Letter to Amazon Board from Fired Ad Exec

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/245561031/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-UEZdQ4D9zd883gw8tn3D&show_recommendations=true

by kvargs • 12 years ago

1257 552 12 years ago

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kvargs5• 12 years ago

More here: http://day0001.tumblr.com

spellingtree• 12 years ago

Typo: "principles" not "principals"

LukeB_UK3• 12 years ago

Writing a tumblr in 3rd person and as a press release just feels wierd.

dontworryboutit3• 12 years ago

I'm more concerned with how this article helps my inner thigh gap? what kind of $#*! tumblr is this? i came here for pictures of fruit and ITG, son!

donutello• 12 years ago

Principles

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kvargs5• 12 years ago

Follow @kvargs on twitter for more detail

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GrinningFool3• 12 years ago

Wow. I didn't realize it was a whole publicity campaign by kvargs. Puts a different light on it.

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wpietri6• 12 years ago

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.

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colinbartlett2• 12 years ago

Regardless of whatever happened, the letter comes off like the whining ramblings of a former employee.

This all refers back to a 2012 lawsuit: http://www.geekwire.com/2012/kindle-ad-team-member-sues-amaz...

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duncan_bayne• 12 years ago

Really? I only wish most documents I read were that clear and well reasoned.

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zephod• 12 years ago

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.

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colinbartlett2• 12 years ago

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.

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donkeyd• 12 years ago

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.."

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Macha• 12 years ago

"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"

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mrtree2• 12 years ago

Very classy calling it "whining ramblings". I wish you never have a similar situation in the work environment.

Bravo for anyone standing up for ethics in corporations.

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hisabness• 12 years ago

what about those practicing utilitarian ethics?

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mrsaint• 12 years ago

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?

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pistle• 12 years ago

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...

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MrBuddyCasino3• 12 years ago

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?

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gadders• 12 years ago

I'm a Brit, but from previous comments I believe they are unenforcable in quite a few US states.

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liotier• 12 years ago

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.

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masklinn5• 12 years ago

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.

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xxs• 12 years ago

I believe an exemption would be a board member. Other than that non-compete can be enforced only if the employer provides hefty compensation.

I think it's pretty much harmonized across the entire EU.

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siberianbear• 12 years ago

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.

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cmapes• 12 years ago

I was checking to see if someone else already wrote this. This is one of the first things I was thinking.

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phlyingpenguin• 12 years ago

Not directed at you, but in general:

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.

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LukeB_UK3• 12 years ago

Why would you ever accept an 18 month non-compete in the first place?

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skrebbel• 12 years ago

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.

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k__• 12 years ago

Well, if it's the only work you really like to do OR if it's the only job that pays 100k a year?

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andyjdavis• 12 years ago

A few reasons off the top of my head:

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.

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vidarh2• 12 years ago

I wouldn't if I ever take a job somewhere where they are enforceable. As it is, it acts as a minor warning sign that the company has asshole lawyers.

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fierce_umbrella• 12 years ago

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.

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custardcream2• 12 years ago

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.

There were no complaints.

Sometimes you just have to push it.

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n1c• 12 years ago

South African checking in; I've done the same with the same result.

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cmdkeen• 12 years ago

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.

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GrinningFool3• 12 years ago

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.

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wil421• 12 years ago

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!

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dkarapetyan2• 12 years ago

This is dramatic but nothing unusual at a large company like amazon. This shouldn't really be on the front page.

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perfunctory• 12 years ago

Are you saying that when dramatic stuff becomes usual, it's not as dramatic any more?

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dkarapetyan2• 12 years ago

I'm saying this is more like gossip and less like something that is intellectually interesting.

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hga10• 12 years ago

If you're sending Amazon money, as a retail customer, or very much relevant to HN, using AWS, it matter a great deal how honest they are.

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mgraczyk• 12 years ago

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.

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balazsdavid987• 12 years ago

The same here. Very, very frustrating.

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lelandbatey• 12 years ago

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 hate Scribd.

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vidarh2• 12 years ago

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.

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kefka• 12 years ago

Scribd is "Hacker News" quality. They're one of the HN venture capital funded companies.

Puts a different spin on it, doesn't it?

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jholman• 12 years ago

I'm actually really unclear on what alleged value Scribd might bring to users. Why do people even use it and/or link to it?

As others said, I already have a PDF reader, and unsurprisingly, it works better than Scribd.

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herge• 12 years ago

It's free pdf hosting.

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philo23• 12 years ago

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.

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jordigh• 12 years ago

I'm actually really unclear on what alleged value Scribd might bring to users. Why do people even use it and/or link to it?

I think it's got something to do with how it's a Y Combinator graduate.

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DanBC2• 12 years ago

I think that a link to a PDF will be converted to a Scribd link by the YCombinator software because scribd is a ycombinator company.

That might not still happen.

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aranjedeath3• 12 years ago

They have a mistaken belief that it's a PDF host. It's not, in the words of its founder.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8034431

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pasbesoin2• 12 years ago

Restricted access and thereby monetization.

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.

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nsomaru• 12 years ago

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

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aragot• 12 years ago

kefka said:

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.

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deong• 12 years ago

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. :/

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CalRobert• 12 years ago

Because OMG APPS!

Seriously, apps are great but 90% of the apps out there would be just fine as mobile websites.

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joshstrange• 12 years ago

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.

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empressplay• 12 years ago

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.

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awjr• 12 years ago

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?

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mrtree2• 12 years ago

This is a GIANT, epic scale burn to Munira Rahemtulla.

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r0h1n• 12 years ago

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".

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dalek_cannes3• 12 years ago

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”.

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xienze2• 12 years ago

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...

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hawkice3• 12 years ago

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.

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tomp3• 12 years ago

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.

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narsil• 12 years ago

The PIP being used to prevent transferring is pretty underhanded as well.

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sedachv2• 12 years ago

Not surprising. Happened to someone I know at Google.

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MrBuddyCasino3• 12 years ago

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

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us0r2• 12 years ago

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."

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smoyer• 12 years ago

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.

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masklinn5• 12 years ago

U know that's legal in the US

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)

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TheCapn• 12 years ago

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.

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Apoplectic• 12 years ago

Sounds like a poor deal. Given that open, I'd forego the 4 weeks severance which appeared to be in exchange for the NCA.

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mercurial3• 12 years ago

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".

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tomp3• 12 years ago

That as well, but the evidence of that is much more anecdotal, and open to interpretation.

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nl2• 12 years ago

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.

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peterwwillis• 12 years ago

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.

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danielweber5• 12 years ago

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?

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vixen99• 12 years ago

I think that 129 comments when I last looked, answers your concern.

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edraferi2• 12 years ago

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.

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adventured2• 12 years ago

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.

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davesque2• 12 years ago

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.

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mannytabloid• 12 years ago

The letter is on file publicly at the Attorney General's office.

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nihaody• 12 years ago

Non-competes may be legal but they almost never hold water, especially if you're new job is in a different state.

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...)

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poopsintub• 12 years ago

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.

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vladimirralev• 12 years ago

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.

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beedogs2• 12 years ago

That isn't going to stop a terrible company like Amazon from suing someone for violating their NCA. Which they can and have done.

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klunger• 12 years ago

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.

[1] http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/mfp/cgi-bin/mfpalumni/may_view...

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rrggrr• 12 years ago

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.

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abalone8• 12 years ago

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]

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employee-lawsuit-kivin...

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tomp3• 12 years ago

But he is the only one claiming that.

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.

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timcederman• 12 years ago

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.

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nl2• 12 years ago

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).

I wonder how many launch partners they had?

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us0r2• 12 years ago

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."

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RomanPushkin• 12 years ago

TLDR?

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halviti• 12 years ago

go back to reddit.

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DanBC2• 12 years ago

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."

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logicchains• 12 years ago

So they basically tricked Discover out of something like $400,000? I wonder what Discover thinks of this...

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davidw2• 12 years ago

Yes, I wonder if there was ever a lawsuit from them, or they managed to resolve it with Amazon, or what.

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moe2• 12 years ago

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?

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monochr3• 12 years ago

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?

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dalek_cannes3• 12 years ago

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?

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TeMPOraL2• 12 years ago

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.

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peakdarkpattern• 12 years ago

Oh, come on.

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antimagic2• 12 years ago

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?

See what I did there?

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danielweber5• 12 years ago

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.)

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a3n6• 12 years ago

"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.

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GVIrish• 12 years ago

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.

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dontworryboutit3• 12 years ago

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.

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genwin2• 12 years ago

Degrees are only HR filters. Businesses often care more about profit than principles, so many of them don't care about lies that don't lower profits.

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WhitneyLand• 12 years ago

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.

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anonymous1651• 12 years ago

Actually she got promoted to director recently...

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vnnn3• 12 years ago

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 ...

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deskamess• 12 years ago

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.

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xiaoma• 12 years ago

"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.

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valarauca1• 12 years ago

Suing you over blog post and OSS contributions also if you don't get approval from higher up concerning the content of these publications.

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ethanhunt_• 12 years ago

Source?

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a3n6• 12 years ago

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.

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logfromblammo• 12 years ago

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.

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jonathansizz• 12 years ago

They just seem generally sleazy. The way they treat their workforce and everyone in their supply chain makes WalMart look good.

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chj2• 12 years ago

Since no one else asked -- isn't this confidential?

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gtirloni2• 12 years ago

It's written at the bottom of every page "Confidential". Sorry, didn't get your point.

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corin_• 12 years ago

I think his point is: who released it to the public?

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indymike• 12 years ago

Only the people who use the internet can read it.

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dontworryboutit3• 12 years ago

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."

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jacquesm• 12 years ago

Not anymore by the looks of it.

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sidcool2• 12 years ago

Saddest statement in the entire write up:

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”

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jmomo• 12 years ago

I wonder if Michael Woodford (Olympus scandal) would be interested in having this brought to his attention.

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oskarth• 12 years ago

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?

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cbovis• 12 years ago

Nope just the reality of the world we live in, some people are just happy to be selfish assholes.

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a3n6• 12 years ago

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.

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potatolicious5• 12 years ago

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.

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CSMastermind2• 12 years ago

PIPs are a disgusting, spineless tool used by disgusting, spineless people.

Sounds like HR to me.

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marktangotango• 12 years ago

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.

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jobu• 12 years ago

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.

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aetherspawn• 12 years ago

Remember kids.

Anyone who will steal for your company, will steal from your company.

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narag• 12 years ago

So true.

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.

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usaphp• 12 years ago

If Munira has never attended Stanford, then why is her alumni card exist on Stanford website? : http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/mfp/cgi-bin/mfpalumni/may_view...

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dagw• 12 years ago

No one is claiming that she never attended Standford, they're claiming she never earned a degree from Stanford.

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apetresc4• 12 years ago

Well, "alumni" implies you graduated, implies you earned a degree.

