Jeff Bezos Responds Directly To Cruel Management Accusations
Online retail giant Amazon has been accused of some rather cruel business practices, and Jeff Bezos has responded directly to these accusations in a memo to his employees.
The New York Times originally ran an article that describes the the structure of Amazon’s fast-paced model, created by Jeff Bezos and the so-called toxic culture that is a result of that, according to the testimony of several former Amazon workers and staff. Amazon did not give the New York Times authorization to speak to Jeff Bezos himself, but they did describe the company as one that would realize the vision of Bezos, and sacrifice the comfortability of Amazon’s work culture to do it. Jeff was shocked when he read the article, and addressed the people that currently worked for him directly.
In the memorandum that Jeff Bezos wrote, he gave his assurance that the the practices described in the Times should not be tolerated, and included a personal e-mail that Jeff can be reached at should they feel personally targeted.
“The article doesn’t describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day. But if you know of any stories like those reported, I want you to escalate to HR. You can also email me directly at jeff@amazon.com. Even if it’s rare or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero.”
Bezos continued the memo, saying that he does not believe that a company engaging in such practices could be as successful as Amazon has become.
“The article goes further than reporting isolated anecdotes. It claims that our intentional approach is to create a soulless, dystopian workplace where no fun is had and no laughter heard. Again, I don’t recognize this Amazon and I very much hope you don’t, either. More broadly, I don’t think any company adopting the approach portrayed could survive, much less thrive, in today’s highly competitive tech hiring market.”
Jeff Bezos is an ambitious man, who has revolutionized the way business is done on the internet. Perhaps his business has grown so fast that Bezos does not realize the market he is hiring in includes people that can not handle the kind of stresses that Amazon allegedly makes people work under. Wal-Mart thrives just fine with less than optimal working conditions, which, according to Forbes, includes pay that is well below the federal poverty line.
Jeff encourages the employees of his company to read the New York Times article with a critical eye. Jeff Bezos also encourages them to read a response to the accusations in an article another high-ranking Amazonian wrote in a response that was on the employment networking site LinkedIn, according to Fortune.
[Image by David Ryder / Getty Images]
