For future reference, it's better do say something like, "Hi, HN. I'm the author and am glad to answer questions. You can also follow me on twitter at @kvargs for future details."
We definitely like participation, but it took me a while to realize that you are the author, and that kvargs is your Twitter account.
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.
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 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...
What about this is frivolous? Maybe he's just more willing to stick his neck out than others are. We need more people willing to do this and less fawning over tech companies.
Totally agree! I have found very few individuals will
speak up, or do anything when their career, or money is involved. Oh sure they will speak online, but
actually calling out a superior, or questioning a professor
in school; they shrink into their seats. I haven't figured out if they are scared, or just in denal. I often wonder if
I would have been one of those people who administered the
high voltage in the Milgram experiment, but I don't lose sleep over it because I walked away from too many jobs, and
ripped apart a Professor or two. That said--I'm not successful and have a spotty work history.
In Germany, you would be laughed out of court for trying to enforce an 18-month noncompete clause, at least if its too broad - that would be equal to an occupational ban. Is this really standard practice in the US?
In France, a noncompete clause is only enforceable if the contract provides adequate specific compensation for it... Often it doesn't and ends up unenforceable.
Germany also requires a comp' (a significant fraction of gross), FWIW. And has a hard-limit to 2 years, and a number of restrictions. Much like France.
It depends on the state. In California non-competes are unenforceable except in very narrow situations, like if you sell goodwill to a company or you are part of a partnership that has gone through a dissolution. Certainly, this guy's non-compete is unenforceable in California.
It'd be really nice if some hacker would put together a comprehensive map/list of non-compete status per state (or if they have) since there are a few states outside of California too. Wikipedia seems to do OK in this regard, but it seems like there should be a lot more info out there.
Because you're young and enthusiastic, because the job sounds awesome and because you don't want to employ a lawyer every time you apply for a job?
Sure, it's a bit naieve not to read a job offer carefully enough, but on the other hand you'd kind of assume a company as large as Amazon, employing so many knowledge workers, would not offer their applicants extortion rackets disguised as job contracts to begin with.
1) Most people accept them because they never actually read their contracts fully.
2) They are told that it is a non-negotiable condition of employment and they really want the position.
3) They are aware that non-competes are unenforceable in their jurisdiction (assuming they are in a jurisdiction where non-competes don't stand up in court).
4) They assume the company is unlikely to spend the money required on lawyers to actually come after them if they violate the non-compete in the future.
1) This makes sense as an answer, I don't understand why people wouldn't read the contract for something that they rely on for their livelihood though.
2) Something like that should be a dealbreaker. No matter how much you want the job, it's effectively saying that you can never leave.
3) In the case of the letter here, he tries to negotiate it after he was fired. If he knew it was unenforceable, then he could have quite simply said so.
4) On their part this is a stupid assumption. You should always assume that a company is willing to back up their threats. Especially a company the size of Amazon.
This isn't to attack your answer, just to put my views on those points.
"2) Something like that should be a dealbreaker. No matter how much you want the job, it's effectively saying that you can never leave."
Based on your username I'm going to assume you're not used to conditions in the US. In my experience, working for 2 megacorps and a startup, this is pretty standard. So if that is a deal breaker good luck finding a job without moving to California. I think I read a story on HN a few weeks ago that said Jimmy Johns was enforcing non-compete agreements. The last one I signed basically said the company owns all work I do, even work I do in my own time (OSS, side projects, etc). I also am required to get permissions to contribute to OSS projects should I want to do that. I also cannot work for competitors (which is like everyone in the industry). I signed it because I don't think it is enforceable and I don't think the company would waste resources trying to enforce it on me.
There needs to be a federal law limiting the scope of these agreements. Preferable modeled after the CA laws.
I find this too. When we were acquired we (group of employees) had lawyers come in (to a bar) to go over the agreement the new company required we signed. The lawyer basically said not to sign it because they could probably enforce it. Ultimately the company made it seem like we were making a big deal out of something they would never try to enforce but still insisted everyone had to sign it. A few people refused to sign. Other signed and then left for competitors anyway. A majority signed it and still work for the new company.
A number of new-hire engineers at Amazon are straight out of college. Looking at it recently, no numbers purely anecdotal, this crowd is being dominated by Asian immigrant graduates.
These people are students who just finished their graduate or under-graduate studies and have most likely taken huge education loans in a currency which is weaker than the dollar. In that situation one really just wants a well paying job at a company which is recognized by the general population (especially your parents and peers) as a good one. Given that, the person signing the contract is unlikely to give the non-compete too much thought. And even if they did, verbal rhetoric from the HR is good enough to lead them to signing.
UK here. The current company I work at tried to get me to sign one. I took the contract to my solicitor who just crossed it out and said hand it back and tell them to accept it or fuck off.
Or alternatively get them to commit to paying you for the period of time. "Gardening leave" of a couple of months is common in many areas, especially sales / marketing driven - but being compensated for it is expected.
I don't really want that. It's a PITA getting a job lined up for when you've quit plus the garden leave time. It's easier when there's just notice to consider.
If it's 18 months it's not so bad. A nice long holiday you can actually use to brush up your general skills and CV, or retake that side project you never had time to finish. You're still officially employed so it doesn't count as a hole (and if asked, you could not work during this period).
Gardening leave means you still have a fully paid job, you just don't need to do any work. So you could for example do an MSc while getting paid a salary. Assuming you have the tiniest modicum of self discipline needed to do something productive in that time, it's the best thing ever.
Sure, but if you're trying to have another job lined up, it's a lot harder to find one before you quit. "We need someone right away, can you start in two weeks?" "Sure, I'll put in my notice tomorrow." is going to be a lot more common than "We're completely sure we need someone new starting 6 months from now, go ahead and quit your job."
Well, if you're unhappy with your job, then you quit and use the 6 months to look for something new. I guess it doesn't really help when seizing opportunities that come along (that may be better even if you're not unhappy).
If you can absorb 6 months of not getting paid, yeah. Not everyone can, and while I've seen a lot of advice saying you should demand to be paid for the duration of a non-compete, I'm pretty sure that's not typical.
Plus there's the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not you'll be able to find a job with comparable pay.
This entire subthread was specifically talking about a 6-month severance package, so talking about not getting paid for 6 months is an odd thing to bring up. Quoted from above:
> Gardening leave means you still have a fully paid job
I'm thinking that people that can't afford to get paid their current salary for 6 months while not actually working for the company are in the minority, unless I'm missing some angle to this.
It depends on where you are. In Germany it is by default a month, but your contract could specify for example 3 months notice for both parties. In places like that, everyone knows this, so a company trying to hire will account for this. Also it's been my experience that most of the times when companies are hiring for "NOW", the start times ends up slipping for months.
If you're in California, where you can leave your company and start working in the next one in a matter of hours, there'll likely be an expectation by the company hiring of a fast start.
At the same time, depending on the company, the hiring process can stretch for months before getting an actual offer.
I want to believe that most employers you'd like to work for are understanding that "life" might happen and you can't start two weeks from the moment you first met them.
I've done that in the US. There was a ridiculous non-compete, and a ridiculous "we own everything you produce, 24/7" clause. I crossed them both out, and signed. Nobody said a word about it.
The only non competes I have heard of personally are ones that deal with clients. A few people I knew were not allowed to use their existing clients if they went to work for a competitor.
Sometimes companies will make you sign a noncompete if you accept a severance from them.
A family member asked his new company if they would match the severance so he wouldnt have to sign a non-compete. The new company agreed and he was able to keep his clients and got a signing bonus!
Incorrect. This is a prevalent yet still poorly understood phenomenon that has an impact not just on those in the tech sector (as many of us on HN are), but also on society at large. Philosophers and activists have repeatedly tried to explain this type of behaviour, but we still have no answer. I find it very curious.
I have not followed the course because a lack of available free time but I am sure it is really interesting, a relevant to the Amazon case : Unethical Decision Making in Organizations [0]
I get your point but this whole story is very interesting for anyone that has not been desensitized by widespread corrupt and unethical behavior. We should never unlearn how to feel outraged at bad things.
Off topic: Why does Scribd have a perfectly functional mobile site that allows me to read half the PDF before rudely graying out my screen and insisting that I download their app to finish? I was reading with my phone rotated to landscape so at first I couldn't even see the pop up, the PDF just went gray. I call that borderline psychological abuse. At the very least I'm going to subconsciously associate the Scribd brand with that horrible experience.
For years I've been avoiding Scribd. They are like experts exchange or quora: doing anything they can to get you to sign up and become beholden to their well furnished cage. Many times I've been in search of an odd PDF, found it on Scribd, only to have 99% of it unreadable.
I've always associated them with horrible experience. I groan whenever I see Scribd instead of just a link to the PDFs. I have a good PDF viewer, thank you. In fact, I have several.
You must have a much lower expectation of "Hacker News" quality than I do. Has scribd ever had a good user experience? I've come across them once in a while for years and never liked it at all.
I believe it used to be quite useful when your only option to read PDFs was Acrobat which was slow and would often lock up your browser while the plugin loaded.
Now that both Firefox and Chrome include built in PDF readers and we've also got other options like SumatraPDF, I see little value in Scribd any more.
The software used to put an additional link to Scribd after each pdf link, but we stopped that a long time ago. I assume that's what you're referring to, because there was never (and isn't) anything else along those lines that I know of.
Some years ago, while helping a relative out, I saw this first hand with a bunch of Joomla documentation that had been removed to behind its paywall.
(Not that I hadn't already reached this opinion, on a more general basis.)
P.S. I would welcome a non-Scribd link to the letter. I've reached the point where I refuse to run/use Scribd. The monetization is one thing; the horrible UI and my lack of trust in it is another and is the basis for this decision.
