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Comment by colinbartlett | Hacker News Reader

Regardless of whatever happened, the letter comes off like the whining ramblings of a former employee.

This all refers back to a 2012 lawsuit: http://www.geekwire.com/2012/kindle-ad-team-member-sues-amaz...

A dutch whistle-blower commited suicide, because he was slandered while trying to bring out similar problems at his company. Afterwards, his findings were brought to the major public which created a big stir and caused for in-depth investigation.

It takes a lot of guts to speak up on a huge company like Amazon, this should be valued. It shouldn't be dismissed with "well, it's a former employee, so of course he's not happy.."

> "well, it's a former employee, so of course he's not happy.."

Of course, if he was an employee at the time of filing the lawsuit (the act of filing it would presumably get him sacked immediately afterwards), it would be dismissed with "Well he doesn't feel that strongly about it if he kept working there"

I thought it was well-written, calm and thorough, carefully backing up each point and not descending into hyperbole. It's a difficult line to walk and I think this letter does a professional job.

I am sorry for sounding dismissive. I read through 20 pages and all of it looked like someone having email disagreements with their coworkers. I'll read some of the commentary and try to understand the moral issues here better.

Very classy calling it "whining ramblings". I wish you never have a similar situation in the work environment.

Bravo for anyone standing up for ethics in corporations.

what about those practicing utilitarian ethics?

Really? I only wish most documents I read were that clear and well reasoned.

I wouldn't call it "whining ramblings". But I find it odd that this letter, dating back one month ago, emerges two years after the news of the lawsuit. What I would like to know: what happened between those two years?

It would seem that the outcome doesn't look so peachy for the litigant and they may be interested in the scorched earth path. Going into the holiday spend season, maybe trying to give Munira a bad winter? Oddly, for Amazon, it's easy to restore any ill will in this case. They know how to lever up positive emotional feelings for their consumers. While 10's of MM is money, if Discover is the second largest with <20MM/yr, that's small beans in the revenue stream there.

So, if consumers and other revenue streams are vastly more important, I'm not sure that the impact of ad sales due to a bad actor crossing someone who doesn't understand political acumen - come on, a desperate email to your bosses boss?? WE NEED THE MILLISECONDS!!! - is all that important. Easy enough to bump Munira (right thing), give Kivin shut-up money (right thing and expedient), and move forward steamrolling online retailing...

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