Amazon’s workplace culture: Anachronistic, or coolly efficient?

“Nearly every person I worked with I saw cry at their desk,” said former Amazon employee Bo Olson, who worked in book marketing, “or they very wisely chose to leave Amazon.”

Over coffee the other morning, I glanced at my Google alerts and came across a New York Times article titled Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace. Twenty minutes later, I sat back and gazed out the window in astonishment. The quote above and those below were just a few of the statements from employees past and present.

Explanations such as, “We’re not totally sure,” or, “I’ll get back to you,” are not acceptable, many employees said. Some managers dismissed such responses as “stupid” or told workers to “just stop it.”

Ideas are critiqued so harshly in meetings at times that some workers fear speaking up.

“You learn how to diplomatically throw people under the bus,” said a marketer who spent six years in Amazon’s retail division. “It’s a horrible feeling.”