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Thoughts on (Amazonian) leadership

(www.daemonology.net)
155 points stock_toaster | 1 comments | 01 Sep 25 18:56 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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iLoveOncall ◴[01 Sep 25 19:51 UTC] No.45096012[source]▶
As someone who has been working at Amazon for not far from a decade, the author misunderstands some portions because of his focus on a very specific part of the description.

In particular for "Ownership", the part about "They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team." does not at all mean what the author implies, and is well connected to the rest of the description instead, about weighing your decisions against the impact it has beyond your team.

Anyways, a lot of those actually exist only to silence the employees, not as real values (although they are used as values within teams). Like the single mention of "Ownership" being enough to legitimate not giving employees annual refreshers on stocks when they have dropped by 50% and so has everyone's compensation. Or "Disagree and commit" when people push back on the return to office.

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cperciva ◴[01 Sep 25 20:12 UTC] No.45096207[source]▶
In particular for "Ownership", the part about "They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team." does not at all mean what the author implies, and is well connected to the rest of the description instead, about weighing your decisions against the impact it has beyond your team.

Sure, but how can you weigh the impact your decisions have across the entire company if you don't know what's happening in the rest of the company. You can't make good decisions when you're blind to what's going on around you.

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1. felixgallo ◴[01 Sep 25 20:21 UTC] No.45096290[source]▶
Amazon's staff is about the size of 1800s London. There's no way anyone could understand all of what's going on, so people have to use judgement to assess what they know, proxy what they don't know, and move forward.