Perfectly functional? Not for me [1]. I had to open the document on a laptop because all I got on mobile was pixelated half-rendered gibberish. Attn: dang, HN should pop a dialog recommending against a submission to scribd.
There's also weighing that against getting the content onto HN if scribd is the only place it is found.
[1] Android 4.2.2, Firefox Android 33.1, Opera Mini 7.6.1
> Scribd is "Hacker News" quality. They're one of the HN venture capital funded companies.
I agree with @nsomaru that it would be great to submit PDFs rather that Scribd links, especially since the HN guidelines say the original document should be submitted. On the other hand, I'm not sure if HN wants to bypass a YC-funded company.
I don't think it should make any difference what relations the companies have. Scribd was less bad than Adobe plugin lockups. Scribd is more bad than current solutions. They can improve their experience, or not. Right now, I don't see the usefulness.
I opened it on my desktop, and I for one thought the 720 point font was a lovely and refreshing departure from the standard web-presented text so many sites seem to lazily impose on us. :/
Scribd is a terrible service and never once in my life have I said "oh good a Scribd link!". Every modern browser has a PDF viewer built in and I would hope people on HN are using updated browsers. It continues to baffle me as to why people use Scribd.
All the ethics principles in the world won't help you if you rock the boat in a company entrenched in nepotism and communal ass-covering. Everyone's happy to do the right thing if their ass (or their buddy's) isn't on the line.
Have to say some of the behaviour does appear to come across as psychotic within the upper echelons of Amazon. I'm guessing to get high up in Amazon you have to play quite a vicious game?
The entire letter reads like an allegory about the politics, insecurities, coverups, overinflated egos and outright lies that are commonplace in large companies. Only reinforces my desire to stay clear of big co. "careers".
You can hardly be blamed. This quote just on page 3:
My manager did not communicate to her management chain the positive impact I was having on the product - in fact, she once told me “You’re here to make me look good - you’re doing an awesome job”.
To be perfectly fair, in any job this is what you're supposed to do -- make your boss look good, who makes his boss look good, etc. That's how you get promoted.
"Make me look good" doesn't mean "do stuff and I'll take all the credit" -- at least not with a good manager. It's about meeting/exceeding your goals, which helps your boss meet/exceed his goals, etc. and makes the organization stronger.
That said, this is not something you would plainly state to your direct report...
> To be perfectly fair, in any job this is what you're supposed to do -- make your boss look good [...]
I find this sentiment horrifying. When I hire people, I don't want them to spend one second thinking about how to make me look good. I want their brainpower entirely devoted to things like serving the customer, improving the company, and helping their colleagues.
Admittedly, give that so many companies are dysfunctional feudal empires, it is often good career advice. But I still find it horrifying.
> I want their brainpower entirely devoted to things like serving the customer, improving the company, and helping their colleagues.
Don't you think all those things make you look good if you are the hiring manager? Conversely, if the employee you hired fails to perform those duties, you look bad.
Again, "making your boss look good" is NOT supposed to mean "do specific things for your boss that will impress his boss", it's supposed to mean that the employee meets or exceeds the expectations of the job which _in turn_ makes the hiring manager look good because his group is meeting or exceeding their goals, and so on up the line.
If those are equivalent to making me look good, then focusing on those should be sufficient. No need to bring my ego into it.
But of course, they're not. This whole mess at Amazon is an issue only because Kivin Varghese chose to do the right thing by his customer instead of making his manager look good. And look where it got him: screwed over and sued.
Regarding your claim that "make your boss look good" really means "do the assigned job well": I don't believe you. If that's what it meant, we could say, "do the assigned job well". What it actually means is exactly what it says. The reason that people say and mean that is that in organizations driven by power and appearance, making your boss look good is indeed a road to success.
Compare/Contrast: I worked at a startup where I was the only direct report to someone who spent the overwhelming majority of his day watching videos of women exercising (file this under "things I wouldn't have to know if we didn't have an open floor plan"). I spoke to _his_ boss (who sat two seats down from me, because it's a startup), who said the reason I had to go through those ridiculous hoops and charades and end up with an unusual workload was because the guy I reported to had been there a long time and, ya know, he deserved his fancy title and direct report.
Don't get me wrong, dysfunction at large companies is disproportionately large most of the time. But man, even smaller bits of nonsense can be extremely frustrating when you see them up close.
The thing about startups is that very few of them can afford this sort of dead weight. Perhaps for a little while, but it's one of the things that results in so high a fraction of them failing. Which has been true in two I've been in that suffered from this.
Interesting and pretty damning. Some key excerpts:
> Amazon gave me their final offer: 4 weeks of severance for 18 months of adhering to the broad non-compete that would not allow me to earn a living in my field, and further explained that if I didn't accept their final offer, Amazon would sue me for tens of thousands of dollars in relocation expenses.
Employee complained, was fired, Amazon insists s/he can't work for another 1 1/2 years (I know that's legal in the US, but it's still asshole-ish behaviour).
> What we found was that there were tens of thousands of Kindle e-ink owners, the vast majority who hadn’t even seen the promotion details (as customers had to click on the ad to see the details), were qualifying for the $10 Gift card because every day, there are thousands of customers who own a Kindle and already have Discover set as their 1-click default card, that buy a digital good on Amazon in the ordinary course of their activity.
> Meanwhile the promotion continued to run and within a few more days we had gone over the $500,000 budget.
Discover Card pays $500 000 for a campaign that gives $10 to each user who switches default 1-click card to Discover. Amazon gives $10 mostly to users who already have Discover as default. Munira, the manager, lies to Discover about that.
> Munira was forced to admit under oath in deposition [...] that she falsified her educational record on her resume to Amazon and all her previous employers - claiming to have earned a Bachelors and Masters degree in Computer Science from Stanford when in fact she earned no degrees at all.
Munira is a liar/cheater, and still employed at Amazon.
Very interesting - do you have a quotable source for that? Because she's still claiming to be a Stanford alumni in her LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/munirarahemtulla
If you read the letter it has a deposition transcript with her admitting it. Page 19.
"Munira was forced to admit under oath in deposition, several months after my termination, that she falsified her educational record on her resume to Amazon and all her previous employers - claiming to have earned a Bachelors and Masters degree in Computer Science from Stanford when in fact she earned no degrees at all."
Also an interesting commentary quote from the page 21 of the letter:
"And in fact, even after finding out about Munira’s lies regarding her educational background and other issues I raised before my termination, Jeff Blackburn represented in his deposition that Munira was given a promotion, even though according to Amazon’s policies, falsification of personnel records is a Tier 1 offense likely resulting in immediate termination"
The letter reads awesomely, totally like a good book.
This is made stranger by the fact the Jeff Blackburn says he knew she hadn't completed the degrees, and hired her anyways. And he went to Stanford. For an MBA. Honestly this looks really bad for Amazon, partly because it's obvious how expected and systemic this behavior is
> At the end of the day. You should do what you need to do to maximize free cash flow for the device. Do what you need to do to make more money
"I know she hasn't completed it yet" - this guys words are 100% weasel.
Well, yes, we assume you would be aware that she hadn't yet completed a course (her Masters) she couldn't enroll in yet because she had not completed her undergraduate.
This is something my step-daughter could understand, especially with her education as a lawyer (not yet completed, as she is seven years old).
Maybe her profile has been changed now but it's only showing that she's following Stanford and in a Stanford group - There's nothing in the experience and education sections at all.
It seems like she claimed that she had both a Bachelors and Masters degree from Stanford when indeed she did not have both. Can she be pursuing a Master's degree when she had not completed a Bachelors?
Both of those things are false (she said as much in the deposition), but "attended Stanford" could mean that she dropped out before going for a Bachelor's degree, so may not be a lie.
I can't speak for Stanford, but I pursued a BS and MS simultaneously at Cal Poly. Cal Poly's computer science department has a 4+1 program that lets you start taking graduate courses while you're finishing your undergraduate degree. The program also drops the senior project requirement for the BS and combines it with the master's thesis required for the MS.
If she were a Stanford student, she could have been in the coterminal BS/MS program for Comp Sci yet dropped out before getting either. The nice thing about the coterm program is your ability to get classified as a grad student early (once you get 180 credits) and start paying your way through college using research and teaching assistantships, which provide tuition and stipend.
It seems I didn't look thoroughly. "Stanford Alumni" was listed in one of her groups, and Stanford itself was listed in the "follow" section on her page - sorry, you're right!
Does finding a public linkedin profile count as doxing? I don't know much about the topic, but I was under the impression that there was more to it than that. it was a black-hat hacker thing, that it involved getting past some kind of access control.
Doxing is when you find very personal information, such as place of residence. In can involve information about the workspace, Linked-in profile or so forth - but only in the case that the victim is operating under a pseudonym and have not disclosed their true identity themselves.
Why are you down-voting this person? They are not trolling. They're only advising a little restraint.
Honestly, calling this doxing is pretty accurate. Before that user posted her LinkedIn profile, she was an anonymous figure in this dispute which, frankly, was all that was relevant to HN. Now, through LinkedIn, she will potentially receive hate mail and, with an identifying image, is more likely to be pinpointed on other platforms which may reveal more personal information about her.
People should remember that there is a lot about this situation that they don't know. This man who was fired from Amazon may have a legitimate grievance and he may not. Things might look one way when described on paper, but could have seemed quite different in real life. We could be (and probably are) missing out on a lot of important details that only eye-witnesses could be aware of.
Not really. The company can add any stupid clause it wants to the contract, but in the vast majority of states which allow NCA at all for employees they're heavily restricted in time and space, and must not prevent employees from earning a living.
In Washington State, NCAs are enforceable if they're "validly formed and reasonable" (Racine v. Bender), although a big issue there is you have to go to court to see whether this specific NCA is enforceable or not. I would guess it's not (because it's completely unreasonable), and Amazon's behaviour is not entirely dissimilar to SLAPP.