The correct answer is that that "Alumni card" is for the MFP (Mayfield Fellows Program), a nine-month program within Stanford that gives you some entrepreneurship experience. The alumni card is for that program, not Stanford itself.

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adam-a2• 12 years ago

Munira is a liar/cheater,
Why is this person still employed, let alone have any responsibility?

It should be remembered that this is an accusation, and potentially fabricated or editorialised. It's probably ruined this woman's career by now and doesn't justify a witchunt or personal abuse.

The author, having been fired, has a very good reason to seek revenge, and we shouldn't take his word as gospel.

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mgkimsal2• 12 years ago

While true, everything posited so far seems reasonable - there do not seem to be anything unbelievable. The addition of multiple emails adds to that reasonableness. Yes, of course he's possibly forging those emails too, but doing this so publicly means this person has a lot more to lose than anyone else. He's hoping this all goes to court - I'm not sure too many people would bluff this far - I think he's got a lot more truth on his side.

That said, I tend to side with underdogs, and have been in a couple similar situations at large companies - nothing this severe, but none of the behavior seems beyond the pale for mid and sr execs at a large company (sad to say). I've worked with some really good ones too, but just because someone has risen to an SVP position doesn't mean they can't also act unethically (or even illegally).

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tankenmate• 12 years ago

Given that he isn't employed he is likely his lawyer to take this case on contingency; which means there is at least some truth to what is being said. Remember he is quoting, in places, discovery transcripts; lying to a court is hardly something one does, let alone on a whim.

Going public is a double edged sword, if someone is willing to stick their head this far above the parapet there must be something going on. I'd say both parties have some explaining to do, and a fair amount of it. The evidence is compelling, I wonder if the other parties have evidence that is as compelling?

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kevingadd• 12 years ago

The accusations are supported by Munira's comments in deposition, along with her emails. It'd be pretty hard to fabricate all of that.

It's not as if they're unsubstantiated accusations. Even if a significant portion of the document is completely fabricated, the bits based on emails & deposition are pretty damning.

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adam-a2• 12 years ago

I didn't realise that. Are the depositions online somewhere too?

To be honest, I don't believe he's lying. But I also think it's bad behaviour to condemn someone after hearing only one side of the story, which is what some people are doing.

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3minus1• 12 years ago

You're right. The email transcripts are fairly damning though.

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penprog2• 12 years ago

According to the article she admitted to a lot of this stuff in a deposition.

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adl• 12 years ago

And according to the letter, she was even promoted.

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Natsu• 12 years ago

I don't suppose anyone here has a Pacer account and could look it up?

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gnu8• 12 years ago

Haha, why would anyone ever agree to an unfunded non-compete clause? If you're required not to work for 18 months, you need to be paid for 18 months.

Any of you who accept an unfunded non-compete clause are suckers and any of you who try to trick your employees into agreeing to them are ass pirates.

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danielweber5• 12 years ago

I've rejected employment offers because of non-compete clauses. But not everyone is in a position to do so.

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adventured2• 12 years ago

In this case, the person claimed they had multiple, high quality / high paying alternatives when they took the Amazon job. Makes it that much bizarre the person chose to accept such a non-compete.

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johnward4• 12 years ago

When it's pretty standard practice not everyone can just turn down the jobs. So I weight the risk versus the reward. Very low risk of them actually enforcing it on a peon like me. Reward is a keep a roof over my family's head. If I wanted to avoid noncompetes I could go to construction or go back to working in retail I guess.

I do believe that if everyone started refusing to work under NCAs then employers would be forced to change them but how many people have the ability to turn down so many jobs?

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jnsaff2• 12 years ago

The further I read the more it reminds me The Gervais Principle. http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/

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lhnz• 12 years ago

This reflects very poorly on Amazon.

They should promote those that speak out about fraud that they witness and not fire them.

If people like Munira Rahemtulla and Paul Kotas are still employed, it suggests to me that advertisers should be very wary about the nature of their advertising relationships with Amazon and whether they're getting good value for their money.

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jan_g• 12 years ago

Interesting read. I've had my share of office politics in my career so far and it still baffles me how often it happens that people who add little or no value to the company become so entrenched and powerful. It's like the upper management and/or owners are blind to what happens within the company, despite the clues and complaints from the staff.

Meanwhile, best people leave the company.

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mercer• 12 years ago

From what I've seen, these people who adding little value and yet climbing the ladder are often people who could add value, but instead use all their energy to play the advancement game. Which makes it all the worse, in my opinion.

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hga10• 12 years ago

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle#Iron_Law_of_Bu...

Those who focus on their position in the bureaucracy will almost always beat those who focus on the ostensible goals of it. Although in this case there were conflicting goals....

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TeMPOraL2• 12 years ago

Replace "bureaucracy" with "democracy" and you'll see the number one reason why politics in US and Europe sucks so much.

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mozboz2• 12 years ago

TL;DR: 'I was surprised to learn how online advertising works, my manager in a big corp made me sad.'

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jorgecastillo• 12 years ago

I had more esteem for Amazon, after this I definitely view Amazon in a different light. I am glad the only thing I buy from Amazon is books. In a few years when I have more time & money, I'll keep this in mind and maybe go directly to the publishers. I don't forget this sort of thing. Some time ago there was an article titled 'Motorola cell phones are regularly phoning home'. Not that I was too fond of the Motorola brand before, but since then if I know a someone is buying a smartphone, I advice then not to buy Motorola.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5973282

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tomelders• 12 years ago

I can't speak for everyone else, but I'm certainly at he point where I want an alternative to Amazon. Amazon currently has the infrastructure and resources to crush opposition, but small groups will continue to nip at their heels and one will eventually figure out how to compete effectively and at scale. I believe then that Amazon will wish it still had the good will that it has spent.

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a3n6• 12 years ago

When a significant portion of your shareholder value depends on minimizing cost, especially employee cost, as opposed to unquestioned value that can't be had elsewhere, you're at some risk.

If the accusations here are accurate and at all typical of attitudes, and other accounts of bullying publishers (depending on your interpretation), and their at-a-distance treatment of their warehouse employees, then their value may not be as solid as they and others think.

I've been reading recently that Walmart sales are suffering, in part because the shopping experience has degraded due to strict corporate limits on employment. Sales are down, which means, all things equal in a recovering and not absolutely horrible economy, that those sales have gone elsewhere.

That could happen to Amazon too. Anecdote of one, I rarely buy from Amazon anymore, even less often than my going to Walmart. In Amazon's case, stories like this make me queasy whenever I buy there. My greatest interaction with them at the moment is to browse and read reviews, and I then use that information to buy elsewhere. They're a great recommendation service, and free.

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simi_• 12 years ago

It's great if you can remember this, but the general public has a very short memory span. This is why I often think about some sort of site to document stuff like this, but there are obvious practical and legal hurdles. Would it be at all useful though?

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kuschku• 12 years ago

Did you decompile those services and try to understand what blur does?

It actually gets data from social networks for aggregation of social data into the blur app.

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DevX101• 12 years ago

Looks like Kivin was surprised when HR told his manager that he requested to be transferred. His manager then used this information against him, by putting him into a 'performance improvement program' which blocks transfers to any other group for some period of time.

Let me let Kivin and any one else working for a company in on a little secret. HR is not your friend. HR is not there to protect you and your career. HR is there to protect the company AGAINST you.

To the extent that your goals and the company's do not conflict, HR can be helpful. (Need some help with your health insurance or your 401k? HR is awesome!)

But if you're going to HR about an issue that could be damaging to the company, HR will gladly listen to you sharing confidential information while quietly working with the leadership to build a case against you or protect themselves. If you're caught in a situation that could potentially lead to a legal dispute with the company (serious conflict with mgmt as seen here, discrimination, etc), make sure you document EVERYTHING, put as much in writing/email as possible and tread carefully before sharing too much info with HR. They won't be in your corner when shit hits the fan.

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lordbusiness5• 12 years ago

I had exactly the same revelation during a protracted encounter I had at $NAME_WITHHELD - huge admired company - after working there for several years, and coming into an ethical and legal conflict against my division director.

It was made abundantly clear that the goals of HR do not align with our notions of HR being champions for the workers.

I appreciate this sounds blindingly obvious and almost forehead slapping to anyone who hasn't been on the sharp end of this, but let me assure you that when you are on the sharp end, this will be driven home with fervour.

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mgkimsal2• 12 years ago

Agreed - been in a similar-sounding situation (nothing as big as the Amazon story).

We are referred to a 'Resources' for a reason.

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ThrowawayPhilae• 12 years ago

You know, I was sad that the most upvoted link today was this story and not the awesome picture sent by the comet probe. Do people here really think this is today's most significant event ? And I was thinking that the same story about $NAME_ALSO_WITHHELD instead of Amazon would never have made it to the front page.

So I was curious if $NAME_WITHHELD and $NAME_ALSO_WITHHELD was the same company and looked into it. Took me one minute and apparently it was...

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vladimir552• 12 years ago

$NAME_WITHHELD is apparently (edit: Not) Apple. Someone else here has figured it out and is now hellbanned.

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switch0074• 12 years ago

"HR is not your friend" needs to be standard career advice.

My experiences with HR:

- Often staffed by aggressive, yet very sociable and smiley people. They would nail you to a cross if the directors demanded it.

- Even a basic knowledge of labour laws is not a pre-requisite for a career in HR. That is because there is little regard for them by the C-levels.

- Try and avoid them. Do not go running to HR. Sort it out yourself or work it out with your boss. If the problem is your boss, it's likely that they're much friendlier with HR and treated with much more respect than you. If you do go to HR, think hard about how you are respected and viewed at the company.

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ssharp3• 12 years ago

"Even a basic knowledge of labour laws is not a pre-requisite for a career in HR."

This is the surprising thing to me. My wife works in HR, but is also an attorney and her boss and boss's boss are also attorneys. They run their department substantially more in line with federal and state laws than just about any other I've encountered. When we're talking with friends and other people who work in HR, she usually later tells me everything they're doing wrong and it's interesting how far off-base many companies are.

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vetler3• 12 years ago

I'm surprised so many people have negative experiences with HR. Perhaps I've been lucky, or perhaps it is because we have a different culture in Scandinavia, but my experiences are almost entirely positive.

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vinbreau• 12 years ago

While working at Apple I made the mistake of thinking HR was going to be helpful. I was offered a new position there and took it but only on the grounds that I would not have any duties related to my old position. I was told that was acceptable. Three Weeks after starting my new role they started giving me my old duties back. I complained this was against the agreement we had on me accepting my new position. The HR ref played dumb and would only say "Well Apple has invested a lot of time and money into you, do you expect them to not utilize the you as a resource?" I had one additional encounter with them regarding a manager who had been, as I saw it, mistreating me. I was assured the conference between is was confidential. An hour after that meeting I was called into a room to sit and face three managers who grilled me about why I was dissatisfied with them. It was one of the most uncomfortable meetings I have ever had. I had no clue how to react and realized then and there my days were numbered. HR is definitely not your friend.

