It's funny, this was the pull quote for me too. Or at least this part:

> the cruelty is the point.

However, my reaction is quite different. It became hard to take this article seriously at all after they drew that conclusion. It is flagrantly false. To wit, they don't produce any documentation (whereas elsewhere the article is awash) to support this claim. No email threads where a sinister VP says, "Back to drawing board gang, this proposal isn't cruel enough."

Very clearly, the point is performance.

The author's fantastical conclusion ("cruelty is the point") reeks to high heaven of the sort of leaps in logic and interpretation that seems to be undermining the credibility of some of the West's most hallowed institutions.

>Very clearly, the point is performance.

Yeah from my understanding from former Amazon folks it is hyper performance oriented. The outcome (as far as treating people) might suck, but the motivation seems to genuinely be performance.

It's a distinction without a difference.

I think motivation and the intent of the policy is relevant.

The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does[1]. It doesn't really matter what the motivation or intent was. If the outcome is cruelty, then it is a cruel policy. If the people who make the policy don't intend for the outcome to be cruel, it is within their power to change it.

EDIT: If the outcome is also a high performing workforce, then the policy can be both cruel and performance enhancing. I'm just arguing that a policy that ends up being $X is an $X policy, regardless of whether the policy makers intended it to be $X, for whatever value of X you choose.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...

What absolute nonsense. You could just as easily say "since Amazon performs well, the purpose of Amazon is performance".

Anyway, intent and motivation are clearly relevant when we think about moral issues (such as cruelty). To suggest otherwise is absurd.

Intent and motivation are describing human thought process. We can apply this metaphorically to corporations to illustrate a point, but corporations can't literally have motivations. Systems theory (and thus the above heuristic) describes entities like Amazon.

So corporations can't literally have intent or motivation but they can be cruel. Or maybe we're talking about metaphorical cruelty?

Cruelty is an outcome. It can be the result of an intent or motivation, but doesn't have to.

Cruelty is a moral justment.

Made by an observer, or the victim(s).

So if a person walks under a cliff and a rock falls on them, would an observer be right to deduce that the rock/cliff is cruel, or perhaps that the entire Earth is cruel to its inhabitants?

You should think about the phrase "the way to hell is paved with good intentions" a little sometime.

Intents and motivations are irrelevant when you look at their effect (which cruelty is). Heck even the worst dictator in known history had wanted to make the world a "better place" in his own, twisted way. Some things just aren't worth their price.

Wow I didn't expect a reductio ad hitlerum in this thread.

What is the "effect of Amazon" anyway? Surely Amazon has done a lot of good. It has created jobs, it has changed how people buy things. It has also done a lot of bad. It has made it harder for small indepdendent businesses, it has engaged in anticompetitive practices. How am I supposed to "sum up" Amazon's "overall effect"?

Truthfully, I have no idea if Amazon is "good" or "bad" or "cruel" and neither does anyone else. The people making these claims confidently are posers.

If the outcome is performance?

So you believe that performance and cruelty are not different?

If performance is subjective (# of tickets, "impact", cut of your jib, etc) and at times applied arbitrarily by a manager, would applying such a flawed assessment to the detriment of someone's career, livelihood, and personal happiness, not also be cruel?

If you honestly believe these rating systems are objective, consistent, and applied fairly, sure performance measurements are not cruel. But I argue most of the time they are at the discretion of management - and will reflect the worst qualities of that manager.

>If performance is subjective (# of tickets, "impact", cut of your jib, etc) and at times applied arbitrarily by a manager, would applying such a flawed assessment to the detriment of someone's career, livelihood, and personal happiness, not also be cruel?

Through this lens, everything in life is cruel.

My statement was not that abstract. Those who have the power to inflict punitive damage on others should be really careful about when they apply that power. The premise of my argument is that tech org management is sometimes so careless with the way that they hire and fire that sometimes it is cruel.

Yeah turnover may be cruel but it has a point. It's the business equivalent of mass movements' continuous revolution.

I agree, the author's application of "the cruelty is the point" misuses the phrase.

The article coining that term [1] (accurately) describes the collective joy Trump fans experience at his rallies when he promises to have American troops commit war crimes [2] or have police physically abuse people convicted of no crime [3]. Trumpists believe in using the state to hurt, even physically, anyone they don't like. To them, Trump's cruelty is literally the point.

I don't think that applies to Amazon. It sounds like Amazon just wants labor, as cheaply as possible, and does not care to invest back in its hourly workforce. To simplify, the labor is the point.

[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelt...

[2]: https://www.vox.com/2016/1/25/10828770/trump-terrorist-famil...

[3]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/07/2...

I think this slightly misses the point of the original phrase (which I agree is unnecessarily unclear) and by extension how it applies to Amazon.

