Thinking like this at Amazon gets you stalled at the L6 (manager 2) level. I can think of about 5 managers I've dealt with who acted like this in the past 4 years. As a senior tech person I was asked for feedback on them and gave something to the equivalent of the motivations you listed above. They were all managed out quickly.

By the time management is asking me for my opinion there is usually a worry about a person and I'm just providing data.

Also saving the company $6bn with "one wierd trick" ticks all the amamazon promo boxes and usually skyrockets you.

> They were all managed out quickly.

What? Why? Putting devs on something that will provide benefit rather than might is hardly a firing offense. I simply don't believe you.

> Also saving the company $6bn with "one wierd trick" ticks all the amamazon promo boxes and usually skyrockets you.

IF you can get it implemented. Something which crosses political boundaries is ferociously hard to get implemented unless there is credit that can be claimed by all involved.

> What? Why? Putting devs on something that will provide benefit rather than might is hardly a firing offense. I simply don't believe you.

I don’t work at Amazon but failing to see past your own team’s mission and missing your role in the larger company is a (common) failure of management.

managed out doesn't necessarily mean fired, probably demoted or moved into less important positions.

I'm sorry if that's really your view. There are both divisions in corps and people who think beyond a single bonus. I wish we started calling this out as "culture at Amazon enables thieves" rather than - here's a list of excuses why they can't do it.

At the very least, the higher ups with the view of the overall budget have the power to start projects like that which assign the budget as necessary.

> At the very least, the higher ups with the view of the overall budget have the power to start projects like that which assign the budget as necessary.

Except they won't because if it fails, their name is associated with it and they will get punished.

Most politics in big companies is about avoiding sins of commission as they are easy to spot--sins of omission are a lot tougher to identify and punish.

The "they will get punished" is a bit extreme. Big corps have both teams trying new things and maintaining existing ones. The proportions vary widely, but things get tired and fail all the time. If people get fired over trying something, that would make a very dysfunctional company. The budget for validating if they can stop some stolen deliveries would not be worth mentioning in most meetings.

Although I haven't been in Amazon specifically, in my experience in corp, the worst that happens to bad mid-level managers is that they're moved to a different project. And that's actually overall bad managers, not someone trying out an idea.