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Tyrannosaurs4• 12 years ago

Even a basic knowledge of labour laws is not a pre-requisite for a career in HR.

This might be a US-centric view. In the UK if you don't know employment law you're no use as an HR professional. Your line managers almost certainly don't so HR are often the only people who do.

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encoderer• 12 years ago

Totally agree. When I was young and foolish I reported harassment to HR. I was friends with a female colleague and we'd go out to lunch every now and then. Our mutual boss would call her in and say things like.. "What did he ask you about at lunch? You know, he's just trying to act like your friend so you tell him secrets." It happened several times, and finally one day I went to HR about it. I was asked to resign literally the same day.

It turned out, as it often does, to be a blessing. And it absolutely taught me the role of HR.

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walshemj4• 12 years ago

It's only up at the more senior legal end that hr will know much about the legal side of employment or how to handle things profesionaly when they go pear shaped.

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cyphunk• 12 years ago

This is a constant sentiment I hear over and over. If there is a company that wishes to change this situation they would probably have to take the question of "ethics" completely out of HR's hands and into it's own department that provides obligations and confidentiality promises to employees (that can be enforceable to whatever extent is possible).

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ohitsdom• 12 years ago

Many companies do have this, sometimes called an ombudsman.

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edraferi2• 12 years ago

HR doesn't even have a useful offensive role in most companies. In theory they should identify staffing requirements, find great people, create competitive benefits packages to attract them, and run snappy business processes to get them in the door.

Usually they wind up mangling the staffing requirements provided by the managers, farming applicant discovery out to headhunters, cutting corners on benefits to boost profits, and put new hires and their target teams through byzantine processes.

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ssharp3• 12 years ago

I don't know how big of a "secret" it actually is -- I think it's just that most people make assumptions about what HR does and why they exist. It's less that the information is hidden and more that people just don't bother looking for it.

My wife is an attorney who works in HR and labor relations. HR existing to protect the company was one of the first things she learned in either an HR class or employment law class.

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Iftheshoefits2• 12 years ago

It's a "secret" because the manuals that HR produces contain explicit or implicit statements to the effect that HR is there to help the employee with things like benefits and conflicts with other employees or managers. Most people aren't ever caught up in a tangle in which HR's true purpose was exposed to them, so HR gets away with these little lies and maintain the illusion that they're there to help employees.

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vetler3• 12 years ago

It would be in the interest of the company to catch problems as early as possible and difuse the situation. Seems that Amazon has failed on multiple levels to understand the situation.

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q2• 12 years ago

>>"HR is not your friend. HR is not there to protect you and your career. HR is there to protect the company AGAINST you."

Golden words and everyone especially new joinees need to understand.

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TheCondor• 12 years ago

I know more than a few people that leave when the company spins up an hr group...

HR is a purely political entity within most companies.

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pinaceae• 12 years ago

of course not, that would be the worker's council and the union.

you silly Americans :)

HR employees can be fired, hence are under pressure, hence are on the side of the company. Works council members in developed nations are protected, cannot be fired on a whim and get fully paid while fighting for you.

As a European working in the US it feels like time travel when it comes to work, health, banking. Just had a discussion about why Google Health has failed - while Austrian citizens already enjoy an electronic health record, tracking their medication across doctors.

So many patriots here will defend the US as the greatest country, no matter what - but actively oppose the very fabric of this nation, the government, with its rules and regulations to protect the people. Very hard to wrap my head around this.

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blumkvist• 12 years ago

Worker Unions? You mean the mob?

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Plough_Jogger2• 12 years ago

The government is not 'the very fabric of this nation'.

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drstewart• 12 years ago

while Austrian citizens already enjoy an electronic health record, tracking their medication across doctors.

And if you understand why Austrian citizens' tracking doesn't extend across all of the EU, maybe you'll also understand why it doesn't happen across the US.

What feels like time travel is going to Europe and having to use cash everywhere in Portugal because cards are so rarely accepted outside of big chains. Felt very backwards.

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gretful• 12 years ago

because rules and regulations are links in the chains that bind you. rules and regulations created the corporations, rules and regulations tax you, rules and regulations throw you in jail for imbibing in herbs...

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eyeareque• 12 years ago

I think this depends where you work. I've been at places where they were so scared you would sue them for something, that it was near impossible to get fired. HR would make it extremely difficult for managers to put people on a performance improvement plans. However, this was in California where it may be different than other companies. I've even heard managers complain that HR was not on their side when they wanted to fire a employee that was terrible.

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alphadevx• 12 years ago

Excellent comment. HR are the people who refer to us humans as "resources" (read: to be exploited), enough said.

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CWuestefeld• 12 years ago

It's not even that HR is allied with the company as such. They are their own little political unit, and sometimes those politics lead to situations that benefit no one at all other than HR themselves.

As a manager, I'm frequently helping the personnel on my team work to overcome the barriers that HR erects in their way. HR seems to just have an innate love for policies, the more the better. Even when those policies do nothing to protect the company or the employee, and actively interfere with our efficiency, HR will stick to them. I think it's just because having to back off a silly policy makes the other policies appear weaker.

So I see that employment law in the USA makes HR specialists important in a company of any size, but that doesn't mean that they very much improve things beyond that domain.

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walshemj4• 12 years ago

BINGO how do you think stack ranking and PRP got push so had so some hr director can get a bonus never mind you destroy morale and force all your good people out.

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jwilliams2• 12 years ago

This is correct advice in some situations - and I have had this experience, but certainly not universally.

I know people that say that about their IT departments. Or legal. Or marketing. Sales.

I know a lot of very high performing HR teams. The best growth companies in SF/SV have amazing HR teams. They're responsible for a whole lot more than your 401k.

If you're in an org where X is not your friend - then you're probably in a large, politicized organization. Best advice is to either accept that and adapt, or get out and find somewhere that fits your ethos.

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mavelikara• 12 years ago

How does one recognize amazing HR teams? Please give some specifics on what they are responsible for beyond the 401K.

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kelukelugames5• 12 years ago

Using this opportunity to plug the book Corporate Confidential. It will save your career.

http://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Confidential-Secrets-Company...

A few takeaways.

1. Performance improvement plans are not for performance improvement. They are for firing employees. Management already formed an irreversible negative view. It is too late.

2. You cannot win a case against the company. Because a) companies have more resources and b) even if you do win then other companies will mark you as a troublemaker. Getting hired is going to get a lot harder.

3. If you insist on fighting then do document everything. Supposedly you need a few months of notes. In other words, being called a slur once or twice does not make a hostile work environment. If HR is unaware then the company is not liable, but if you share your notes then you won't win the case anyway. There are a few narrow forms of discrimination that are claimable but the best option is to keep your head down and find a new job.

4. Do not document anything on company software or networks. My friend got to learn what Data Loss prevention software really did.

5. HR has zero legal obligation to keep your secrets. Their job is to identify threats to the company. They literally get paid to share your secrets.

Bonus anectode: I went to HR and asked "Are you legally required to keep things I tell you confidential? For example, if I tell you I want to leave then will you tell my boss?"

Her answer to my second question was no, but guess what my boss and I talked about the next day!

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gregd3• 12 years ago

So basically that book could consist of one page.

"You're screwed"

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chaostheory• 12 years ago

even if you do win then other companies will mark you as a troublemaker. Getting hired is going to get a lot harder.

This. If you're ever suing a company for a grievance, make sure the potential winnings are enough for you never to work for another company again. It's illegal but you will be black listed.

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opendais6• 12 years ago

even if you do win then other companies will mark you as a troublemaker. Getting hired is going to get a lot harder.

This isn't really true. Most businesses don't do thorough background checks and the frequency of people claiming fake degrees w/o getting caught is proof of that.

I've known two people who successfully sued their employer. One had no trouble getting a job after that. It was the second suit that they lost that caused their issues (they looked like they were paranoid and had mental issues based on the company's successful defense). Even tho they are a friend of my parents, my parents and I both agree that they weren't acting all there at the time and that likely came across in interviews.

The other one only had trouble because the area was so small it was literally the only member of that industry within 300 miles. No one wanted to pay for relocation for non-management positions during a recession. Once they relocated with their own money, they had no issues.

I've never heard of an instance of someone being "blacklisted" outside of a failed lawsuit where they were shown to be deceptive and/or mentally unstable.

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jarin2• 12 years ago

I appreciate the irony of linking to the book on Amazon

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clunky• 12 years ago

Are you sure the answer provided was only for the second question and not the first? Did HR provide one answer after you asked both of those questions concurrently? If so, that answer was for the first question and no answer was provided for the second.

I know you say that was her answer to the second question, but the way you frame your quote it looks like you asked them consecutively before a response from her in-between. As they say, the devil is in the details.

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balls1872• 12 years ago

Performance improvement plans are not for performance improvement. They are for firing employees. Management already formed an irreversible negative view. It is too late.

While this ends up mostly true in practice, I have known people who were able to turn things around after being put on a PIP.

You cannot win a case against the company. Because a) companies have more resources and b) even if you do win then other companies will mark you as a troublemaker. Getting hired is going to get a lot harder.

There is a flip side to this. The company wants to ensure it has a water tight case against you, to ensure the complaints are dismissed before going to court. Otherwise, if there is any merit to your complaint, despite the company having more resources than you, they do not wish to be tied up in legal entanglements. This is why HR and Management document everything heavily.

I don't have the source handy, but in the US workplace legal disputes is the number one costs to companies.

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mililani4• 12 years ago

Not true. My sister won a LARGE (over half a million dollars) sexual harassment lawsuit against her employer. In fact, it wasn't an ongoing thing but one incident and the way HR handled this incident. After she left the company, she went back to school and got a job afterwards at a large hospital. She hasn't ever had problems finding employment even though her name is easily Googeable and shows that she won a large settlement against her previous employer.

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timv• 12 years ago

1. Performance improvement plans are not for performance improvement. They are for firing employees. Management already formed an irreversible negative view. It is too late.

In my experience it's not quite so clear cut.

When you are put on a PIP the company has decided what outcome it is seeking, and you have little-to-no control over that, but it might not be planning to fire you.

I've see all three of the following:

1. You are being "managed out". You are expected to resign, or the company will document enough performance issues to fire you. You will not win.

2. The company wants to make you conform to their expectations. They've done a cost-benefit analysis and decided that "fixing you" is going to be cheaper than getting rid of you and hiring in someone else with the necessary skills. This usually happens when you have a history of good performance and they just want you to "return to prior performance levels". However, if you don't conform to their expectations you will be fired.

3. Your job is safe, but you did something that embarrassed someone senior and they want to remind you that they have the power and such behaviour will not be tolerated. The PIP is all for show - so that you don't forget your place.

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pauleastlund• 12 years ago

Man, you folks are cynical. Having done a stint in a people management role at a tech company I can attest that things aren't always this straightforward.