> When Amazon learned that Mr. Powers joined Google, it first engaged in discussions with Google about Mr. Powers' employment. Following those discussions, Amazon sought injunctive relief through a Washington state court. After Mr. Powers successfully removed the case to a Federal District Court in Washington, Amazon moved for a preliminary injunction against Mr. Powers to enforce the non-compete restrictions.
> The court denied most of Amazon's requests, and upheld the non-compete restriction only to the extent that it prohibited Mr. Powers, for a period of 9 months from the date he last had access to Amazon confidential information, from servicing any customer as to which he had obtained confidential information* during his employment at Amazon (this restriction was essentially the same restriction as the one Mr. Power voluntarily agreed to upon joining Google).
> […]
> With respect to the validity of the non-compete restrictions, the court next determined that the restrictions were enforceable only to the extent that they sought to prevent Mr. Powers from working with his former Amazon customers. The court also determined, however, that Amazon's attempt to uphold the more general "worldwide" ban against competition — i.e., not tied to specific customers — was unenforceable because it was unreasonable and Amazon failed to show how such a restriction was necessary to protect its business.
I'm curious if you're aware of any precedent on how NC clauses hold up when the company terminates contract (such in this case as a firing). Typically I see the enforcement matter more when the employee voluntarily leaves, not when they're forced to.
To me the entire requirement of 'consideration' falls flat on its face where they've essentially webbed a case of ruining someone's livelihood by preventing them from finding work after termination all the while giving a plainly inadequate severance.
> Munira is a liar/cheater, and still employed at Amazon.
That's not the best part. The best part is that somebody who directly reported to Jeff Bezos essentially told the team to go ahead and keep lying to the customer in order to "maximize free cash flow for the device". Which isn't something you can spin into yet another "rogue employee" case in which "we'll review our policies".
I don't know about the "open to interpretation" part. He clearly knew about it according to the transcript. Anything else than telling them to go to the customer and explain the issue is complicity of fraud.
I didn't really interpret it that way (although I understand the author did).
The division head asked something like "are we doing the right thing here?", and also said something like "we need to make money".
From the transcript provided it sounded like he didn't have the complete information about how they were screwing Discovery over: it sounded more like he was told that the campaign was costing Discovery more than Discovery had expected, but the plan was for Amazon to tell Discovery that they wanted to use money Discovery had already budgeted (and spent?) with Amazon but hadn't received a complete campaign for.
I've seen that kind of deal done before, and there isn't anything wrong with it provided both parties are transparent about it.
> The division head asked something like "are we doing the right thing here?", and also said something like "we need to make money".
That's not the message I get from "At the end of the day, you should do what you need to do to maximize free cash flow for the device." The priorities are clear.
And the sane, ethical response to that is, "I'm told Amazon takes the long view, and the long view here is that we will maximize FCF by not betraying partners and not doing anything we wouldn't want to appear on the front page of Hacker News."
Because, you know, that could happen... 'some day'.
He didn't encourage anyone to lie. He said he would leave it up to his direct reports to figure out how to maximize cash flow. If a subordinate then decided to lie, that was the subordinate's decision.
Whenever you think your boss is telling you to do something wrong, the best possible thing you can do is to write them a letter (and keep a copy) explaining how you think it's wrong, and that you want them to confirm that they want you to do it. If they refuse to confirm it, don't do it. People do actually have free will, you know.
> He didn't encourage anyone to lie. He said he would leave it up to his direct reports to figure out how to maximize cash flow. If a subordinate then decided to lie, that was the subordinate's decision.
You forgot the part where, after all that is said he goes "wink, wink".
Hey Folks, it was pretty clear he didn't want us to share sales data because it would make less money for the device. This was a separate issue from Discover. On the black & white e-ink Kindles, we had added a feature where users could buy from the device. The data was really bad - most advertisers paid thousands of dollars in minimum spending, and would sell a fraction of that spending in product sales. Amazon doesn't share that data with advertisers, and the SVP was basically telling the team not to share sales data because nobody in their right mind would buy a $10K or $20K ad if they ended up only selling $500 in product.
Right -- just like they have the "free will" to decide to keep their jobs (and stay on the fast track). From the context, it's pretty darned clear what JB expected his subordinates to "freely decide" in this case.
Munira is a liar/cheater, and still employed at Amazon.
I'm still a little disturbed as to why I'm seeing her dragged through the mud on a top link on HN. We aren't a gossip site, so why is this "confidential" letter being shared amongst the community at this time? What context am I missing?
The story is compelling because Amazon's treatment of Kivin is a relevant warning to HN readers, who sympathize with technical employees who are victimized by their employers. In this respect, it's similar to posts about the massive collusion between Google, Apple etc to suppress wages.
The use of Munira's real name isn't even necessary. S/he is just the hand of the corporation. It valuable for each HN reader to think about who Munira might be in their work place, and defend themselves appropriately.
I disagree, too many of these articles leave the wrong-doers unnamed and unscathed. I am happy Kivin is taking names and calling the whole thing for what it is. Amazon gave a 4-week severance and 18month non-compete clause, which falls even below than unfair.
This appears to be a lot deeper than Munira. It appears to indicate that there is serious culture rot at Amazon. That is an issue worthy of discussion on HN in my opinion, for numerous reasons. Such culture rot type discussions have occurred surrounding a lot of other companies, including Microsoft, IBM, HP, and so on.
You misunderstand. This isn't culture rot, this IS the culture at Amazon. The only way to get ahead is to step on the neck of your teammates, because at review time the group is graded on a curve. Somebody's getting a bad review (even if the entire team is doing well), so you had better make sure it's not you. (source - worked at Lab126 for 18 months)
I agree. It shouldn't be certain to anyone that there is a clear good side and bad side here. We weren't there, so we're probably unaware of a lot of important details in this dispute. If anything, the discussion should be about the principles represented by the situation and not about the people.
Amazon should be smart enough to know they can't put in a clause that's too far-reaching and preventing people from working anywhere in the world. I view it as more or less of a threat and nothing more. They wouldn't come after you if you walked across the street to Microsoft, Yahoo, or Apple. It happens all of the time.
I'm sure it does, it does everywhere else. But I think things are a bit different and higher stakes with executive level folks like the the one in question here. 18 months is not an eternity if one can "afford it". Ironically, that's what probably gave him prodigious free time to pursue legal action.
> Amazon should be smart enough to know they can't put in a clause that's too far-reaching and preventing people from working anywhere in the world.
Actually, they can put in such a clause. There's a difference between "unenforceable" and "illegal". There's nothing to prevent Amazon from including such a clause in the contract, even if it is clearly unenforceable. The worst case scenario, from Amazon's perspective, is that a court simply rules that the clause is unenforceable (as happened in the example masklinn gave https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600939 ).
The best case scenario is that Amazon can frighten an ex-employee with the threat of legal action if he accepts a job with a competitor. Even if the ex-employee knows that a court will likely rule the clause is unenforceable, he has to decide whether he wants to go to the hassle and expense of fighting Amazon in court.
Amazon could also use the clause as a pretext to dissuade potential employers from hiring the ex-employee. Again, while the potential employer might realise that the clause is unenforceable, they have to decide whether they want to take the risk of hiring someone who will then be sued by Amazon (while it may not affect the potential employer directly, the new employee will inevitably be distracted by the court case).
I would never recommend that anyone sign an employment contract with a non-compete clause, even if it's clearly unenforceable. Even setting aside the potential legal hassle if it goes to court, you want to think about why they've included such a clause in the contract. Either they don't realise that it's unenforceable (in which case you have to question how competent they are), or they know it's unenforceable but don't care (which suggests that they plan to use it to frighten/bully you, as described above).
Recently, I turned down a job because the company included a clause in the employment contract under which I would have been prevented from engaging in "any activity" that competed with the company (or its related companies), anywhere in the world, for two years after I left the company. In the relevant legal jurisdiction (Switzerland), non-compete clauses are legal but "must be appropriately restricted with regard to place, time and scope such that it does not unfairly compromise the employee’s future economic activity". This one clearly wasn't. Effectively, it would have prevented me from working in banking or fintech, which is pretty much all that I've done for the last 14 years. I consulted an employment lawyer, who confirmed that it would definitely be thrown out if it ever went to court, so I pushed back.
I have zero problem with clauses that prohibit me from poaching clients or hiring other employees but if a company's hiring me for my expertise and experience that I've gained before going to work for them, I don't think it's reasonable for them to try to prevent me from using that same expertise and experience at another company if I leave them.
In the end, they refused to remove or alter the clause, so I turned down the job.
Amazon added a 12 month non compete clause to my 3 month long internship. Since I was planning to get another internship the next summer, it worried me that they'd think this made any sense at all. The HR recruiter essentially told me not to worry about it, it's never enforced.
I know you have limited negotiating power as an intern, but the best response to "don't worry, it's never enforced" is "If you don't plan to enforce it, then there's no point in me signing it".
Just to follow up on that (and agreeing that as an intern this probably wouldn't fly), but when I started at my current job the employment agreement had some intellectual property clauses that simply wouldn't work, since I do occasional client work on the weekends and contribute to open source projects. It was most likely because I was the first full-time software developer hire (previously, software was written by contractors). I simply told them I needed to make a couple of changes to protect both of us, crossed off the offending sections, and attached an amendment to the contract using some standard boilerplate I found online that protected both of our interests fairly. Everyone was cool with it, we signed it, and everything is copacetic.
In finance non-compete clauses are enforced with an army of lawyers. It doesn't really matter to them if they lose in the end or not, you may be in court for years. The flip side is that you get paid for this time.
One of my friends left a major hedge fund with a two year non-compete and hold me he would never even think of crossing their lawyers as they would stop at nothing to ruin his life as an example to others. The law real only helps you if you have the resources to use it.