The point of cruelty at the border was clearly to discourage migrants from coming to the United States. The cruelty was the method chosen to accomplish that goal. But the phrase, "the cruelty is the point" functions really to point out that the cruelty isn't incidental to the thing being accomplished. If it were, then when someone pointed out to you -- as progressives did during the Trump admin -- that you were being unnecessarily cruel, then maybe you'd want to try to stop. But "the cruelty is the point" suggests that the cruelty is core to the strategy.

"The cruelty is the point" would more accurately be formulated as, "the cruelty is intentional."

I disagree with both elements of this premise: 1) that Amazon is cruel, and 2) that the objectives are achievable by other means.

Performance, as I say above, is the point. Amazon pushes very hard for performance. Achieving high performance is difficult and uncomfortable. But to classify the activities which yield high performance as "cruel" is an interpretation. This article and the NYT articles it cites bend over backwards to paint Amazon in a negative light in this respect. But here's' the thing, Amazon is very transparent about both their aims and means. Amazon encourages and incentives workers to quit bc Bezos (quite correctly, in my opinion) recognizes the "march to mediocrity" as a basic reality of large orgs. Amazon offers training which will help employees find different jobs and pays quit bonuses. Flat out: that's not cruelty. It is actually a fairly humane and "progressive" approach to a difficult and uncomfortable challenge.

Implicit in these claims is of course (the fairly absurd, in my opinion) belief that there are some more effective means of achieving sustained and very high performance that are more comfortable for employees. This, to me, is the root flaw in the "cruelty" interpretation. It basically requires us to be believe that Amazon is run by sadistic people that are aware of better means by which to achieve sustained high performance, but that they choose more uncomfortable, "less humane" options instead. If I'm wrong, I simply ask that the people on the other side of the argument point to proven methods (that they interpret as not cruel) which yield the kind of sustained high performance that Amazon has achieved.

It’s fairly well known that Amazon can only hire “mediocre” tech talent precisely due to their hostile work environment and relatively low pay. Top people go elsewhere.

Seems like a pretty dubious claim. I'd love to seem some sources to support it.

Since inception, Amazon has achieved nearly unprecedented growth of revenue, profits, employee head count, customer base, product offerings, and just about any other business metric.

You believe all of this was achieved with mediocre talent? I doubt it, but maybe you're right. Either way, so what? If Jeff Bezos has figured out how to create an innovative, world leading, ultra high performance business with mediocre talent, his accomplishments (vis-à-vis Amazon) are even more admirable.

That's interesting - at least from what I've seen they've been able to lowball folks (relatively) and still get hires in.

Given that they can only hire mediocre tech talent, this speaks to perhaps the success of the HR management that they were able to build what looks like a market leading offering in AWS (the scale of which is absolutely huge - all built by these mediocre engineer!)

Structural barriers to entry will mask all manner of incompetence (c.f. Microsoft in the 90s). It’s important for our industry to recognize what actually leads to success instead of cargo culting horrible managerial practices that only succeed because the practitioners have first mover advantage, regulatory capture, network effects…

By this definition, there are no cruel companies in a capitalist society. It's a nice world to live in, but it doesn't really conform to experience.

I've only run into this issue in 'corporate America' once in my career.

I worked for a company who acquired another company. Acquired company was bonkers dysfunctional. First day I met them one of the managers bragged about how hard he worked his people and how many would leave.

I just didn't get it. What good does that do?

He didn't get more out of his people, quite the opposite, his team didn't perform well.

He was unpleasant to just be around, almost anytime, his employees clearly hated him. I'm not super social but I at least like to work with people that ... I want to be around to some extent.

Let alone my question of "Why would you want to be like that to other people?"

It was weird because it was one of the only times I encountered this issue.

> Let alone my question of "Why would you want to be like that to other people?"

Did you actually ask that? Did you get a response?

Yes, he kinda paused and then talked around it about how it is his job.

But what was weird was it absolutely wasn't any kind of company policy, nobody else was quite like that.

It was possible I might end up working for him at some point so I didn't push the issue. Not that it helped... he didn't like me much at all as time went on, mostly I showed some level of independence. Fortunately I was pretty well insulated from him and his efforts to complain about me were pretty childish / ineffective.

"up or out" seems like such a strange concept - I understand the idea of trimming fat, but I've seen a firing of 5-10% annually, and it's demoralizing and terrifying as a worker.

You're basically put in a position where you don't want to do too poorly, as you're guaranteed to get fired, but you also don't want to do too well, because then you may hit your ceiling too early, end up being "overpaid", then underperform and be set up for the cull.

I've seen both, and the yearly ritual of managers coming in and tapping people on the shoulder, them walking out to never be seen again ... I hated that.

The "overpaid" bucket is a risk at Amazon that some don't think about. Some manage to hack the performance process and then get tossed out because they're then ranked against senior people and how long you've been senior doesn't factor in.