- PIPs are definitely the tool you use when you want to fire someone, but they're also the tool you want to use to get someone's attention when all else has failed. I had to give a PIP to an employee who just could not get his head in the game. I had absolutely no desire to fire him.

- I have definitely witnessed HR stand up to managers and push back on plans to fire employees who haven't had adequate time to fix their conduct and turn things around. You can argue that they're protecting the company from wrongful termination liability, but I know at least one of the HRfolk involved and that was definitely not his primary motivation.

I get thinking that big corporations are only driven by profits and are therefore always going to be selfish/evil (though I don't really believe it) but I don't get thinking that blanket statements/accusations about individual people in these organizations could possibly be true. There are well-meaning HRpeople in the world, and managers who mean what they say. Maybe not as many as there should be, but still lots.

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wdr1• 12 years ago

1. Performance improvement plans are not for performance improvement. They are for firing employees. Management already formed an irreversible negative view. It is too late.

As just about any manager on here will tell you, this is complete bunk. Being on a performance improvement plan obviously isn't good, but I've had many people complete their plan successfully, and not only that, but go on to long & successful careers.

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Iftheshoefits2• 12 years ago

This just can't be emphasized enough. My view is that this view should be expanded to include most of management. They are in a different social class, because they are employees the company values more than the employees who do the work of the company (e.g. produce products, maintain software, whatever). HR is valued more for all the reasons listed. Management serve a similar purpose, but in a more front-line kind of way, and also are guardians of the only resource that matters in a company (direct and indirect expenses).

I suppose it makes me a cynical person but my view is that unless I have a pre-existing personal relationship, I assume that anybody in management views their employees as tools to use for their own political ambitions within the company, whether they need a scapegoat to cover their own incompetence or a proxy to claim glory and credit for jobs well done.

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kvargs5• 12 years ago

You're totally right. I thought HR was at minimum a neutral party - at Amazon your HR rep is called your "HR Business Partner". That's complete baloney. She was basically there to do whatever my manager and the VP wanted her to do. Things I told her in confidence (like having two transfer opportunities) were immediately relayed to my manager. It is such a betrayal of trust. I would hope that other HR departments in other companies are different but I think that's overly optimistic.

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Tyrannosaurs4• 12 years ago

HR is there to protect the company from all staff - yes you but also your manager and his/her ignorance of employment law.

Maybe it's just a European thing but I've seen more HR professionals despair at the actions of managers than staff. Yes, they may help him/her get rid of you but what they're really terrified of is his ill advised actions which open the company up to a massive liability.

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dragonwriter• 12 years ago

Maybe it's just a European thing but I've seen more HR professionals despair at the actions of managers than staff.

Its a power-balance thing. Managers have more power vis-a-vis HR staff than line staff do, thus are more likely to be able to get away with persisting in things that HR staff doesn't like. So, more likely a source of HR staff "despair".

Employees -- unless backed by a manager -- are more likely to meekly acquiesce.

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snowwrestler• 12 years ago

This is all true. But what I haven't seen in this thread is advice on what employees should do, instead of going to HR.

My experience is that it can be invaluable to make personal connections with one or more management-type folks outside of your team. This is sometimes called a "mentor," although I think that term is pretty cliche at this point, and puts too much pressure on the relationship.

The point is to have someone a bit more versed in the internal politics, with whom you can have informal conversations before doing anything dramatic--like going to HR or emailing your boss's boss's boss.

They can help you predict the likely outcomes of those actions. And they might also be able to end-run around the "bad layer" in your management. For example, they might be able to go to another senior person and informally pass along the word that a key issue is not being addressed...without naming names.

How to build those relationships? Take people out to lunch or coffee. Have a conversation. Ask them how they got to where they are, what they wish they'd known earlier, etc. Often you can figure out pretty quickly whether you get along with them or not.

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lifeisstillgood• 12 years ago

So true. And the essence of networking

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shin_lao• 12 years ago

I can't upvote you enough. Nothing cynical but remember the HR is paid by the company, not by you.

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cc438• 12 years ago

I'm surprised that HR was immediately on the manager's side. I'd expect HR to protect/defend management that is above their work group, they write the checks after all. However, there is no incentive to protect anyone on the same level or below their reporting manager.

HR exists to defend against litigation and conspiring with Kivin's manager worked directly against that purpose. Their actions resulted in a fat public lawsuit where winning won't matter. The findings related to the ethics of Amazon's ad platform are damning, their corporate customers would love to recoup misappropriated advertising dollars with their army of attorneys on retainer.

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hga10• 12 years ago

It's long standing Amazon policy to engage in "fat public lawsuits" over employment. So while we might argue the wisdom of that, HR not worrying about that prospect is in alignment with the higher levels of management.

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aridiculous• 12 years ago

How's this for an idea: by law, many/all HR duties in corporations larger than X, must be conducted by independent, outside firms hired by the original corporation. They would be like tax auditor firms or credit card security auditors, but more involved.

This way, HR would more likely be incentivized to work for both employee and employer (because they are audited themselves), except in extreme corrupt cases. HR practice would also become a lot better, as it became more competitive and profitable. People with more knowledge of labor law and history would thrive. Yes, there would still be stooges working in these outside HR firms, but at least they would stooge for the real laws in place rather than corporate policies.

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mahyarm2• 12 years ago

People who know who their real customers are, serve their customers. I don't know how effective it would be in the end.

Also the cases you cite, they're go-between firms where the power relationship is obvious. Big government tells smaller corp to do x, or big credit card firm tells smaller firm to do y. For employee's, the power relationship isn't there unless you have unions, and union organizations would be ones you would go to in these cases.

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incision• 12 years ago

"HR is not your friend. HR is not there to protect you and your career."

Right.

Being a friend, advocate and protector is the role of a professional union.

Unfortunately, the labor in tech seems convinced that each is better off on his or her own despite being up against a cartel of behemoths [1].

1: http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-...

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doomspork• 12 years ago

Looks like Kivin was surprised when HR told his manager that he requested to be transferred. His manager then used this information against him, by putting him into a 'performance improvement program' which blocks transfers to any other group for some period of time.

I learned this one the hard way myself. The change wasn't motivated by any grief or frustration, I was simply looking for career growth since my role wasn't offering me any new opportunities. Instead of what I thought would happen, my boss identifying I could offer the company more in that new role, he was offended I'd ask to change teams and retaliated. I ultimately left the organization soon after because he had made it an absolute nightmare.

HR is not your friend. HR is not there to protect you and your career. HR is there to protect the company AGAINST you.

This was very shocking to me to realize early on in my career, I'd always heard that HR was on my team. I quickly learned that they're just there to keep the assembly line happy and functioning.

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ufmace2• 12 years ago

As in many things in life, the people and organizations that are actually on your team are perfectly obvious, and they never feel the need to tell anybody how on your team they are.

The only people who feel the need to tell you how on your team they are would be the ones that are not on your team at all, and expect to get some kind of benefit for the people whose team they are actually on by convincing you otherwise. I.E. by screwing you over.

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reshambabble• 12 years ago

I learned this lesson the hard way. I worked for a company that had a huge culture problem. I made the mistake of telling the truth to HR about it, and suddenly I started going from beyond excellent performance reviews to strangely poor performance reviews about my "personality" without any explanation (and even resistance when I tried to ask about it). They were slowly documenting enough negative evidence to let me go. Unfortunately New York is an "at-will" state, so I could never file a wrongful termination suit. The power is one-sided.

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pasbesoin2• 12 years ago

Seen this repeatedly in multiple corporate settings. The sooner you learn it, the better you may fare. (Including sometimes making decisions to "get out", preemptively.)

Once you understand it, it can also help explain some of the staffing and personalities you will encounter in HR departments.

P.S. I'll add that, in my experience, this extends to most performance reviews. Their primary function is to reenforce top-down policy and decisions. They are not really, primarily, about assessing you and planning (real) improvements. They are about laying the paperwork for whatever Management decides.

Perhaps this sounds overly cynical. And for favored employees, these processes may align more with their own interests. Even then, favored one year may not extend to the next year.

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moe2• 12 years ago

What a fascinating insight into the guts of a MegaCorp. Their scale (Discover alone paying $13MM/yr for ads), politics and inner workings. Very well written, too.

The most interesting aspect to me, apart from the main plot, was how far detached from reality everyone is operating.

Someone discovers a fatal flaw (5 second latency) in a multi-million dollar ad campaign.

You'd think this is a no-brainer; file a bug with the engineering team and have this fixed, right?

Instead, at Amazon, it eventually escalates into someone desperately "asking for the contact information for the person that manages latency for amazon.com". That alone is the stuff that comedy TV shows are made of.

Stories like these make me feel real pity for the little engineers all the way down the food chain. The ones who had to implement and test this adserver. The ones who likely weren't happy at all with 5 second latencies either.

I wonder if their voices were squelched by management in the same way, or if there's just an established culture of resignation and nobody cares anymore.

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briholt• 12 years ago

With every new team and new layer of management, the agents' incentives drifted farther away from the organization's leading into a gray zone entirely focused on self-promotion and detached from fundamental business ethics.

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swombat• 12 years ago

Disclaimer: I haven't read through the entire thing (just the first 3 pages or so), but I have been on the receiving end of entirely spurious threats of lawsuit.

All of this needs to be read with some measure of skepticism. However, the complaint provides a fair amount of evidence, not just claims of wrongdoing... that gives it a fair amount of credence in my eyes.

If so, that is very damning of the top-down, strongly hierarchical culture that Amazon is well-known for - but I would argue it is inevitable for any company that has a very hierarchical top-down culture...

You can't make up for the downsides of top-down management with pretty words and values and employee handbooks. Hierarchical, power-based management will always lead to serious ethical lapses like this.

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pja• 12 years ago

"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”."

I remember michaelochurch making almost exactly this point about PIPs on HN in the past - that it was far too easy for them to be used a tool for employee abuse & finding yourself under a PIP was a strong signal that should move on as soon as possible, regardless of the professed reasoning behind the PIP.

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a3n6• 12 years ago

A colleague once commented that these things are essentially one year notice, and you should use that time to carefully find a new job.

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yuhong2• 12 years ago

michaelochurch has also talked about open allocation. I am thinking that for Amazon mixing both might make sense.

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ericd2• 12 years ago

Side note, but Scribd is garbage. Got to page 3 or 4 before it demands that I install their mobile app to keep reading. I don't know why people keep posting on there.

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Elrac• 12 years ago

For what that's worth, there's a separate subthread here where lots of people agree with you. The first time I encountered Scribd, I wrote them scathingly critical feedback indicating that it was infuriatingly awkward to use if not nonfunctional, worse than any existing alternative and should be nuked from orbit.

Some readers have pointed out that Scribd is a venture backed by YCombinator. Don't know how significant that is.

