Comment by bobbychairs

6 years ago

Not trying to come across as judgemental. But if I may ask, did you at the time feel like that was an ethical thing to do?

4 comments

bobbychairs

Reply
throwaway_aws  6 years ago

I joined after the team had gotten traction already. Both the GM and senior most product person on the team told me about their tactics independently.

To be honest, I didn't think of it as anything sinister at that time. AWS had such high octane culture to move fast and innovate that I actually felt what they had done was quite smart. It was a super competitive culture and people did whatever was needed to build new things. On a day to day basis the only pressure was to build... I don't remember instances where ethical guidelines were brought up. So, in a way, the outcomes were a result of what people were rewarded on.

Only after I left AWS I started thinking it was ethically iffy. I still believe Amazon is an amazing company and my time at AWS was one of the best learning experiences.

  • kbenson  6 years ago

    "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair.

    I wish we went into this in much more detail in high school when covering economics and ethics (if the school even bothers to teach ethics). It should be a prerequisite in any capitalistic economy (but not only those, it can easily be extended to other things).

    I've also worked in industries that I think don't operate very ethically. It's amazing what you can ignore as an outlier because the alternative is uncomfortable or means you have to make a large personal change.