There's a difference between non-compete clauses (that prevent you from working for a competitor after you leave - and are no longer being paid by - your now-former employer) and gardening leave (where you're still employed and getting paid, but you're sent home for the duration of your notice period). The idea behind the latter is that, by the time your gardening leave is over, your knowledge of clients, etc. is out of date and/or (in situations where you've been the primary point of contact or managed the the relationship with the client) you've been replaced.
In most EU countries, non-compete clauses require compensation. In Germany of Belgium, comp' must be at least half the gross salary, for the entire extent of the clause (limited to 2 years in Germany, 1 in Belgium)
And the NCC may still be done away with for being "unreasonable" e.g. it can not cover the whole country and prevent the former employee from working in the field.
It's a bit more complicated. A non-compete is enforceable in CA if you own any equity of value that constitutes a loosely defined partnership (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause#Exceptions_-...). Further you may be blocked from selling the equity for years after leaving, resulting in years of legal non-compete enforcement. It's a messy case, but I've been advised by actual lawyer that when he sees equity structured in certain way it's for no other reason but to make this case.
It looks like Munira attended Stanford as an undergraduate, as she is an alumni of the Mayfield Fellows program [1]. However, it is not clear whether she graduated.
Totally unacceptable and as much of my company's ~$4,000/mo spend with Amazon as possible is going to disappear if Munira isn't terminated. I've also passed this post along to someone I know at Discover possibly in a position to do something about it, though I can't imagine they're not already aware of it.
> Discover Card pays $500 000 for a campaign that gives $10 to each user who switches default 1-click card to Discover.
Actually, no. This is the key twist that changes the whole picture. It is only his editorializing that claims the point of the campaign was to convert 1-click defaults. But he is the only one claiming that. He himself notes that the campaign was not set up that way. It was set up to promote Discover card by rewarding all 1-click usage. Furthermore the response from Amazon notes that they reviewed the progress of the campaign with Discover and Discover was cool with continuing, provided it was narrowed to Fire users and capped at the original budget. [1]
And who claims otherwise? From the article you referenced:
> Business Insider reached out to Amazon and Discover, neither commented.
I, personally, find it quite hard to believe that Discover would be gifting users $10 without any apparent benefit, not even branding! Also, if what you're saying is true, why hasn't Amazon shared the detailed statistics with Discover? Why have all his superiors acted in such shady ways (judging from the emails)?
Also, if anyone is doing shitty editorializing, its BI:
> He decides to stay home sick for the rest of the week
Because people decide to get sick, right.
I don't really see a point in providing BI as a reference, as it has no other sources than the original source.
Actually BI cited other sources, namely Amazon's response and further email evidence from the lawsuit, which was somehow omitted from Kivin's document. In it the Amazon SVP statement notes that the campaign was set up to pay $10 as a reward to Discover card users, not tied to 1-click conversions. He also notes this was reviewed with Discover mid-promotion and they elected to continue within budget.
There is of course some promotional benefit to that, and it's not unusual in the card industry. While some card benefits are conditionally offered to new signups (e.g. promo APR), most are offered to the entire class (e.g. cashback rewards).
I think BI and the author were implying (or outright stating) that he refused to be involved in the issue and said "I'm 'sick', and won't be in. I need closure on X, Y, and Z issues", so it was fairly evident to all involved what was meant.
It doesn't sound like part of the deal was for 1-click defaults to be changed. It sounds like there was an assumption this would happen implicitly by giving it to everyone, but they underestimated how many Discover card users were already on 1-click:
The promotion was structured in a way where anyone with a Kindle, who used their Discover card to buy a digital good (e.g. mp3 or movie), would get a $10 Amazon Gift Card. The reason the good had to be digital is because to buy a digital good you need to use your 1-click default card, and Discover’s primary objective for this promotion was to get users who had a Discover card, to make it their 1-click default so Discover could be the card of choice for holiday shopping over the course of the fourth quarter. That was the only way Discover could justify spending $10 when someone ordered a $1 .mp3 music file.
major launch partners paid $1.2MM each to be part of the launch
Woah! I had no idea Amazon was making that much from advertising on the Kindles at launch (although I guess it's a little unclear what they are paying for there).
Me either. Apparently they have a nice advertising business in general.
"I literally was sickened by what we were doing to Discover Card, one of Amazon’s largest customers spending over $13MM per year in advertising with the company."
Roughly two parts: "I was doing good quality work; that was recognised by my boss; something happened and I complained, and the escalated my complaints; after that my bosses reversed their previous position; I asked to transfer to a different department; they found out and stopped the transfer; I left the company and they tried to enforce a ridiculous non-compete thus I was forced to sue"
"The bad thing: a credit card company had a big promotion with specific rules. We mis-reported the success of that promotion which cost the advertiser a lot of money. I raised it internally, and escalated it, but nothing was done."
Pardon my cynicism but according to the letter Discover spends $13MM a year at Amazon. Thus 500k more or less works out to ~4% of their budget.
My hunch is this will at most be a subject of chuckle between Bezos and David Nelms (Discover CEO) on the Golf course.
Bezos might roll some heads, install some "supervision", give them a discount on a future campaign...
Advertising budgets are not an exact science anyway. And Amazon is still the largest online retail site in the world - where else would Discover go to spend their Ad dollars?
Although right now Amazon are pushing Chase, not Discover instead. They have a "5% cash back" banner on the homepage (Chase Freedom card), and are also running the $10 gift card if you switch 1-click to Chase and buy something. You have a Chase card on your account and visit Amazon on any mobile device.
Could be related to this incident, could just be coincidence.
That's what I would have guessed too, that $500K is basically a rounding error to a company like Discover.
However, he includes an e-mail from Discovery in the letter, which says "I cannot express my disappointment on how this has been handled, nor can I stress enough how incredibly important it is that we get this resolved as quickly as possible."
It may not be a huge hit to Discovery's bottom line at the end of the day, but somewhere in there is a promo department for whom $500K is a significant chunk of their yearly budget.
I wonder if someone was fired on Discover side for having the idea to run a campaign on the Kindle with such a bad ROI. But I am not familiar with the ad business, maybe the efficiency was in line with what could have been expected...
It was a new platform/venue with an company they were spending 30 times a much on advertising. This strikes me as a "nothing ventured, nothing gained" and "none of us realized they were a criminal organization". Unless all advertising venues are roughly this bad (Neilson has a service where they track advertising to allow companies to confirm they're getting what they paid for...) this one effort shouldn't be such a black mark for those on the Discover side, prior to their learning these ugly details.
Well, the efficiency was as low as it was because of an implementation bug on Amazon's side. It didn't work the way it was intended to. If it had, who knows, it might have done well. The campaign certainly makes sense to me in a vacuum.
> Munira had falsified her educational record on her resume to Amazon and all her former employers - claiming to have both a Bachelors and Masters in Computer Science from Stanford when in fact she had earned no degrees at all.
There is more detail on this issue and Munira’s pattern of ethical lapses and misleading and deceptive practices later in this letter.
Why is this person still employed, let alone have any responsibility?
Ongoing internal investigation? Or -- and forgive me, I don't know a universally inoffensive way to broach this subject -- because her being a gender/ethnic minority in her line of work makes Amazon reluctant to terminate her?
I agree. If well played, she could probably unleash a social justice hell on Amazon, and with current media climate it wouldn't even matter if it was fabricated or not.
Employers being reluctant to fire an employee because the employee is a member of a minority is pretty much a myth - particularly in jurisdictions such as the US where employees generally do not have much by way of job security. At best it will just make the employer double-check to make sure they have dotted the Is and crossed the Ts before pulling the trigger.
Also, forgive me, I don't know a universally inoffensive way to broach the subject, but people expressing a fear that minorities are receiving unjust benefits are often racist?
Do you have any sources to back up the claim that it's a myth? I'm genuinely curious because my personal experience in the industry for 10 years says otherwise. But that's just anecdotal, and I've never come across a study on it.
It's not a myth. Legal and HR will explain to you how easily the company can get sued in those cases. It can be VERY hard to let go an employee who is member of a minority (I speak of experience).
not if you have been properly documenting things for everyone you fire. Amazon fires enough people that they should have procedures in place that make this trivial.
Who the hell documents anything well? I thought we were all programmers here.
Documentation of anything is the most difficult task, the most disliked task, and the most avoided. That's gotta be true no matter what anyone's job is, programmer or not.
LOLOLOLOLOLOL. I feel the number of top stories on HN are steadily moving away from programming, and that it is more about Entrepreneurship/VC/Business Management these days.
For people not familiar with the way things work in the USA, "properly documenting" here means that you need at least a few months of written warnings, an "improvement plan" that then "failed" and such before you can fire someone who just isn't working out at all.
> People expressing a fear that minorities are receiving unjust benefits are often racist?
This type of thinking in our industry needs to STOP. There is far too much evidence that women are treated like absolute shit pretty much across the board (don't bother pointing out your handful of CEOs and other execs, if you can't face this fact then you're part of the problem).
If it happens to women, it happens to others.
You sound like you've got some pretty sweet white, male privilege. If you aren't a member of that majority, well they've certainly got you on their side.
You're getting downvoted because you've misunderstood the original comment. Antimagic seemed to be pointing out that claiming that Munira was still in employment because she was a member of a protected class was quite probably racist. You replied saying that kind of thing needs to stop, because it's mean to women.
The only sane conclusion from this is you've misread antimagic's original comment.
And you sound like you can't read - I was arguing the opposite ;) Or rather, I was putting out there the idea that people that whinge about minorities receiving advantages are racist. But as I was aping the intellectually dishonest argumentative technique of the GP, I didn't actually make that claim, I merely suggested that this was a possibility.