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ericd2• 12 years ago

Heh yeah, I saw that after I posted... should have looked harder, but it was 5 AM and I wanted to go to sleep.

It started off pretty bad just because their tech wasn't very good, but then it seemed to be getting better as they ditched their flash based reader for HTML. Now they just seem to be actively user-hostile in the name of growing the number of app installs. Naked user coercion is much less forgivable than just sucking.

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matwood• 12 years ago

More proof that the only relationship you want with Amazon is as a customer. You do not want to be an employee, a vender, or any sort of partner.

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doughj3• 12 years ago

Which raises the question: if you wouldn't want to deal with Amazon in any other way, should you really be supporting them as a customer?

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gdulli• 12 years ago

Every year Amazon looks uglier and uglier and I feel worse and worse about buying from them. I've already backed off and it's probably a matter of time before I stop altogether.

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akclr2• 12 years ago

Here's a link that says that he has won the litigation against Amazon http://www.advocateslg.com/blog/2013/07/litigation_success_a...

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GrinningFool3• 12 years ago

I believe he referenced those in his letter as things they gave up on ahead of trial because they had no hope of winning them anyway.

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teachingaway• 12 years ago

I think that link says he just won parts of the lawsuit. Other parts are still ongoing.

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akclr2• 12 years ago

Here is link that says he has won the litigation against amazon. http://www.advocateslg.com/blog/2013/07/litigation_success_a...

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thyrsus• 12 years ago

From http://www.businessinsider.com.au/amazon-employee-lawsuit-ki...

    Varghese sued Amazon in 2012 following his termination
    after seven months on the job. Although he won part of
    his case in July 2013 — Amazon waived enforcement of an
    18-month non-compete obligation and granted him all
    rights to a patent application he’d filed — the trial
    for the second part of the suit has been pushed back 
    until March 2015.

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andyjohnson0• 12 years ago

According to this [1] article (dated today) in Business Insider Australia, Kivin Varghese has been camping outside Amazon's HQ until it addresses his complaint.

It also has a more readable explanation of who/what/when than the linked pdf.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com.au/amazon-employee-lawsuit-ki...

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morky• 12 years ago

I find it odd that so many in the tech industry idolise Amazon so much, they are just like many other aggressive retailers such as Walmart or Tesco.

Interestingly Kivin sounds like the type of person you ideally want working and managing your product but most corporations are actually staffed by people like Munira and Kotas.

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bengali32• 12 years ago

I disagree, Kivin couldn't resolve this issue, jumped ship, and pointed fingers as he fell away.

My assumptions here: NCA - not relevent. This gets agreed upon in advance (cont...) complaining about this after the fact changes how professional I view the writer.

Discover - Unless Kivin was the owner of this relationship, I don't believe he had enough information to go on here.

Team - Priority on needing to fess up to the client immediately is different from fixing the issue. I don't think these are the same issue.

Departure - Kivin entered negotiations on severeance here. Im

edit: I somehow submitted incomplete response then got distracted.. added (cont..) to denote separator of edit.

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philangist• 12 years ago

It read to me like egos prevented Kivin from resolving the issue, then tried to push him out, and he decided that he wasn't going down without a fight.

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gregd3• 12 years ago

How was Kivin supposed to "resolve" this issue singlehandedly? He made attempts to declare what he thought was the direct way to resolve it and it was not only batted away by management, but they backed him into a corner and wanted him to lie about the situation and how it was going to be handled.

I really don't understand your perspective.

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tw042• 12 years ago

Well... Discover is fully aware now.

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atmosx• 12 years ago

This is a prominent example of how things can go wrong in big companies. That's exactly what happens in the (so globally hated) Greek public sector. The fact that it happens at companies like Amazon (probably MS, FB, GOOG, APPL, SONY, etc. ) says a lot about politics in big corps/orgs.

Unfortunately skills are not all that relevant after all in our modern liberal society.

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alexggordon• 12 years ago

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.

The most interesting part to me is the lack of foresight by Amazon. Obviously this is a pretty big coverup, but with a pending lawsuit, and obvious wrongdoing to Amazon's 2nd biggest ad revenue generator, I'm particularly surprised more work wasn't put into solving/covering up this issue as soon as it started blooming. I know Bezos is crazy in his desire to make Amazon the biggest giant on the block, but it doesn't take a genius (which Bezos probably is) to realize a potentially huge problem when it happens.

However, the fact that this wasn't dealt with in a better way, AND Bezos ignored emails from Kivin [0], leads me to two possible conclusions.

A. Bezos didn't know the full situation, and Blackburn deceived him.

B. Bezos knew the full situation, but chose to side with Blackburn (I suspect Munira didn't even cross his mind) because he values Blackburn more than morality.

Either of these situations show that there was a decision made by Blackburn that this could be covered up cheaper than it could be remedied--a decision I find to be Occam's Razor here. The reason I think it was Blackburn, is I think Bezos is smart enough to just remove Kivin's non-compete just to make it go away without even costing Bezos any of his precious little revenue.

I tend to evaluate companies based on how they treat their employees and if Munira and Blackburn are the typical managers and VPs at Amazon, then I think really find myself not needing Amazon's services anymore. Let's hope this hasn't happened to anyone else.

[0] "I’ve sent two letters to Jeff Bezos (as these are serious issues that I believe he would care about as the founder of the company and keeper of the culture)" (pg 2).

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yahya94• 12 years ago

Good

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drderidder• 12 years ago

This isn't the first story of bad behavior from Amazon. Another story [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6104571] from a contract worker appeared over a year and a half ago. I haven't used them since. But I'm wondering what are some good alternatives for book purchases?

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mazelife• 12 years ago

I don't like Amazon much either, so for books I usually go with http://www.powells.com/

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CSMastermind2• 12 years ago

My experience with Amazon HR is this: my ex-girlfriend had an internship with Amazon in the summer of 2013. While there her manager friended her on Facebook then sent her some messages suggesting that if she slept with him he would make sure she got a full time offer and explicitly describing his fantasies about her.

She ended sleeping with him and true to his word he got her the full time position. About a month later I found out about the whole thing and broke up with her.

I submitted the transcripts of their conversations to HR. They conducted an investigation and he admitted to everything. The guy got to keep his job. They transferred him to another group and wanted her to sign a statement saying that nothing improper happened. They strongly suggested that her full time offer might be rescinded is she didn't sign the statement.

She signed and has been working there the past 6 months.

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jliptzin2• 12 years ago

Lorne Malvo would have handled things a bit differently

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glifchits3• 12 years ago

Appalling... I'm really sorry to hear that you were involved with her, that she had such a disgusting manager, and that he nor she were reprimanded.

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gohrt5• 12 years ago

Please don't blame the victim. How would you feel if you applied for a job, and worked there for three months, and then your manager told you that you'd have to have sex with him to get your job, regardless of your merit for the role?

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gohrt5• 12 years ago

This situation certainly wasn't your fault, but that manager raped your girlfriend -- using a threat of employment loss to extract sex from her. He put her in a very tough position that few people would be able to overcome.

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dd36• 12 years ago

Post the transcript!

/kidding

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aklein• 12 years ago

This is especially egregious.

http://www.stopvaw.org/quid_pro_quo_sexual_harassment

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rezashirazian• 12 years ago

She sounds like a good fit for Amazon.

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crazypyro• 12 years ago

I don't understand this... I would imagine anyone smart enough to obtain an internship with Amazon would realize that they could sue Amazon and settle for enough money to never have to work again in their life. How could she possibly take that offer?

I feel there may be more to the story, especially as you are her ex and I feel we should all take this with a grain of salt....

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brogrammer90• 12 years ago

Unfortunately this is all too common, especially in SV. There are just too many "forever alone" types with hiring power, and girls who will do anything to be a successful "young professional."

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jessaustin3• 12 years ago

They strongly suggested that her full time offer might be rescinded is she didn't sign the statement.

This is shitty, but there is a certain logic. By signing the statement, she repudiated the narrative by which she had earned her position by having sex. If she had not denied that, Amazon would have been employing someone who had a radically incorrect understanding of her duties as an employee.

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thro12372• 12 years ago

If your gf has saved those messages, I think she can still sue Amazon. The fact that she signed something under duress should not matter.

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dreamweapon4• 12 years ago

If what you're saying is accurate (I'm not suggesting that you're lying; but if there are no important omitted details that might cause us to draw different conclusions about what you've said so far), then do I hope she has the courage to come forward with the FB transcripts -- especially all the explicit fantasies the hiring manager was stupid enough to post in conjunction with an explicit quid-pro-quo in the same channel. Along with copies of any ridiculous statements she was forced to sign.

These companies just won't stop behaving badly until their behavior gets vividly exposed often enough for them to start thinking twice. In the case of sexual harassment, the more incontrovertibly damning material that comes out (provided it is done with the express consent of the victims), the better.

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reinhardt• 12 years ago

The "victim"? Please. She weighed things and decided that a fulltime job right out of the gate was more important than a one-nighter and cheating on her ex. Not justifying the manager and everyone involved in the cover-up but this sounds more like a consenting adults agreement than a poor victim exploitation.

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opendais6• 12 years ago

In case anyone was wondering why I bash Amazon's non-AWS technical staff...

They screwed up the promotion, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and 3-5s latency for ads? :P

That is the only part of this complaint I find interesting.

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ncallaway• 12 years ago

They screwed up the promotion, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars

It's really hard to say from the given context that this was definitely engineering's fault.

You'll note that the various plans for resolving the issue involve updating the Terms & Conditions of the offer. That makes me think that accurate code was implemented against incorrect Terms and Conditions, rather than incorrect code was implemented against accurate Terms and Conditions.

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opendais6• 12 years ago

The latency issue is, I supposed I could have stated it better.

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abalone8• 12 years ago

Poor guy.

First, writing a letter to the board asking for their help while simultaneously threatening that you've filed it with the attorney general's office is disingenuous. While that will call attention to yourself it is unlikely to produce a positive outcome. Which seems to be a pattern at the heart of his difficulties.

Second, the initial incident of 5 second latency with displaying an ad was addressed prior to launch. He was reprimanded for sounding an alarm 3 levels up without first researching a solution.

Third, and most importantly, his central ethics claim re: Discover is questionable. The promotion was to give $10 to people who used Discover. Much of his claim rests on his editorializing of the aims of the promo, specifically that it would be useless and mere "subsidy" unless targeted specifically at 1-click setting conversions. But that's debatable. He's the only one saying that. He admits the promotion was not set up that way, and Amazon reports that Discover was ok with it proceeding as long as it was narrowed to Fire users and capped at the original budget.

It doesn't sound like Amazon's finest hour but when you strip out the one-sided editorializing these break more towards bugs and campaign issues that occasionally arise and get addressed in the course of development / advertising, and he breaks a little bit toward a messiah complex.

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sk5t• 12 years ago

The suit and letter were not his first courses of action. IMHO his actions are reasonable and necessary, at this point, to motivate the board to consider the problem seriously.

