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Comment by exelius | Hacker News Reader

I think the idea with Zappos is that they're supposed to be such a great place to work that you wouldn't want to leave.

And in Zappos' case, I get why they offered severance deals. They were embarking on a radical experiment in organizational structure, and not everyone is going to be on board with it. Rather than having a bunch of people at the water cooler talking shit about the changes, you offer them money to leave so that people who aren't on board with the changes get out of the way.

I would guess that many of the people at Zappos who took the deal were managers themselves. If you're a middle manager, you have skills around managing people but maybe not so much with doing the actual work. If your skill set doesn't align with the new job you're being asked to do (which is effectively a demotion), and the company offers you a buyout to leave, what would you do?

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I imagine that people in management positions have reason to take the package even if their skill set is perfectly aligned to the new job. If you're on a career path where one of the major measures of your success is how many people are under you, then you better be pretty committed to the Zappos vision if you're staying on. A long stint of not having anyone reporting through you might be a bit of a black spot on your resume if you ever end up for a position elsewhere.

The list of people who took the offer was posted internally. I imagine it must be out in the wild somewhere by now as well.

Besides managers who are looking to jump ship and pretend to do work somewhere else, a lot of professionals are on the list- lawyers, accounting people. I imagine some of these people will show up on Amazon's roster in the near future.

> "Pretend to do work"

Little presumptuous isn't it?

Yes, even the title change from something like "Senior Manager" to "Employee" might hurt your chances. With IT/dev it's not so bad, as some very good organizations list both grads and greybeards as "Member of Technical Staff." I have to imagine that those who remain plan to retire from there.

> If you're on a career path where one of the major measures of your success is how many people are under you,

My assumption would be that those are the people that this move is attempting to push out.

I'm surprised the number of people taking the deal isn't higher. If I need religious zeal, I'll go join a religion.

well another way to look at it is that there is already a fundamentalist organizational religion that most people adhere to, they're just unaware of being part of one already

Please explain.

Please identify this "fundamentalist organizational religion" a bit clearer. Did you mean capitalism, b-school, emergent hierarchical organizations.. tribes?

its pretty simple, there is obviously a very ingrained faith in the standard organizational structure w/ management, staff. its so obvious that is how things should be (its "fundamental"), that its difficult to consider that belief is possibly also a matter of faith, even if that standard structure was itself emergent in some respects.

its possible the commenter i was responding to was referring more to the "rah rah" aspect of zappos as a whole, rather than religious zeal re: this new organizational concept. those are different things in my mind, also both are exhibited by the directive "to all employees: read this book and indicate you have done so".

anyway it isnt a comment on whether or not the zappos idea itself is useful and/or just another fad coated with new terminology (i have no idea). just that when you can identify someone else as engaging in religious zealotry, its fun to consider what that zealotry is being compared to, which probably turns out to be something like "everybody knows its supposed to be this way", aka. some sorta implicit religion.

There's plenty of reasons to stick around that aren't religious zeal.

There certainly are but are there that many reasons that are good enough to make someone stick around instead of taking 3 months pay while not having to work?

I imagine most developers could find a job with similar pay in a month or maybe one and a half, so the reasons would have to be strong enough that you'd give up an extra 10% in salary, or even being able to take a 3 month long vacation.

On the other hand, if they recently had to move to Vegas I wonder how hard it is to find work there and I can totally see people not wanting to move again so quickly.

Henderson is a suburb of Vegas. You wouldn't have to move unless you wanted to walk to work.

In the grand scheme of things, 3 months pay is not that significant (a large enough performance bonus can already match that, or a joining bonus for that matter). Now compare that against the chances that you will enjoy your new same-pay job less, or you'll have to move far away, or delay career advancement while you learn the ropes at the new job. There are plenty of potential advantages from changing jobs too, depending on the job, so it actually might make a lot of sense to switch. The point here is that 3 months of salary tips the balance only slightly.

Of course, those who have reservations about working where they are, should take the severance package, but that's the point.

Also, I am a bit surprised that we are discussing 3 months of pay as a magnanimous, almost foolish, concession from management, whereas in many places around the world that kind of compensation is law mandated when you lay-off people without reason.

3 months is less than 1% of lifetime earnings. Not worth throwingaway your plans (whatever your plans may be)

But factor in the value of 3 months. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/timevalueofmoney.asp

3 months pay is nothing compared to years at a great company with great culture and great people. The work itself might be the same company to company, but the people and the environment depend a lot on internal culture that's not particularly easy to find before taking a job elsewhere. One spends at least 8 hours a day working with others, not just writing rote code. There's very much a human aspect to employment, not simply economic self-interest.

> I imagine most developers could find a job with similar pay in a month or maybe one and a half

Geographic area heavily influences this. Last time, I spent 8 weeks with almost no nibbles (and then suddenly had two companies fighting for me on the 9th week).

I've got mouths to feed. And when you interview for your new job, you are going to be asked why you took the buyout. "LOL 3 months salary" isn't a good answer.