For the record, I'm female, and member of a discriminated against minority, that has previously been fired for membership to said minority. And no, I don't think management in that case paused for even a microsecond worrying about potential backlash from firing a member of a minority (they stated quite clearly in the termination letter that this was actually the reason they were firing me - nice). If they were at all concerned about that, they certainly hid it well...
A company as large as Amazon has an HR policy that allows for dismissal upon proof of fraud on the job application. Unless the company was worried about how many other people they'd get asked about why they hadn't canned.
(NB: I'm still uncomfortable with how we're discussing her employment as if we were a gossip site, but this is a general policy.)
"Member of a protected class" is probably a more accurate term (if applicable). (IANAL) And if she's a member of a protected class in the US or her state, then yes, any company has to consider the consequences of being involved in a protected class employment suit.
Although companies need to worry when firing members of a protected class, and we can debate whether that level of worry is underblown or overblown, lying about your educational record is a smoking gun that would make it trivial to dismiss the employee on the spot if the company wanted to do so.
One of the reasons I don't like anti discrimination laws. However, I am for allowing the EEOC, anti-trust or similar to order particular sets of companies to stop discrimination for a period of time if necessary, as I mentioned before.
I think your biases are getting best of you, I have seen sufficient number of people of similar ethnic background laid-off and fired. I do not think that is the basis of her employment's continuance. Its very likely that she is willing to do the dark and dirty work, some higher-ups do not want to do.
There is level fascination to mis-direct the causes, let me assure you if people of ethnic backgrounds are so protected - we would not be scratching and clawing at the lower rungs of corporate ladder.
With respect, I don't think you're reading my comment closely enough. I'm not saying that being a member of a protected class protects someone from being fired. I'm saying that a company is likely going to be more careful, and there is an added burden, to be able to demonstrate that that person was not fired in connection with being in that class.
It should be noted that everybody is a member of a protected class by virtue of their race, gender, etc. It's not something that only applies to minorities, and I wish people would stop perpetuating that misundrstanding.
> Ongoing internal investigation? Or -- and forgive me, I don't know a universally inoffensive way to broach this subject -- because her being a gender/ethnic minority in her line of work makes Amazon reluctant to terminate her?
It's possible, but thus far there is no evidence to suggest that is the case(unless I missed something). Suggesting that, 'maybe they didn't fire her because she's a minority' is exactly the kind of unfounded bias that underrepresented groups have to deal with all the time. If Munira were a white male no one would be saying, "Well maybe he didn't get fired because he's a white male, in a white male-dominated environment."
Jumping to the accusation that this is about race is exactly the kind of thing that makes it difficult for underrepresented groups in tech.
She put herself in a position where someone higher up in management knew that her Stanford degrees were fake, but nobody else knew. So that someone totally owned her - they could use her as the "dark hand" for literally anything (putting inconvenient people on PIP, fudging inconvenient metrics to advertisers / business partners / executives / etc).
That is probably why she was not fired. If this is actually true, it suggest extreme disfunction in management as well.
as a desi female, we are not included in eeo, tbh. tell me the last time you looked at any one of us and thought, "man, s/he could use a break." never, that never happens. honestly, to me, this circumstance in the letter to the board is the opposite. some idiot desi set-claims herself as a stanford grad and nobody bats an eye. again, no way to prove this to you, but I am desi. i can promise you, everywhere i work, without fail, if there's some random question that involves a degree, they always run to me. i'm always saying "wait, i went to law school, though, i don't get how the urethra works." yeah, no, my take: they just didn't care to check. she probably has dirt on someone or who knows. all we know is they're all a bunch of sleaze regardless of race or gender, iffffff all of this is true and wasn't doctored.
Lots of people lose jobs over falsifying credentials. The higher up the ladder you go the worse it gets for example Yahoo CEO's computer science lie. It's a good idea to even make sure your resume is month accurate to avoid misunderstandings. Degrees shouldn't be required for most jobs but people shouldn't make stuff up.
Devil's advocate: She may be as high as she is because of those false credentials, and Amazon might keep her because she's profitable. Falsifying credentials may have a greater average benefit/cost than actually getting the degree.
IMO it isn't more unethical than what big businesses typically do, like take advantage of unfair tax loopholes. Someone else pointed out that requiring a degree is illegal; if so, I'd say it's ethical for people to lie about their credentials when businesses engage in unlawful behavior by screening for them.
Like I was writing above, she put herself in a position where someone higher up in management knew that her Stanford degrees were fake, but nobody else knew. So that someone totally owned her - they could use her as the "dark hand" for literally anything (putting inconvenient people on PIP, fudging inconvenient metrics to advertisers / business partners / executives / etc).
Now that this is public, things will change for her, for sure ...
Yes ,this is very interesting question. Don't get me wrong but people here often complain about women in tech , well see what you get with women in tech. If you had same standards for men and women , a man in similar position would have been fired long time ago.
Also, history is evident that , sex is best weapon woman can use. Empires and States have lost battles due to it. I don't know but , maybe , maybe , she has relationship with any of her superior ? Is sex involved ?
Art of tactics and diplomacy will teach you following:
"don't be cry baby. Learn to read power games and seek cold revenge."
Anyway , Amazon is highly filthy company and I am glad I withdrew all my applications last year. I hope someone burn them to grounds.
After the final analysis, and internal reports, and court cases come by, one person will be found responsible and a few (likely one) who 'did not know everything but perhaps could have stopped things' will be identified. They will both be gone... one of them will be Munira... not sure who the other one will be.
She is still employed for sacrificial purposes. Not saying she is innocent or guilty... just saying that she needs to know, regardless of what happens, the target is on her. She comes across, based purely on the article, as a deceptive/cover-my-butt person who tried to fleece one of their top customers. Easy PR shot for Amazon.
>"Amazon gave me their final offer: 4 weeks of severance for 18 months of adhering to the broad non-compete that would not allow me to earn a living in my field, and further explained that if I didn’t accept their final offer, Amazon would sue me for tens of thousands of dollars in relocation expenses."
It's because of stories like this that I'd never work at Amazon. They have a history of suing their own employees soon after parting ways.
Employee Handbook. A lot of the big tech companies have something similar but it's pretty bad at Amazon. You cannot write any code in your personal time and submit it without being approved. I mean anywhere, homework questions or telling a person how to write a bash script that copies a file each day.
Haven't heard of any lawsuits but gonzi25 is correct: all code you write for anyone else is subject to approval, including open source.
Amazon ostensibly "supports" open source contributions, but all open source work (inside or outside of work time) must be approved by a committee that evaluates OSS projects to ensure they do not compete or conflict with Amazon.
In reality though, since nobody wants to be the one that signed off on an open source project that later becomes a pain or a competitor, the committee veers extremely conservative in approvals (read: they don't really approve much).
So the net result is that, as an Amazon employee, your ability to work on open source in your own time is severely diminished.
I've been contacted twice in ten years. The positions were interesting, but their reputation preceded them even back then, so I never seriously considered it. I personally (and possibly unfairly based on hearsay) lump them with Dish as dysfunctional employers.
I have also been approached by recruiters for Amazon. The first time, I asked a few specific questions about the work culture there, and the response did not answer a single one directly. It was 100% evasion and redirection.
Among the specific questions:
- Under what circumstances would I be required to repay relocation assistance?
- Would a non-compete agreement be required?
- Does Amazon use an employee evaluation system similar to Microsoft's old "stack ranking"?
- What is the median employee tenure (a.k.a. how bad is the turnover rate)?
The first recruiter pleaded ignorance for some of my questions, so I helpfully provided him with some links to articles still available on-line from nationally-known business publications. These claimed (with references and fact-checking) that Amazon had the second-worst turnover of all companies where that statistic could be calculated, it does employ a variant of stack ranking, and that Amazon frequently pursued former employees for their relocation and NCA after leaving, even when it was Amazon's decision to fire them.
As I already knew all this, my goal was mostly to help convince that guy to stop being a recruiter for Amazon, and go take an easier job recruiting for someone else. I didn't exactly consider that the company would probably sue him for leaving, or maybe even fire him for not getting me to apply, then sue him for getting fired.
Always do your research on the prospective employer, kids.
Interestingly, their stock grants vest over 4 years at 5%/15%/40%/40%. 18 months means you see a tiny fraction of the big sum that draws you into the company.
Are they still doing that? Geez, it's a wonder they get hires at all.
Honestly, any vesting schedule that is non-linear is just a plain ripoff and should be laughed out of the room - or at the very least approached with extreme caution.
If I were looking for somebody of his background, I definitely would talk to him.
Obviously, a whistleblower like this is dedicated, passionate, and energetic. The question is whether they do this because of real dedication to the customer and good business practices, or whether they're just the sort of person that likes blowing shit up when they find a good excuse.
Some of the top-performing people on my teams have been seen as "difficult". But I don't particularly want to hire obedient people. I want to hire people who will tell me I'm wrong when I'm wrong.
git it, boo! this is the perfect comment to this entire delicious thread. "oh, sorry, but internet just happened. grab your kids and head to the basement; gonna weirder there, too, now that I think about it."
>My manager did not communicate to her management chain the positive impact I was having on the product - in fact, she once told me “You’re here to make me look good - you’re doing an awesome job”
What I didn’t know at the time was the the HR Business manager was a good personal friend of Munira, and in what seems to be a betrayal of trust, informed my manager that I was trying to get a transfer. At my next 1:1 meeting Munira explained “You think you’re going to get a transfer out of my group? I’m putting you into a Performance Improvement Plan which prevents transfers for 12 months”.
This reads like it came from a dystopian MegaCorp sci-fi story. Is this for real?
Petty, bullying and evil people live in the world. If they spend most of their days at work, they're going to make their work petty, bullying and evil.
They say that money doesn't change people, it just reveals who they are. More generally, circumstances will often allow someone to express who they really are.