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kohanz• 12 years ago

Wow, what a terrible experience. The evidence does seem to show that this guy was just trying to do the right job and do it ethically and he was basically tarred and feathered for doing so by his superiors, who are just a rung or two below Bezos.

I wonder how AMZN employees feel, reading this.

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moogleii• 12 years ago

There are some odd policies here. There's the crazy non-compete clause (if those are allowed, the former company should pay for however long the clause lasts). Then there's the "Performance Improvement Plan." I don't really understand the purpose of preventing transfers. If an employee truly needs improvement, how does preventing transfers have anything to do with that?

Based off other former employee anecdotes, Amazon is starting to sound like the Walmart of the internet.

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codeonfire• 12 years ago

"I don't really understand the purpose of preventing transfers."

Managers look like complete shit if an employee leaves. They are judged based on their ability to control and have power over people. You have to understand, some companies have devolved so far that they behave like criminal gangs. If one drug dealer leaves his boss and goes to another boss what does that tell all the other drug dealers about the first boss?

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kvargs5• 12 years ago

Hi All - Kivin here - thanks for the words of support - it really helps. Yes I thought HR was at a minimum neutral. In Amazon, your HR contact is called your "HR Business Partner" which in retrospect is completely bogus. They are there to do what the exec management chain wants them to do.

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zippergz• 12 years ago

That means they are a partner to the business, not a partner to you. This is a common (not Amazon-invented) term.

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ChuckMcM• 12 years ago

Good luck with the lawsuit Kivin. Sadly I didn't see anything in the letter that I would not have expected to be true at any large company. Given what you know of the company I'm pretty sure you can ignore the non-compete for now, if they want to enforce it they have to sue you, and if they sue you they have to have all of this come out in court. Which they won't, so you're fine there.

Not a great resolution I know.

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rburhum• 12 years ago

Sorty for the side note, but is anybody else having trouble reading this opened in a browser in an iPad? I don't understand why something as simple as scrolling through a doc has to be impossible in 2014

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205guy• 12 years ago

iPad reader here as well. I couldn't get beyond the first page either. Another example of low quality product (or perhaps outright malicious business model) breaking the Internet.

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paulhauggis• 12 years ago

This sort of behavior at Amazon does not surprise me. If you are a third-party seller, they will eventually use your own sales data to go around you, buy whatever you are selling at bulk, and put you out of business.

This past September, they had major server issues, which cost sellers lots of money in sales. They refuse to admit it.

As a seller, you also don't own your customers (you are given the privilege of selling to amazons customers). Which means that at any point in time, Amazon could take it all away and all of the hard work you put into pleasing the people buying your products goes to waste. They have been recently making it more and more difficult for the average user to even continue their business. So many people that have been selling for years are prevented from continuing without paperwork from distributors (which as I've seen in the past, is just a trick to find out where they can compete with you)

With thaw business practices, they should have been out of business years ago.

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jotjotzzz• 12 years ago

Wow, this is horrible. Munira needs to be fired. And to be honest, I lost a lot of respect for Amazon and for Jeff Bezos over this. So much so that I sold all my Amazon stocks just now.

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iblaine• 12 years ago

Another result of this witch hunt is Munira Rahemtulla will forever be tied to this lawsuit whenever someone googles her name.

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downandout2• 12 years ago

The tl;dr version is this:

Discover Card, which spends ~$15M/yr advertising with Amazon, wanted to give a $10 gift card to Kindle users that changed their default Amazon 1-Click purchase settings to use a Discover card. Instead, Amazon gave the gift cards to everyone that used Discover for a 1-click digital purchase, the vast majority of whom already had Discover as their default 1-Click purchase card. Discover's $500K budget was predictably drained in rapid fashion, and they barely got any of the actions they had agreed to pay for. The author of this letter was encouraged to hide this fact, pitch it as an overwhelming success of the campaign, and to ask Discover to expand the budget. He was fired after complaining about being uncomfortable with participating in obvious fraud against their 2nd largest advertiser, and is now suing Amazon.

The failures here occurred in every department. First, at a fundamental technical level, I don't understand how this could happen in the first place if it wasn't intentional. This was a simple CPA campaign. When someone changed their default card to Discover, they got a gift card. So it begins with their "ad execution team". Second, the moment the problem was discovered, they should have simply credited the campaign such that they were only charged for the actions they agreed and intended to pay for. Third, any employee actively involved in encouraging fraud, let alone fraud against their 2nd largest advertiser, should be fired. Their engineering, marketing, legal, and HR teams all failed miserably on this one.

I don't envision myself ever having a need to run a CPA campaign through Amazon, but based on this I would stay away from them as much as possible. They had to have multiple internal discussions about whether or not they should commit a crime against a multi-million dollar advertiser. That's certainly enough to scare me away.

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wehadfun• 12 years ago

thanks. So he didn't get caned for disrespecting the chain of command about some stupid latency issue

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MangoDiesel• 12 years ago

No, that issue seemed to get cleared up successfully. He used that to foreshadow issues with his manager and general escalation communication.

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jxcole• 12 years ago

That's right he didn't. The OP didn't quite do the TL;DR right, really the letter goes something like this:

Part 1 (How I made my manager hate me): I insisted that we have better performance and everyone told me to f* off, so I went above my manager and now she hates me. (This is reasonable of her)

Par 2 She asks me to commit a crime and I raise it with HR, etc.

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abalone8• 12 years ago

Is there any evidence Discover agreed to that? As far as I can see he is the only one claiming the sole purpose of the campaign was to convert 1-click settings. That is his editorializing. Everywhere else it's mentioned, e.g. in Amazon's response[1], the campaign was not tied to that goal specifically. He even notes this himself:

"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."

Amazon in its reply noted that they reviewed the progress of the campaign with the customer and Discover agreed to proceed with some minor adjustments and capped to the original budget.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employee-lawsuit-kivin...

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downandout2• 12 years ago

I was just condensing what I read in his letter. It does appear though that their intention though was to incentivize people to change their 1-click settings. It wouldn't make much sense to give gift cards to people that were already doing what you wanted them to do.

Amazon in its reply noted that they reviewed the progress of the campaign with the customer and Discover agreed to proceed with some minor adjustments and capped to the original budget.

He appears to be alleging that Discover made this decision based upon false or very creatively spun data. During a meeting about this, a Senior VP said: "Are we hiding something? This doesn't feel right". The reply was "In this case we're hiding that it doesn't perform well". Instead of showing them that their $500,000 got them ~100 additional purchases made with Discover cards (an absurd CPA of $5,000), someone suggested that "We can show indexed sales (on device + on site) vs. a control group that didn't see the ad". That sounds intentionally deceitful (not to mention quite evil). They tried to hide the ill effects of their colossal mistakes.

"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."

That's how it worked in practice obviously, but solely based upon his letter, it appears that this was not Discover's intention. Some of the emails he quoted in his letter also appear to be pretty damning evidence that they knew that this was wrong, and essentially didn't care.

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anigbrowl4• 12 years ago

If you read the email from Jill Losser (ad buyer at Discover) on page 10 you can see she is pretty pissed off about the problem and also uncertain on the details of what happened because Amazon managers have been holding back data on exactly where the discount monies went. When you cite the line about 'the promotion was structured in a way...' you're taking his description about how it operated in practice while ignoring his statement on how it was supposed to operate (laid out in the next two sentences). I agree that this is editorializing on his part and it would have been better, if possible, to include the text of Discover's ad buy request - but when you look at the email from the Discover ad buyer it's pretty clear that she's unhappy about the way the promotion has turned out.

The best interpretation you can put on this is that Discover may have failed to be sufficiently specific in the terms of its ad buy and that Amazon misinterpreted this lack of specificity to mean that Discover wanted to give $10 to any Amazon customer using a Discover card as their 1-click option, rather than incentive customers who were not doing so to change that behavior.

Mind, I'm not commenting on the overall merits of Varghese's letter but on the likelihood that he accurately represented Discover's expectation.

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bphogan• 12 years ago

It wouldn't be called "Human Resources" if that department were on the side of the worker. They wouldn't be calling the workers "resources."

My wife's studying to go into this field and that's basically what she's taught - you're in HR for the company.

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kordless• 12 years ago

Nice timing on this story.

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tdsamardzhiev• 12 years ago

Well that's it, I'm done with Amazon. I hope everything goes well for Kivin. As for Munira, I am ashamed of myself, but sometimes I really want certain peaple to step on a landmine.

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glifchits3• 12 years ago

Its very disappointing to see that this behaviour continues to exist in organizations, even with a leader like Bezos (I'll optimistically assume he practices the ethical standards he preaches). It seems like a fundamental tension in business. How can mistakes ever be admitted when shareholders react aggressively on any indication of poor management performance? Meanwhile today, in light of this news, AMZN stock is up. How disheartening.

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wrd• 12 years ago

As scandalous as this letter is, the politics, intrigue, and retaliation follow to a T the description of corporate mangers' logic and ethics as written in Moral Mazes by Robert Jackall. I highly recommend it for a better understanding of why people act the way they do in a corporate context.

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khrist• 12 years ago

is there any comment from amazon on this yet?

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devanti• 12 years ago

Anyone know how Discover responded to this? Are they still working with Amazon?

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grellas• 12 years ago

So you are an Amazon board member and you receive this letter.

The letter is said to be directed to you in confidence. It is not. It is openly published on scribd for all the world to see.

The letter is said to be written by an ex-executive of the company. It is not. Or, if it is, it is written in a style that has "lawyer-written" stamped all over it.

The person making the claims is saying he is doing this to uphold company values but is far from disinterested. If he was fired for whistleblowing, that is wrongful and he gets large damages. Otherwise, not. So, maybe it is sincere and maybe not. But who knows?

The person also waited two years to write this letter. Does this undercut its premise that its goal is to correct wrongdoing? Or was it now put out opportunistically to further some litigation goal instead? Again, who knows?

Ditto for a complaint being made just now to the Washington agency responsible for fraud. Why now and not earlier if the problems were serious and pressing?

Then too, the alleged victim (Discover Card) is hardly a naive consumer, knows how to defend itself, and had known enough about this to ask questions going as far back as 2012. Is there, then, less than meets the eye concerning the claims of its having been overtly cheated?

Everything stated in this letter may be true and damning as it appears. I don't know what happened, nor do I know the people involved. But I do know when something is framed insincerely and this letter is framed insincerely. It may all be true but its style and timing do not ring true.

This has to have another side to it, in my view, and it is wrong to take it as self-evidently true without hearing that other side. What we have now is only a one-sided story that is heavily slanted in its presentation.

Certainly if I were a board member to whom this was purportedly directed, I would be highly skeptical. I would assume instead that I was not even the intended audience for the letter. And I would probably be right.