But as far as not doing too poorly, how sure will you be that you're not in or close to that 10%? For a lot of people who aren't completely assured of themselves, this is a constant source of anxiety. Couple that with the leverage your manager has to casually place you in that bucket twice a year if you haven't done enough groveling, and this is where a lot of the toxicity at Amazon corporate comes from. People don't want to help each other because they have to look out for themselves.

Over time I saw three kinds of people thrive in that environment:

1) highly competent, productive people who managed the culture and workload with ease.

2) people who have Amazon as part of their identity and will sacrifice their well-being or personal life to meet the bar

3) typical corporate sociopaths that are non value-add

In my opinion they are growing bucket (3) the fastest.

I thought the military also used a variant of this - interesting that is "such a strange concept".

Yes, see [0].

They also seem to be about to change this [1].

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_or_out#Military

[1]https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/01/24/up-or-ou...

How so? The military doesn't fire people that I know of.

The 1980 Defense Officer Personnel Management Act mandates that officers passed over twice for promotion are required to be discharged from the military.

So yes, if you are not promoted, you don't get to stay - you are actually fired.

They have modified this for some positions like flight instructors who they want to keep. But in general it's up or out in military - that means fired before you get your pension.

Isn't that what the "stack ranked" system is about?

Wasn't that a Microsoft invention?

It's been around a long time.

It was actually a GE invention and adopted by companies across a wide swath of industry. These were the days when Jack Welch was the prophet of business leaders and if he did something, it must be good.

Several companies in Silicon Valley also used stack ranking, for example.

edit:typo

I was taught in business school (early 2000s) that it was good that GE fired the lowest 10% performing employees b/c the employees were not actually happy or content at GE or they would perform better. Therefore firing them is good b/c they'll find a better career fit elsewhere.

But I actually think it is terrible. It pits co-workers against each other and makes taking credit for an accomplishment more important than doing what's best for the organization.

It's probably good if it's done once every four years. But companies do it every year if not multiple times a year. So at that point, without new blood coming in, you end up cutting into the meat of a high performance org.

IIRC employed during a period where GE was burning the furniture to heat the house. And it was only supposed to be employed temporarily.

That makes sense. I worked there, back when "Neutron Jack" was in charge. I don't remember that, but they probably didn't come out and say it (also, I rated fairly high -they even gave me an award, after I left the company. I still have the plaque, upstairs).

Sadly it is still mandatory system in Accenture and other big "consulting" companies.

The up or out is not a strange concept in the realm of professional sport.

Though the culling should only apply to those at the bottom, not the top.

The culling is necessary to maintain top performance.

In sports you have multiple divisions. It is rather "up, down or stay".

Yes. I've worked at a place where the CEO up and said "we're OK with losing <X>% of employees per quarter" which was just insane to me to release that publicly to everyone, at a time when all our friends were leaving or given the boot. Really killed morale.

Tech has (and other industries have) a characteristic turnover rate and people have all sorts of reasons to change jobs, so being OK with losing an appropriately chosen X% per quarter seems perfectly rational and appropriate.

I like the teams we have here, but I'm OK with losing about 2% of employees per quarter in the same way that I'm OK with it being snowier in the wintertime.

You need to be okay with losing X% of employees because they're going to quit for their own reasons, or they're going to be hit by a bus, or want to change jobs internally.

This doesn't mean that you push them out, but rather that you make sure more than one person knows how everything works.

Imagine working every day to ensure the world is miserable up to a required quota.

I don't know if I could do that, I might be happier homeless.

What do you do for a livelihood?

If HR says "You can't have all high performers on a team", they are telling a manager that you aren't allowed to excel in your own job as a coach.

They are literally telling you not to spend your time helping employees because some HR chart wizard is going to make you rank them anyways and you will have wasted your time.

The way this should be done is to recognize who are motivated high performers and make sure they get help on their path "upward". This isn't saying to ignore others but recognize that people are at different stages of careers and will have different needs.

I've worked for up or out companies most of my career. I get it can be uncomfortable but there is a good reason there is forced ranking. Most managers hate giving bad reviews to people that aren't doing well. If someone on the team is doing some work but not doing much its easier to say they meet standards and be nice to them. My current job is like this, there are a bunch in the team that do very little but manager is too nice and I think the firm suffers.

I think this ignores the value of long-haulers who are reliable contributors but don't necessarily want to be in management roles. I could see an up-or-out environment without significant allowances essentially ending in an organization full of Peter-principled managers who would've been more solid contributors at their old positions.

>the cruelty is the point.

I just don't get this part. On an intellectual level the point they just got done making is that cruelty is not the point. It's a byproduct of the system. The "point" of the whole thing is having a motivated and efficient workforce, at almost any cost. This is arguably evil and immoral, but it's not the case that the ultimate aim of the policies is to be cruel. I guess the author just included it because they're very emotional about it and want me to be emotional about it too?

That also gives the incentive to hire dunces to fire at the end of the year so you can keep your team intact.

Which has been confirmed to happen at Amazon.