When I was working at Amazon, I once had dinner with a couple of HR reps who noted that this exact behavior is extremely common.
PIPs aren't just used at Amazon to tie people down, it's also used as pre-firing. To my knowledge almost no one gets off a PIP after being put on one, and management will go out of their way to have you "fail" to accomplish to the terms of the Performance Improvement Plan, and thereby give legal cover for your firing.
I personally know someone who was the victim of this exact mechanism - one of the smartest people I've ever worked with and who has been well-liked everywhere else and even well-liked within the company.
PIPs are a disgusting, spineless tool used by disgusting, spineless people.
Side note but somewhat related: I've worked at a lot of companies, Amazon is the only one where I can't help but resist writing a snippy note when their recruiters come knocking. It would take a supernatural amount of force for me to consider working there ever again.
At one previous job the team I was on had a business analyst who was hired as an 'executive' referral. He was clearly unsuited for the role, no business background, and no real professional experience. The guy had a bachelors in communication iirc. So, the manager was forced to hire him, HR literally wouldn't accept no.
He was a nice guy, but did not flourish, and his peers did not help at all. I remember one analyst berating the new guy because he asked the same questions over again, when this particular analyst asked me the same crap all the time. Very annoying and disingenuous. I complained to my lead, which was a mistake. I, a developer was tasked with helping the new business analyst, when his role was totally different than mine.
To the point; he was put on PIP and eventually let go, and I had a couple of bad reviews due my involvement. I switched groups soon after, then left the company. I had worked with my lead and manager for 5 years before that, I thought we all got along great. Little did I know how tenuous my good standing was, and how I endangered myself for standing up for someone else.
> PIPs are a disgusting, spineless tool used by disgusting, spineless people.
PIPs are often required by HR to get rid of even terrible employees. They suck, but it's a cover-your-ass tool so that the company has explicit proof the manager communicated problems with the person and tried to get them to change their behavior.
In most companies it's actually pretty difficult to fire someone unless they do something obviously illegal.
PIPs are absolutely not required - I've seen people more people fired without them than with them.
A Performance Improvement Plan is not the same thing as documenting an employee's misdeeds. Yes, you need to document to protect yourself legally, but what you don't need to do is put them on a rigged "plan" that is intentionally engineered to fail.
Collecting evidence to fire an employee is one thing - a PIP veers into manufacturing evidence to fire an employee.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 323 ms ] threadWe definitely like participation, but it took me a while to realize that you are the author, and that kvargs is your Twitter account.
This all refers back to a 2012 lawsuit: http://www.geekwire.com/2012/kindle-ad-team-member-sues-amaz...
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.."
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"
Bravo for anyone standing up for ethics in corporations.
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...
Edit: I now believe I was wrong, but leaving this up here anyway.
I think it's pretty much harmonized across the entire EU.
It'd be really nice if some hacker would put together a comprehensive map/list of non-compete status per state (or if they have) since there are a few states outside of California too. Wikipedia seems to do OK in this regard, but it seems like there should be a lot more info out there.
Sure, it's a bit naieve not to read a job offer carefully enough, but on the other hand you'd kind of assume a company as large as Amazon, employing so many knowledge workers, would not offer their applicants extortion rackets disguised as job contracts to begin with.
1) Most people accept them because they never actually read their contracts fully.
2) They are told that it is a non-negotiable condition of employment and they really want the position.
3) They are aware that non-competes are unenforceable in their jurisdiction (assuming they are in a jurisdiction where non-competes don't stand up in court).
4) They assume the company is unlikely to spend the money required on lawyers to actually come after them if they violate the non-compete in the future.
2) Something like that should be a dealbreaker. No matter how much you want the job, it's effectively saying that you can never leave.
3) In the case of the letter here, he tries to negotiate it after he was fired. If he knew it was unenforceable, then he could have quite simply said so.
4) On their part this is a stupid assumption. You should always assume that a company is willing to back up their threats. Especially a company the size of Amazon.
This isn't to attack your answer, just to put my views on those points.
Based on your username I'm going to assume you're not used to conditions in the US. In my experience, working for 2 megacorps and a startup, this is pretty standard. So if that is a deal breaker good luck finding a job without moving to California. I think I read a story on HN a few weeks ago that said Jimmy Johns was enforcing non-compete agreements. The last one I signed basically said the company owns all work I do, even work I do in my own time (OSS, side projects, etc). I also am required to get permissions to contribute to OSS projects should I want to do that. I also cannot work for competitors (which is like everyone in the industry). I signed it because I don't think it is enforceable and I don't think the company would waste resources trying to enforce it on me.
There needs to be a federal law limiting the scope of these agreements. Preferable modeled after the CA laws.
These people are students who just finished their graduate or under-graduate studies and have most likely taken huge education loans in a currency which is weaker than the dollar. In that situation one really just wants a well paying job at a company which is recognized by the general population (especially your parents and peers) as a good one. Given that, the person signing the contract is unlikely to give the non-compete too much thought. And even if they did, verbal rhetoric from the HR is good enough to lead them to signing.
There were no complaints.
Sometimes you just have to push it.
Plus there's the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not you'll be able to find a job with comparable pay.
> Gardening leave means you still have a fully paid job
I'm thinking that people that can't afford to get paid their current salary for 6 months while not actually working for the company are in the minority, unless I'm missing some angle to this.
If you're in California, where you can leave your company and start working in the next one in a matter of hours, there'll likely be an expectation by the company hiring of a fast start.
At the same time, depending on the company, the hiring process can stretch for months before getting an actual offer.
I want to believe that most employers you'd like to work for are understanding that "life" might happen and you can't start two weeks from the moment you first met them.
Sometimes companies will make you sign a noncompete if you accept a severance from them.
A family member asked his new company if they would match the severance so he wouldnt have to sign a non-compete. The new company agreed and he was able to keep his clients and got a signing bonus!
[0] https://www.coursera.org/course/unethicaldecision
I hate Scribd.
Puts a different spin on it, doesn't it?
As others said, I already have a PDF reader, and unsurprisingly, it works better than Scribd.
https://pdf.yt
Now that both Firefox and Chrome include built in PDF readers and we've also got other options like SumatraPDF, I see little value in Scribd any more.
I think it's got something to do with how it's a Y Combinator graduate.
That might not still happen.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8034431
Some years ago, while helping a relative out, I saw this first hand with a bunch of Joomla documentation that had been removed to behind its paywall.
(Not that I hadn't already reached this opinion, on a more general basis.)
P.S. I would welcome a non-Scribd link to the letter. I've reached the point where I refuse to run/use Scribd. The monetization is one thing; the horrible UI and my lack of trust in it is another and is the basis for this decision.
There's also weighing that against getting the content onto HN if scribd is the only place it is found.
[1] Android 4.2.2, Firefox Android 33.1, Opera Mini 7.6.1
> Scribd is "Hacker News" quality. They're one of the HN venture capital funded companies.
I agree with @nsomaru that it would be great to submit PDFs rather that Scribd links, especially since the HN guidelines say the original document should be submitted. On the other hand, I'm not sure if HN wants to bypass a YC-funded company.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8034431
Seriously, apps are great but 90% of the apps out there would be just fine as mobile websites.
My manager did not communicate to her management chain the positive impact I was having on the product - in fact, she once told me “You’re here to make me look good - you’re doing an awesome job”.
"Make me look good" doesn't mean "do stuff and I'll take all the credit" -- at least not with a good manager. It's about meeting/exceeding your goals, which helps your boss meet/exceed his goals, etc. and makes the organization stronger.
That said, this is not something you would plainly state to your direct report...
I find this sentiment horrifying. When I hire people, I don't want them to spend one second thinking about how to make me look good. I want their brainpower entirely devoted to things like serving the customer, improving the company, and helping their colleagues.
Admittedly, give that so many companies are dysfunctional feudal empires, it is often good career advice. But I still find it horrifying.
Don't you think all those things make you look good if you are the hiring manager? Conversely, if the employee you hired fails to perform those duties, you look bad.
Again, "making your boss look good" is NOT supposed to mean "do specific things for your boss that will impress his boss", it's supposed to mean that the employee meets or exceeds the expectations of the job which _in turn_ makes the hiring manager look good because his group is meeting or exceeding their goals, and so on up the line.
But of course, they're not. This whole mess at Amazon is an issue only because Kivin Varghese chose to do the right thing by his customer instead of making his manager look good. And look where it got him: screwed over and sued.
Regarding your claim that "make your boss look good" really means "do the assigned job well": I don't believe you. If that's what it meant, we could say, "do the assigned job well". What it actually means is exactly what it says. The reason that people say and mean that is that in organizations driven by power and appearance, making your boss look good is indeed a road to success.
Don't get me wrong, dysfunction at large companies is disproportionately large most of the time. But man, even smaller bits of nonsense can be extremely frustrating when you see them up close.
> Amazon gave me their final offer: 4 weeks of severance for 18 months of adhering to the broad non-compete that would not allow me to earn a living in my field, and further explained that if I didn't accept their final offer, Amazon would sue me for tens of thousands of dollars in relocation expenses.
Employee complained, was fired, Amazon insists s/he can't work for another 1 1/2 years (I know that's legal in the US, but it's still asshole-ish behaviour).
> What we found was that there were tens of thousands of Kindle e-ink owners, the vast majority who hadn’t even seen the promotion details (as customers had to click on the ad to see the details), were qualifying for the $10 Gift card because every day, there are thousands of customers who own a Kindle and already have Discover set as their 1-click default card, that buy a digital good on Amazon in the ordinary course of their activity.
> Meanwhile the promotion continued to run and within a few more days we had gone over the $500,000 budget.
Discover Card pays $500 000 for a campaign that gives $10 to each user who switches default 1-click card to Discover. Amazon gives $10 mostly to users who already have Discover as default. Munira, the manager, lies to Discover about that.