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gohrt5• 12 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare

Way to stand up for the little $145B company. Who, by the way, have an army of lawyers and PR professionals who write everything that comes out of the corporation. Regular employees are banned from speaking on behalf of the company.

Aren't you a lawyer? Are you the only lawyer who tells clients "go ahead and speak for yourself, it's not my place to help you word your thoughts effectively"?

Who, pray tell, do you think writes the "Letter from Jeff Bezos" that occasionally appears on the website?

The litigation goal, you may recall, is to compensate the aggrieved for losing his job over failure to join a criminal conspiracy.

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hawkice3• 12 years ago

The litigation goal, you may recall, is to compensate the aggrieved for losing his job over failure to join a criminal conspiracy.

So, that's what the document claims. 'grellas makes the point that this isn't just a normal letter, it's probably written by a lawyer and has legal implications. In this case, we have some very serious allegations within the context of a legal battle. The next step, which should clearly be within the legal system, is discovery/investigation. Saying "there must be another side to this" is pretty reasonable -- I'm not lawyer, but most courts allow both sides to speak before making up their mind.

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tptacek4• 12 years ago

Why would you think that this snarling reply would persuade anyone on HN, let alone George Grellas? Who would take seriously a comment that opened by suggesting Grellas was sticking up for Amazon? Hey, way to stick up for the $30Bn credit card company, by the way.

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hga10• 12 years ago

"The letter is said to be directed to you in confidence."

That was true in the past, yes?

The implication here is that no one to whom this was addressed took effective action after receipt of it, so now it's all on public display.

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swamp402• 12 years ago

I really hate seeing thoughtful comments like yours downvoted.

Maybe a comment agree/disagree voting system could be run, in parallel with the upvote/downvote system?

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dang4• 12 years ago

Most thoughtful comments that get downvoted soon get voted back up by other users. That's one reason why it's against the HN guidelines to comment about downvoting. At least half the time your comment is soon obsolete.

Instead of posting comments like this, please just upvote and trust your fellow users. If you (or anyone) think a comment has been treated particularly unfairly, you're welcome to email us at hn@ycombinator.com.

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beedogs2• 12 years ago

It wasn't thoughtful; the very premise of it (that this was sent to the rest of the planet before it was sent confidentially to the boardmembers) is factually incorrect.

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tptacek4• 12 years ago

This is the first interesting top-level comment on the thread, but is weighted down by the fact that it spoils the outrage tourism fun to be had at tl;dr'ing the letter and gawking at the few interesting details.

You'd think a nerd message board would reward critical thinking. Instead, the replies to this comment all seem offended by the concept.

This, I know, is not a helpful addition to the thread, but oh well, I'm just as bad as everyone else here.

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tim333• 12 years ago

not a helpful addition to the thread

Seems quite helpful to me. Without this kind of thing it's hard to see at a glance which of the 542 comments (at time of writing) are worth reading

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swamp402• 12 years ago

What's the legality of Kivin releasing internal emails like this to the general public?

I would never do something like that.

Even if I was completely and horribly screwed over, I would only share information like this with my attorney.

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srean2• 12 years ago

Legal or not, I cannot thank him enough for bringing it up. He did a service to all who are or will be looking for employment. It was certainly eye opening for me.

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rebootthesystem• 12 years ago

It sure sounds like the wrong person was fired.

I have experience with the Amazon advertising platform. Not on the Kindle side but what I'll call "Amazon main". And I can tell you it ain't pretty at all.

I don't know if I should characterize this as fraud. Not sure what the legal designation might be.

Here's a hypothetical example to try to explain the problem:

Imagine you are selling product on Amazon. Products you manufacture. And, in order to drive sales you purchase ads on the Amazon ads platform. You only pay when someone clicks. Ads accomplish two missions: sales and ranking improvement. Ranking on Amazon is important. The closer your product is to the top of page one the more sales you'll generate. Ads can help you accomplish this.

So far so good.

Now imagine someone is teaching a course on how to scam Amazon buyers and make money in the process. The course teaches you to find successful listings on Amazon and, effectively, add your name to the product page as an additional seller. Amazon encourages this. It's ridiculously easy. Once you have a seller account it takes all of one minute to pick a product and list against it.

But, wait, you don't actually make that product. You don't even have any in stock. How do you do this? Simple, when a customer makes a purchase you send them some crap product that is similar enough. If you do your homework your fake product will not be returned and you just made some money.

Here's the problem. The legitimate product manufacturer spent thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars advertising the product on Amazon to get it well ranked and generate enough sales that the product has a good reputation (reviews, etc.). Amazon, in turn, allows ANYONE to list against ANY product and, effectively steal the time, money and effort expended by the rightful product producer in making that product a success in the Amazon ecosystem.

In other words, if you just spent $100K advertising your product on Amazon they allow Joe Blow to come in and take away 25% to 50% (or whatever) of the sales you generate with that ad spend. And there's NOTHING you can do about it.

Imagine Amazon spending millions of dollars to advertise their Kindle tablet during the Superbowl or the Olympics. Now imagine the TV network allowing Apple and Microsoft to display a link to their tablets FOR FREE within the Amazon Kindle ad. Crazy, right? Amazon wouldn't put up with that for a microsecond. They'd say: If Apple and Microsoft want to sell their tablets they need to pay for their own advertising on their own time slot. And they would be correct in pushing for this. The networks would, effectively, allow Amazon's competitors to steal Amazon's advertising budget for their own financial gains. Wrong. Well, this is EXACTLY what Amazon is doing today to every single one of their advertisers.

If you advertise on Amazon your ad budget is very likely to generate sales for competitors. That is wrong beyond description and Amazon seems to have zero interest in fixing the problem. The solution is very simple: A listing that has an active spend budget needs to be locked out from any other sellers. It becomes a single seller listing for as long as the seller is spending even a single dollar a day in Amazon ads. Problem solved.

After reading most of the posted letter I've come to realize that the problems within Amazon are much greater than I thought. You see two faces of this corporation when you work with them as a vendor. The public face looks clean, organized and inviting. The "back office" side is in constant chaos, is disorganized, has ethical problems, is clueless, does NOT have the seller's/advertisers best interests at heart and, it seems, is perfectly comfortable with conducting business in unethical and fraudulent ways, perhaps unintentionally due to dysfunction, yet the consequences to those engaging with that side of the organization are the same.

Where is Jeff Bezos in all of this? It would seem he needs to become very visible and push forward a major reform in a very public way, at least public to their advertisers. Almost like what Domino's Pizza did:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/34812047/ns/business-us_business/t...

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hrasyid• 12 years ago

Forgive this stupid question, but how do we know the letter as seen on this scribd link is authentic, let alone verify all the screenshots, emails and transcripts in that letter?

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graycat• 12 years ago

A classic case of goal subordination, a standard topic in courses in organizational behavior and/or public administration.

So, the definition of goal subordination is an employee acting in a way that helps them but hurts the company. That is, the goal of helping the company is subordinated to, that is, made less important than, the goal of helping the person engaging in goal subordination.

In the case of the OP, it was not nearly just the fired employee who was hurt but 2-3 levels of management above that employee, the whole company, Bezos, and the stockholders.

Gee, some parts of the roll out were not ready on time! Like this is the first time in projects? Gee, even for the pyramids, the project leaders needed enough in workers, food, stone cutting tools, wood, rope, etc. -- lack of any one of these inputs could stop the whole leaders whole project. That's part of what we now call materials requirements planning, right, MRP. And for getting all the parts ready on time, there is methodology for that, in part, an application of linear programming with critical paths, etc. US aerospace got good at such things. So, that little project at Amazon fumbled the ball on having the ad parts ready? They hired the people straight out of what, kindergarten?

And, after the project went forward, Amazon sent in a staff group, in an independent part of the organization, to analyze what went right/wrong? In Tunisia, Ike did that after Kasserine and the other battles in the Tunisian campaign, and soon Rommel was permanently back in Berlin, and the Allies had captured about 300,000 Axis soldiers and driven the Axis out of North Africa, from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, to Egypt and the Suez Canal.

Apparently in the US Army, such analysis of what happened is called an after-action review, e.g., as at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After-action_review

not nearly new stuff, and Amazon should be able to do well with such a process.

Managing, planning, executing, reviewing projects is not nearly new stuff; Amazon just blew it. Not so good for Bezos.

The most serious sources of goal subordination are middle management: The worker bees don't have enough power seriously to hurt the company, and the work of the C-level guys is too visible to the CEO and the BoD.

It's totally dumb for the company to have HR blindly back middle management possibly engaged in goal subordination, playing politics to "look good" while, really, making a mess, etc. E.g., she was messing up and reported to a guy who knew her resume was wrong -- can anyone guess what might have been going on here? I mean, anyone who at least went through junior high? Bezos made it through junior high, right?

Also there needs to be a company culture of honesty, hard work, good ideas, etc. For such a culture, need to be sure that a middle manager won't dump on a subordinate who does really good work.

A lot is known about how to manage, e.g., to reduce goal subordination.

For the employee who got fired, when I get around to needing a guy to work with major advertisers, I'll consider him in a millisecond. "Black list"? Sure, fine with me; the other companies can black list him while I hire him!

But he might sue my company? If my company messed up as badly as it appears Amazon did, then he should sue us; if he didn't, that would be against him. I'd hope that we wouldn't mess up like that.

Yes, that ad guy might report some really great successes to me. Okay, I mean, terrific, if they are real. Of course, I'd also get independent confirmation, say, directly from appropriate people at the company paying for the ads. If he did really well, then, sure, presto, bingo, bonus time, say, early in December.

I know; I know; this idea of such a bonus doesn't go along with the Ben Horowitz lecture, just yesterday or some such, in Sam's course, right? Sorry, Ben. The US military can give battlefield promotions, decorations, etc., so I'll be willing to hand out a December bonus.

If the ad guy didn't do so well, then have a project to understand why and do better the next time. If he needs to go to a week long seminar "How to Be a Good Ad Exec 101", and it's actually a useful seminar, then fine. If he can't really do the job, then help him learn to do his job.

Why might he not be able to do his job? One reason: He worked really hard on some of his last jobs while the world changed. So, e.g., he needs to get caught up on, say, the business of mobile ads. Okay; let him get caught up.

Notice I said he's an "ad guy" and not an "Ad Exec". I just want him to do his job and not hang on titles that can cause problems (here Ben was roughly correct).

And the manager? Largely to heck with that nonsense: In a good university, usually a department chair doesn't get to rule over the professors as if they were subordinate worker bees. Instead, the chair does some coordination, etc., and the job is not always coveted and not necessarily a promotion!

Basic fact: Each instance of good work is first done between just one pair of ears. Sorry 'bout that. For a team, all the good work is of just this kind. What we really want now is just such good work. For the routine coordination, etc. can leave that to managers, but that is inferior work. E.g., the coordination needed to get all the pieces done on time for the big roll out is work that was done at least back to the pyramids and, thus, has to be regarded as routine.

