess I don't really see the point of your comment in context of this article. The article doesn't mention most of those things you mentioned - it doesn't mention cutthroat culture, or stack ranking, or PIPs. The article is almost entirely about RTO and layoffs, which _is_ a demonstrably large shift in Amazon's culture if you compare, say, the period of 2017-2021 where remote work was encouraged and the company was was rapidly growing, to now.

The mass layoffs were 1.7% of the company, and the author himself says they didn't have much of an impact. It's no different than what every other big tech company did, and their numbers were a lot worse. The rest of what he talks about ("Making them miserable and silently sacking them.") is what I'm referencing. RTO might be the latest instance of it, but it isn't some big cultural shift. Amazon has never been an employee friendly company. Forcing people to quit when a department's salary gets too much or when they are nearing their 3rd or 4th year vesting periods is basically part of the manager handbook over there.

That’s a specious argument. It includes all of the warehouse workers, delivery drivers and other non blue badge employees.

> RTO might be the latest instance of it, but it isn't some big cultural shift.

Again, this is just demonstrably false. But if you want to continue to have some personal vendetta against Amazon's culture, you do you.

Are you implying that amazon allowed remote work prior to the pandemic?

From personal experience: yes. But I don't really see what that has to do with anything, because even just looking at during the pandemic (remote work culture) to now (in-office culture) is a demonstrably different culture, so I still have no idea what you're arguing.

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