> Munira was forced to admit under oath in deposition [...] that she falsified her educational record on her resume to Amazon and all her previous employers - claiming to have earned a Bachelors and Masters degree in Computer Science from Stanford when in fact she earned no degrees at all.
Munira is a liar/cheater, and still employed at Amazon.
"Munira was forced to admit under oath in deposition, several months after my termination, that she falsified her educational record on her resume to Amazon and all her previous employers - claiming to have earned a Bachelors and Masters degree in Computer Science from Stanford when in fact she earned no degrees at all."
"And in fact, even after finding out about Munira’s lies regarding her educational background and other issues I raised before my termination, Jeff Blackburn represented in his deposition that Munira was given a promotion, even though according to Amazon’s policies, falsification of personnel records is a Tier 1 offense likely resulting in immediate termination"
The letter reads awesomely, totally like a good book.
> At the end of the day. You should do what you need to do to maximize free cash flow for the device. Do what you need to do to make more money
Well, yes, we assume you would be aware that she hadn't yet completed a course (her Masters) she couldn't enroll in yet because she had not completed her undergraduate.
This is something my step-daughter could understand, especially with her education as a lawyer (not yet completed, as she is seven years old).
'Graduated in 1998'
Doxing is when you find very personal information, such as place of residence. In can involve information about the workspace, Linked-in profile or so forth - but only in the case that the victim is operating under a pseudonym and have not disclosed their true identity themselves.
What we are doing here is calling someone out on their bullshit in a public profile.
Honestly, calling this doxing is pretty accurate. Before that user posted her LinkedIn profile, she was an anonymous figure in this dispute which, frankly, was all that was relevant to HN. Now, through LinkedIn, she will potentially receive hate mail and, with an identifying image, is more likely to be pinpointed on other platforms which may reveal more personal information about her.
People should remember that there is a lot about this situation that they don't know. This man who was fired from Amazon may have a legitimate grievance and he may not. Things might look one way when described on paper, but could have seemed quite different in real life. We could be (and probably are) missing out on a lot of important details that only eye-witnesses could be aware of.
How was she anonymous when she was named in the article? Her LinkedIn profile is literally the first thing that comes up if you google her.
Not really. The company can add any stupid clause it wants to the contract, but in the vast majority of states which allow NCA at all for employees they're heavily restricted in time and space, and must not prevent employees from earning a living.
In Washington State, NCAs are enforceable if they're "validly formed and reasonable" (Racine v. Bender), although a big issue there is you have to go to court to see whether this specific NCA is enforceable or not. I would guess it's not (because it's completely unreasonable), and Amazon's behaviour is not entirely dissimilar to SLAPP.
edit: in fact, Amazon was essentially told to fuck off in what seems to be a different NCA case: http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a5cde10f-9ca3-...
> When Amazon learned that Mr. Powers joined Google, it first engaged in discussions with Google about Mr. Powers' employment. Following those discussions, Amazon sought injunctive relief through a Washington state court. After Mr. Powers successfully removed the case to a Federal District Court in Washington, Amazon moved for a preliminary injunction against Mr. Powers to enforce the non-compete restrictions.
> The court denied most of Amazon's requests, and upheld the non-compete restriction only to the extent that it prohibited Mr. Powers, for a period of 9 months from the date he last had access to Amazon confidential information, from servicing any customer as to which he had obtained confidential information* during his employment at Amazon (this restriction was essentially the same restriction as the one Mr. Power voluntarily agreed to upon joining Google).
> […]
> With respect to the validity of the non-compete restrictions, the court next determined that the restrictions were enforceable only to the extent that they sought to prevent Mr. Powers from working with his former Amazon customers. The court also determined, however, that Amazon's attempt to uphold the more general "worldwide" ban against competition — i.e., not tied to specific customers — was unenforceable because it was unreasonable and Amazon failed to show how such a restriction was necessary to protect its business.
(emphasis mine)
To me the entire requirement of 'consideration' falls flat on its face where they've essentially webbed a case of ruining someone's livelihood by preventing them from finding work after termination all the while giving a plainly inadequate severance.
That's not the best part. The best part is that somebody who directly reported to Jeff Bezos essentially told the team to go ahead and keep lying to the customer in order to "maximize free cash flow for the device". Which isn't something you can spin into yet another "rogue employee" case in which "we'll review our policies".
The division head asked something like "are we doing the right thing here?", and also said something like "we need to make money".
From the transcript provided it sounded like he didn't have the complete information about how they were screwing Discovery over: it sounded more like he was told that the campaign was costing Discovery more than Discovery had expected, but the plan was for Amazon to tell Discovery that they wanted to use money Discovery had already budgeted (and spent?) with Amazon but hadn't received a complete campaign for.
I've seen that kind of deal done before, and there isn't anything wrong with it provided both parties are transparent about it.
That's not the message I get from "At the end of the day, you should do what you need to do to maximize free cash flow for the device." The priorities are clear.
Because, you know, that could happen... 'some day'.
Whenever you think your boss is telling you to do something wrong, the best possible thing you can do is to write them a letter (and keep a copy) explaining how you think it's wrong, and that you want them to confirm that they want you to do it. If they refuse to confirm it, don't do it. People do actually have free will, you know.
You forgot the part where, after all that is said he goes "wink, wink".
Right -- just like they have the "free will" to decide to keep their jobs (and stay on the fast track). From the context, it's pretty darned clear what JB expected his subordinates to "freely decide" in this case.
I'm still a little disturbed as to why I'm seeing her dragged through the mud on a top link on HN. We aren't a gossip site, so why is this "confidential" letter being shared amongst the community at this time? What context am I missing?
The use of Munira's real name isn't even necessary. S/he is just the hand of the corporation. It valuable for each HN reader to think about who Munira might be in their work place, and defend themselves appropriately.
I know this was Washington, and I'm unfamiliar with the laws there, but I know in California it's nearly impossible to enforce a non-compete clause. [Here's a good read on the topic.](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/business/noncompete-clause...)
Actually, they can put in such a clause. There's a difference between "unenforceable" and "illegal". There's nothing to prevent Amazon from including such a clause in the contract, even if it is clearly unenforceable. The worst case scenario, from Amazon's perspective, is that a court simply rules that the clause is unenforceable (as happened in the example masklinn gave https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600939 ).
The best case scenario is that Amazon can frighten an ex-employee with the threat of legal action if he accepts a job with a competitor. Even if the ex-employee knows that a court will likely rule the clause is unenforceable, he has to decide whether he wants to go to the hassle and expense of fighting Amazon in court.
Amazon could also use the clause as a pretext to dissuade potential employers from hiring the ex-employee. Again, while the potential employer might realise that the clause is unenforceable, they have to decide whether they want to take the risk of hiring someone who will then be sued by Amazon (while it may not affect the potential employer directly, the new employee will inevitably be distracted by the court case).
I would never recommend that anyone sign an employment contract with a non-compete clause, even if it's clearly unenforceable. Even setting aside the potential legal hassle if it goes to court, you want to think about why they've included such a clause in the contract. Either they don't realise that it's unenforceable (in which case you have to question how competent they are), or they know it's unenforceable but don't care (which suggests that they plan to use it to frighten/bully you, as described above).
Recently, I turned down a job because the company included a clause in the employment contract under which I would have been prevented from engaging in "any activity" that competed with the company (or its related companies), anywhere in the world, for two years after I left the company. In the relevant legal jurisdiction (Switzerland), non-compete clauses are legal but "must be appropriately restricted with regard to place, time and scope such that it does not unfairly compromise the employee’s future economic activity". This one clearly wasn't. Effectively, it would have prevented me from working in banking or fintech, which is pretty much all that I've done for the last 14 years. I consulted an employment lawyer, who confirmed that it would definitely be thrown out if it ever went to court, so I pushed back.
I have zero problem with clauses that prohibit me from poaching clients or hiring other employees but if a company's hiring me for my expertise and experience that I've gained before going to work for them, I don't think it's reasonable for them to try to prevent me from using that same expertise and experience at another company if I leave them.
In the end, they refused to remove or alter the clause, so I turned down the job.
I still think it's outrageous.
One of my friends left a major hedge fund with a two year non-compete and hold me he would never even think of crossing their lawyers as they would stop at nothing to ruin his life as an example to others. The law real only helps you if you have the resources to use it.
And the NCC may still be done away with for being "unreasonable" e.g. it can not cover the whole country and prevent the former employee from working in the field.
[1] http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/mfp/cgi-bin/mfpalumni/may_view...
Actually, no. This is the key twist that changes the whole picture. It is only his editorializing that claims the point of the campaign was to convert 1-click defaults. But he is the only one claiming that. He himself notes that the campaign was not set up that way. It was set up to promote Discover card by rewarding all 1-click usage. Furthermore the response from Amazon notes that they reviewed the progress of the campaign with Discover and Discover was cool with continuing, provided it was narrowed to Fire users and capped at the original budget. [1]
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employee-lawsuit-kivin...
And who claims otherwise? From the article you referenced:
> Business Insider reached out to Amazon and Discover, neither commented.
I, personally, find it quite hard to believe that Discover would be gifting users $10 without any apparent benefit, not even branding! Also, if what you're saying is true, why hasn't Amazon shared the detailed statistics with Discover? Why have all his superiors acted in such shady ways (judging from the emails)?
Also, if anyone is doing shitty editorializing, its BI:
> He decides to stay home sick for the rest of the week
Because people decide to get sick, right.
I don't really see a point in providing BI as a reference, as it has no other sources than the original source.
There is of course some promotional benefit to that, and it's not unusual in the card industry. While some card benefits are conditionally offered to new signups (e.g. promo APR), most are offered to the entire class (e.g. cashback rewards).