Your point is valid. However, saying "LOL 3 months salary" would be a foolish answer in an interview even if you did take the buyout. Leaving a company over differences in philosophy (management, engineering, or ethical) are all perfectly acceptable reasons to part ways without compensation. I wouldn't take the buyout flatly, but if I wholeheartedly felt the direction the company was going in was foolish, I would certainly consider it.

Not everyone likes the ping-pong ball model of modern employment. A stable job, where I show up five days a week, the company takes care of me, and I get to form stable working relationships with my coworkers, is valuable to me and many others.

I'm surprised the number isn't higher because they recently moved Zappos from Henderson to downtown Las Vegas.

Recently? I'm pretty sure it was over 12mths ago as I toured the Vegas HQ in late May last year and it was well lived in by then.

I consider that recent. Long enough to know you hate the commute.

Three months is cool, but it's a big reordering of life. If you enjoy your job, you shouldn't take it. Maybe your next job is worse. And people in SV say "every good developer has 5 offers waiting for him by breakfast" but it's not that way in every part of the country.

On the other hand, if you've been contemplating a job change, take it.

I believe Zappos is in Las Vegas. And they're not really a tech company, although they use tech.

> they're not really a tech company

By your definition, what is a tech company?

Guessing he or she means they sell shoes, not software or hardware.

My definition is that they use tech as their differentiator and/or as their value proposition.

You can be a tech company and sell commodities, Amazon is an example of that.

Amazon has not only used technology as their differentiator/equalizer, they've also innovated in other areas of technology and now resell that to others. Amazon is definitely a tech company on that measure. Zappos - they sell shoes. Now maybe they've done some innovating/inventing themselves, but I don't think they are known for that aspect of their company.

Not sure if you're aware, but Zappos is owned by Amazon.

There are reasons to stay besides religious zeal, too. I'm not certain how one can easily see this change as seriously threatening unless you're somewhere in the middle of the org chart. If you're at the bottom, hey, your day probably won't change that much (unless you hate your boss). If you're at the top, well, I've yet to hear that Mr. Hsieh is planning to abdicate.

Or perhaps you've experienced the Zappos culture first hand, and, for whatever reason, don't think that this is a good idea.

Some may still quit. They may just not have taken the last second offer. Instead, I wonder how many are interviewing and will leave once they have an offer safely secured. I'm sure Zappos will not want to publish that, because combining that will take them to probably 20+% turnover. Ouch.

Keep in mind that they're in vegas. There aren't a lot of similar companies there to transition to.

Rather than having a bunch of people at the water cooler talking shit about the changes, you offer them money to leave so that people who aren't on board with the changes get out of the way.

There's that element directly, but I think even more powerful is the sense to the employees that they are consciously opting in to staying. They are literally passing up a (small) pot of gold in order to stay in the new structure. The mere fact of choosing in such a way (even if that's the default choice) will tend to increase commitment in the inevitable dark moments of the transition.

Doesn't Zappos make a similar offer to everyone that finishes their new employee training program?

Yep, 3k -- and for the same reason. http://bigthink.com/inside-employees-minds/zappos-will-give-...

"Rather than having a bunch of people at the water cooler talking shit about the changes, you offer them money to leave so that people who aren't on board with the changes get out of the way."

Each change creates winners and losers. The losers will be around that water cooler. You can't manage this before the trajectory is flown. Best of luck to all involved.

it's easy to forget that zappos was acquired by amazon. i am interested to what extent sales growth or lack thereof, would be a driver of radical restructuring.

I think that Amazon is content to let Zappos experiment. If Zappos loses customers, statistically most of them will end up at Amazon anyway. Tony Hsieh is pretty out there, and a lot of his ideas sound kind of crazy, but I think Bezos believes in him and is willing to let him try. Even though everyone says "Oh, that won't work" you don't know until you try.

If Zappos can experiment with a new leadership style, maybe it produces desirable results that can be replicated elsewhere. Maybe it fails miserably. What's likely to happen is that there will be things that work and things that don't, and I guarantee Amazon is interested in that. Because of all the things I've heard about Amazon (many of them good), I've never heard that it's a great place to work. Their turnover is high, so maybe they're looking for ways to reduce it while not losing the culture of urgency (though some would say fear) that makes them so good at executing on things.

Of course, if it's a total failure, Bezos will likely fire Tony and trash the entire idea.

It's a great place to work. There, you can no longer say "you never heard it's a great place to work". Sample size of 1, but I love it.

That's great to hear, but how much did that change for you or others when the holocracy processes were added? I can see where that could totally change how I feel about a job even if I still love my coworkers, the job perks, etc.

Sorry I should have clarified - I meant Amazon is.

Are you an AWS employee? They're the only people who ever say good things about working at Amazon in my time reading HN.

Nope not AWS

That brings the total count of satisfied workers I have heard from to 2.

My spouse worked there, a couple of steps down from Jeff Bezos. At least parts of Amazon are micro-managed misery.

Amazon implemented pay ($2,000 -- $5,000) to quit about a year ago.

For warehouse associates. This doesn't apply to engineers.

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