I don't think Bezos is the one that came up with these idiotic corporate policies.
From my unattached outsider's perspective, I am almost certain Bezos would do no such thing. In fact, it is almost guaranteed that he would have never known about it, assuming it would have saved this person's life. In my experience with small business, I wouldn't even be able to keep track if any of the workers there were sitting in a car during a fire drill unless I watched it happen. There is no way someone in a business of millions of people is keeping such tabs.
I can appreciate the imagining, though. I'm guilty of such things myself, finding out later the person I thought would draw ire wasn't thinking about me at all. I'm not sure that is cultural. It seems to be a basic human trait. In fact, our culture tries to remind people that nobody is thinking about you.
I’m around if you ever reach a point where your ego allows you to get past the earlier error. It is okay that your comment wasn’t thought through. Nobody cares. For the sake of kindness, I will continue to partake in this diversion therapy if that’s what you need to get through it, but know that I’m more interested in the original topic.
This death isn't the first. They've had so many problems with heat exhaustion the company hires private ambulance services so there's no public record of EMS being dispatched to their warehouses.
This also isn't the first time they've had people end up outside the warehouse in freezing cold.
Then there were the warehouse deaths caused because staff weren't allowed to shelter from a tornado.
The list goes on and on.
With millions of employees there is no way he is able to say on top of the policies the workers are putting in place, no. Hell, I've spent enough time in small businesses to observe workers creating boneheaded policies behind the stakeholders' backs, only seeing them come to light when the stupidity caused itself to become known. How are you going to know? Nobody is going to tell you until it is too late.
> Or their effects?
Yes, most likely he is now aware that someone died as a result of another worker doing something idiotic. Now what? He can command to the workers to stop being idiots. I expect he already does that on a daily basis. But do you think that will really work? If you have ever worked with other people in these types of "low rung" jobs you will know that the worker always thinks they know better.
Perhaps that is difficult to fathom from the tech "ivory tower"? Indeed, in tech – and I expect other "high prestige" careers – workers are generally more willing to think things through together and search for the best possible solution.