The promotion was structured in a way where anyone with a Kindle, who used their Discover card to buy a digital good (e.g. mp3 or movie), would get a $10 Amazon Gift Card. The reason the good had to be digital is because to buy a digital good you need to use your 1-click default card, and Discover’s primary objective for this promotion was to get users who had a Discover card, to make it their 1-click default so Discover could be the card of choice for holiday shopping over the course of the fourth quarter. That was the only way Discover could justify spending $10 when someone ordered a $1 .mp3 music file.
Woah! I had no idea Amazon was making that much from advertising on the Kindles at launch (although I guess it's a little unclear what they are paying for there).
I wonder how many launch partners they had?
"I literally was sickened by what we were doing to Discover Card, one of Amazon’s largest customers spending over $13MM per year in advertising with the company."
"The bad thing: a credit card company had a big promotion with specific rules. We mis-reported the success of that promotion which cost the advertiser a lot of money. I raised it internally, and escalated it, but nothing was done."
Everyone likes to point out how unenforceable they are, but can you afford to take Amazon on in court?
My hunch is this will at most be a subject of chuckle between Bezos and David Nelms (Discover CEO) on the Golf course.
Bezos might roll some heads, install some "supervision", give them a discount on a future campaign...
Advertising budgets are not an exact science anyway. And Amazon is still the largest online retail site in the world - where else would Discover go to spend their Ad dollars?
Could be related to this incident, could just be coincidence.
However, he includes an e-mail from Discovery in the letter, which says "I cannot express my disappointment on how this has been handled, nor can I stress enough how incredibly important it is that we get this resolved as quickly as possible."
It may not be a huge hit to Discovery's bottom line at the end of the day, but somewhere in there is a promo department for whom $500K is a significant chunk of their yearly budget.
Why is this person still employed, let alone have any responsibility?
Also, forgive me, I don't know a universally inoffensive way to broach the subject, but people expressing a fear that minorities are receiving unjust benefits are often racist?
See what I did there?
Documentation of anything is the most difficult task, the most disliked task, and the most avoided. That's gotta be true no matter what anyone's job is, programmer or not.
LOLOLOLOLOLOL. I feel the number of top stories on HN are steadily moving away from programming, and that it is more about Entrepreneurship/VC/Business Management these days.
In other words, it's very hard to fire them.
This type of thinking in our industry needs to STOP. There is far too much evidence that women are treated like absolute shit pretty much across the board (don't bother pointing out your handful of CEOs and other execs, if you can't face this fact then you're part of the problem).
If it happens to women, it happens to others.
You sound like you've got some pretty sweet white, male privilege. If you aren't a member of that majority, well they've certainly got you on their side.
The only sane conclusion from this is you've misread antimagic's original comment.
For the record, I'm female, and member of a discriminated against minority, that has previously been fired for membership to said minority. And no, I don't think management in that case paused for even a microsecond worrying about potential backlash from firing a member of a minority (they stated quite clearly in the termination letter that this was actually the reason they were firing me - nice). If they were at all concerned about that, they certainly hid it well...
(NB: I'm still uncomfortable with how we're discussing her employment as if we were a gossip site, but this is a general policy.)
You cannot fire for wrong reasons.
Although companies need to worry when firing members of a protected class, and we can debate whether that level of worry is underblown or overblown, lying about your educational record is a smoking gun that would make it trivial to dismiss the employee on the spot if the company wanted to do so.
There is level fascination to mis-direct the causes, let me assure you if people of ethnic backgrounds are so protected - we would not be scratching and clawing at the lower rungs of corporate ladder.
It's possible, but thus far there is no evidence to suggest that is the case(unless I missed something). Suggesting that, 'maybe they didn't fire her because she's a minority' is exactly the kind of unfounded bias that underrepresented groups have to deal with all the time. If Munira were a white male no one would be saying, "Well maybe he didn't get fired because he's a white male, in a white male-dominated environment."
Jumping to the accusation that this is about race is exactly the kind of thing that makes it difficult for underrepresented groups in tech.
She put herself in a position where someone higher up in management knew that her Stanford degrees were fake, but nobody else knew. So that someone totally owned her - they could use her as the "dark hand" for literally anything (putting inconvenient people on PIP, fudging inconvenient metrics to advertisers / business partners / executives / etc).
That is probably why she was not fired. If this is actually true, it suggest extreme disfunction in management as well.
IMO it isn't more unethical than what big businesses typically do, like take advantage of unfair tax loopholes. Someone else pointed out that requiring a degree is illegal; if so, I'd say it's ethical for people to lie about their credentials when businesses engage in unlawful behavior by screening for them.
Now that this is public, things will change for her, for sure ...
Also, history is evident that , sex is best weapon woman can use. Empires and States have lost battles due to it. I don't know but , maybe , maybe , she has relationship with any of her superior ? Is sex involved ?
Art of tactics and diplomacy will teach you following: "don't be cry baby. Learn to read power games and seek cold revenge."
Anyway , Amazon is highly filthy company and I am glad I withdrew all my applications last year. I hope someone burn them to grounds.
Seriously shills can go fuck themselves.
She is still employed for sacrificial purposes. Not saying she is innocent or guilty... just saying that she needs to know, regardless of what happens, the target is on her. She comes across, based purely on the article, as a deceptive/cover-my-butt person who tried to fleece one of their top customers. Easy PR shot for Amazon.
It's because of stories like this that I'd never work at Amazon. They have a history of suing their own employees soon after parting ways.
Amazon ostensibly "supports" open source contributions, but all open source work (inside or outside of work time) must be approved by a committee that evaluates OSS projects to ensure they do not compete or conflict with Amazon.
In reality though, since nobody wants to be the one that signed off on an open source project that later becomes a pain or a competitor, the committee veers extremely conservative in approvals (read: they don't really approve much).
So the net result is that, as an Amazon employee, your ability to work on open source in your own time is severely diminished.
Among the specific questions:
- Under what circumstances would I be required to repay relocation assistance?
- Would a non-compete agreement be required?
- Does Amazon use an employee evaluation system similar to Microsoft's old "stack ranking"?
- What is the median employee tenure (a.k.a. how bad is the turnover rate)?
The first recruiter pleaded ignorance for some of my questions, so I helpfully provided him with some links to articles still available on-line from nationally-known business publications. These claimed (with references and fact-checking) that Amazon had the second-worst turnover of all companies where that statistic could be calculated, it does employ a variant of stack ranking, and that Amazon frequently pursued former employees for their relocation and NCA after leaving, even when it was Amazon's decision to fire them.
As I already knew all this, my goal was mostly to help convince that guy to stop being a recruiter for Amazon, and go take an easier job recruiting for someone else. I didn't exactly consider that the company would probably sue him for leaving, or maybe even fire him for not getting me to apply, then sue him for getting fired.
Always do your research on the prospective employer, kids.
> "- What is the median employee tenure (a.k.a. how bad is the turnover rate)?"
When I was there, strictly limited to engineering roles, 18 months.
Honestly, any vesting schedule that is non-linear is just a plain ripoff and should be laughed out of the room - or at the very least approached with extreme caution.
Obviously, a whistleblower like this is dedicated, passionate, and energetic. The question is whether they do this because of real dedication to the customer and good business practices, or whether they're just the sort of person that likes blowing shit up when they find a good excuse.
Some of the top-performing people on my teams have been seen as "difficult". But I don't particularly want to hire obedient people. I want to hire people who will tell me I'm wrong when I'm wrong.
>My manager did not communicate to her management chain the positive impact I was having on the product - in fact, she once told me “You’re here to make me look good - you’re doing an awesome job”
This reads like it came from a dystopian MegaCorp sci-fi story. Is this for real?
They say that money doesn't change people, it just reveals who they are. More generally, circumstances will often allow someone to express who they really are.
PIPs aren't just used at Amazon to tie people down, it's also used as pre-firing. To my knowledge almost no one gets off a PIP after being put on one, and management will go out of their way to have you "fail" to accomplish to the terms of the Performance Improvement Plan, and thereby give legal cover for your firing.
I personally know someone who was the victim of this exact mechanism - one of the smartest people I've ever worked with and who has been well-liked everywhere else and even well-liked within the company.
PIPs are a disgusting, spineless tool used by disgusting, spineless people.
Side note but somewhat related: I've worked at a lot of companies, Amazon is the only one where I can't help but resist writing a snippy note when their recruiters come knocking. It would take a supernatural amount of force for me to consider working there ever again.
Sounds like HR to me.
He was a nice guy, but did not flourish, and his peers did not help at all. I remember one analyst berating the new guy because he asked the same questions over again, when this particular analyst asked me the same crap all the time. Very annoying and disingenuous. I complained to my lead, which was a mistake. I, a developer was tasked with helping the new business analyst, when his role was totally different than mine.
To the point; he was put on PIP and eventually let go, and I had a couple of bad reviews due my involvement. I switched groups soon after, then left the company. I had worked with my lead and manager for 5 years before that, I thought we all got along great. Little did I know how tenuous my good standing was, and how I endangered myself for standing up for someone else.
PIPs are often required by HR to get rid of even terrible employees. They suck, but it's a cover-your-ass tool so that the company has explicit proof the manager communicated problems with the person and tried to get them to change their behavior.
In most companies it's actually pretty difficult to fire someone unless they do something obviously illegal.
A Performance Improvement Plan is not the same thing as documenting an employee's misdeeds. Yes, you need to document to protect yourself legally, but what you don't need to do is put them on a rigged "plan" that is intentionally engineered to fail.
Collecting evidence to fire an employee is one thing - a PIP veers into manufacturing evidence to fire an employee.
Anyone who will steal for your company, will steal from your company.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23238531
That's old news. Gov. party treasurer is jailed for stealing from. The party believed he was stealing for.