Some of this is controversial? Yup. YMMV. Sorry 'bout that.

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throwawfromlv• 12 years ago

The document does not have the image of the ad itself or how it was advertised to customers. What was stopping customers with discover card to temporarily remove and re-add it? Promotions like this are picked up by coupon blogs, with detailed steps to get the deals. This would explain the ad budget getting over before the forecast and also, gift cards being awarded to users, who had not even seen the ad.

The document does acknowledge that the team responsible for forecast "ad execution team", admitting the fuck up and using amazon cash to fund the the remainder of the promotion. Meanwhile implementing the workflow to require ad click requirement.

Given the context that this was a secretive gen 1 kindle tablet project, people should have been working hard to pull it off by deadline. And you have this whistleblower shooting emails to SVP looking for "who is responsible for latency on amazon.com". I am an engineer at an equally big company in bay area, I hate to work with PMs like OP.

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jessaustin3• 12 years ago

Regarding the Bezos quotes, it is striking that instead of saying "we will do X and we will not do Y", he opted for the considerably more weaselly "X is cool and Y is not cool". To those whose careers depend on doing Y, he might as well not have mentioned it, which was probably his intent.

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throwawayamz• 12 years ago

I was a dev on a partner team (but have since moved on....) and there is a bit more backstory. Kivin wasn't an exec at Amazon, he was 1 of 4 product managers at the time. Only Pinsky remains from that group still on the team. Kivin wasn't my favorite person to work with, but he also clearly had different expectations about the job and responsibilities than what he actually did. He often was frustrated and felt dejected.

Munira has retaliated against others, and it's my understanding she has had "high" churn in her org over the years. Hence throwaway/AC.

For those who want to see the advertisement creatives, they are available here:

https://www.behance.net/gallery/5329673/Discover-Card-Concep...

Also, note that while the copy on the ads talk about "Receive a $10 gift card when you spend $20 on your discovery card", it was widely understood that the actual goal was to get customers to set their discover card to 1-click. This was the working assumption across the team.

You'll note in the description of the campaign, below, the excellent designer confirms this understanding:

    "Their main objective was to get customers to change their default payment method on Amazon.com to Discover."

This aligns with what Kivin contends.
Amazon Payments privately objected since Discover cards cost more to process than other cards, and so they contended that the advertising campaign would be a net loss for the company since the $500k or so in ad spend would not be made up by the $1MM or so in increased merchant costs. Since Amazon Payments and Amazon Ads are in different orgs and have separate budgets, only someone at Jeff's level or at Discover would see the net... and hence the reason Amazon Ads and Discover would do the deal.
The whole amazon ads program is one unmitigated disaster, both in terms of tech and business. It's a shame. So much of the rest of the company is really good, but it's the few bad orgs like this that tarnish what otherwise could be a neutral employment brand.

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hullo2• 12 years ago

That's definitely not the creative you picture in your mind while reading the letter, thanks.

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dang4• 12 years ago

We changed the title from "Letter to Amazon Board from Ad Exec Fired for Refusing to Lie to Customer" to the largest subset of it that any of us is in a position to confirm is accurate.

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pessimizer• 12 years ago

I'm surprised this story got so many comments (I flagged it, and I rarely flag.) It seems like a minor internal dispute between an conscientious employee and their bad, less-conscientious manager, over a very small amount of money.

I can't detect a larger issue involved here except that when people screw up in a way that loses money, they will sometimes try to come up with a way to cover their ass rather than admit it and attempt to rectify it and therefore show everyone that they messed up.

Whoever posted it has exposed Amazon to a lawsuit, though. When eventually negotiating to fix this quietly with Discover, Amazon will be at a serious disadvantage.

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legendben• 12 years ago

I find this article immensely useful to someone relatively new to the tech industry. While politics isn't the core topic on Hacker News, it is a reality that affects everyone's life! The question we all should ask is "what would we do if it was me?' Very seldom do you see what happens in a big company like Amazon. The shared article offers great insight that you cannot find anywhere else. To pessimizer, just because you don't learn anything new in this article does not mean it is not useful to others. Your flagging it is rather self-centered.

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mistermumble• 12 years ago

so Kivin is taking the fight to the streets, or at least to the front door of Amazon HQ, with a daily protest vigil.

http://www.geekwire.com/2014/protesting-outside-amazon-hq-fo...

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john_smiths• 12 years ago

While one thing's for sure, I am blacklisting him from my company.

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sidcool2• 12 years ago

I feel like coining a new phrase 'Pulling of a Munira', defined as 'Successfully but falsely convincing people of having a degree from a coveted university over a long period of time'

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g8gggu892• 12 years ago

I like how he's unhappy with 2 weeks' severance pay when the rest of us little people get nothing when fired or leaving a job.

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toli• 12 years ago

I went to Stanford with Munira, she was a few years older but we overlapped, and she was a CS Section Leader (CS198) which means she taught my intro CS class when I took it, and helped me (and others) when I was stuck writing my first programs.

I subsequently became friends with her, and I can personally vouch that she took all the requisite CS classes, and she was pulling all-nighters in the same lab as me, writing code for her classes. I remember Munira being wicked smart - and an honest conscientious person.

Now, she may not have officially graduated - but keep in mind that she was finishing Stanford in the heady dot-com days, and she was likely a few units short of getting a full degree when Epiphany (a high-flying startup at the time) lured her in, and she never went back to finishing it. Similar story happened to me - i was 3 or 4 units short of required 45 units to get my CS Masters when i was graduating (I did the same co-term program where you get a BS and MS at the same time); and Stanford wanted me to pay the remaining $4k to get my degree. I paid, but quite possible that Munira was in the same boat, went to work for Epiphany and never bothered to finish her remaining units.

I don't work for Amazon, and I don't know the full details of the story - but it sounds a lot like ramblings of a disgruntled employee. I would definitely like to hear/see the Amazon side of the story before I draw any conclusions.

Keep in mind - I'm heavily biased, I was friends with Munira at Stanford and afterwards before she moved to Seattle, but i'm very skeptical to be taking all of the allegations at face value.

Official degree or not, I'd hire her to work at my startup in a heartbeat without any worries.

side note: Munira is not exUSSR from Tajikistan - good guess, but she just worked there for one summer. Nor Bangladeshi either. Either way, it's not in any way material to this conversation. I, on the other hand, am from former USSR, in case that makes any difference.

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mililani4• 12 years ago

Wow, Epiphany. Haven't heard that name in a long time. I used to work at IBM above their office in Campus Dr. in San Mateo. I think they went out of business and that space was later occupied by a staffing agency. I might have run into her before in the lobby. Such a long time ago. Man, time flies.

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pseingatl• 12 years ago

What's this case about? An employee who had a dispute with his supervisor. As in most cases, the supervisor won. The employee's future with the company is destroyed. The supervisor is protected by the company. The employee sues.

There may or may not be long-term collateral damage. The alleged victim, Discovery, isn't talking and may already have settled with Amazon outside the context of litigation. The supervisor's fraudulent resumé is now a matter of public record. She will be kept on at least until this lawsuit is over because Amazon needs her as a witness. After the case is resolved, she will resign.

Could this matter have been resolved any other way? Probably not. It's sad to see that legacy companies are just as bureaucratic as legacy ones. Jeff Blackburn is culpable for not censuring Munira R. after Kivin V. brought this matter to his attention--after all, he was the one who insisted on a fix. Kivin should have tried to convince Munira R. to go with him to Jeff Blackburn. If she said no, then he would have to weigh her probable reaction. Clearly, Kivin miscalculated. He didn't realize how powerful Munira R. is at Amazon and what allies she had--and I say had because her time at Amazon is numbered. A person in Munira's position, who has to keep a secret, must weigh the possibility that secret will get out. Her miscalculation was thinking that Kivin would get fired and go away and her secret would remain hidden.

Matters like this are clearly not serious enough for board intervention. It's for that reason that you have management in the first place. The board does not manage day to day affairs of the business and relies on management to do so.

For Amazon, this squabble is a distraction that harms the company. What happens when companies get sued is that they circle the wagons. Whatever you might say about throwing attorneys at a problem, those attorneys know that because of Munira, their case is vulnerable. Munira's lies will be Exhibit #1 during her cross-examination. Indeed, her own attorneys will have to bring out her c.v. falsification--and not through the weasel-worded, "she had yet to complete the degree" nonsense spouted by Jeff Blackburn during his deposition. He was poorly coached by Amazon's attorneys. He should have simply admitted that she lied. Otherwise the follow-up--when you drag in twelve strangers off the street and make them sit together and call them a jury--will be, why can't you admit the obvious? Are you trying to hide something? What might that be? Amazon was probably blindsided by Munira's lies: as a top executive under a clear policy to tell the truth and an HR department that could easily have followed up, Amazon's general counsel and attorneys could not have expected that she would have lied. If you think you can't lose a case because a single witness lied about an unrelated matter, try rewinding the OJ tapes and listen to the cross of Mark Fuhrman.

So what now? Amazon's smart move is to ignore the sit-in because all an arrest or eviction will do is bring more unwanted attention to the case. They may ask the judge in the case for an injunction preventing the sit-in because it is arguably an unethical settlement move not provided for by the Rules of Civil Procedure, and Kivin agreed to follow those rules by filing suit.

Amazon has already backed down from the non-compete clause. I'm sure they would love to settle the case. But guys who camp out on your doorstep are usually difficult to settle with. Maybe Kivin sees millions of dollars--an executive paid $250k/yr. with thirty years of work, plus injury to reputation, plus interest would be entitled to a substantial sum. My guess is that Kivin doesn't want to settle. He feels hurt, wants to prove he's right, wants his day in court.

My advice to both sides: settle. Kivin: take less than what you think they owe you, get them to agree to give you a glowing reference (though in the publicity-heavy context of this case I don't know valuable this will be immediately) and agree not to disparage Amazon. Amazon: despite the fact that your lawyers have told you this is a winnable case, it will only get worse. You have nothing to gain.

To both of you: don't you guys watch Star Trek? Don't you remember the lesson of the Kobayashi Maru? Litigation is like that test that only Captain Kirk ever beat: the only way to win is not to play the game. If you win, you still lose heavily.

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p4wnc6• 12 years ago

Oh, oh, I know this one! I read about this in Moral Mazes: < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Mazes >!

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igonvalue• 12 years ago

Did anyone else find the document difficult to read because of the tortuous writing style?

Though I was assured the internal investigation at Amazon was ‘independent and thorough’, we later found the investigation around the matters I raised while employed at Amazon was directed by the same internal Amazon lawyer that was helping my manager terminate my employment based on the same issues I raised in the internal complaint - so Amazon’s counsel was essentially directing the investigation around serious issues that she had been responsible for handling herself - far from ‘independent and thorough’ and a surprising lack of internal controls for a public company like Amazon.

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Letter to Amazon Board from Fired Ad Exec

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