But you are disgruntled. You've got excellent reasons for being so. I always wonder why people will use things like that as stoppers for the discussion, the fact that someone is disgruntled alone should not be cause for dismissal, the underlying reasons are what matter. And you've gone over and beyond the call of duty in my opinion here and I am frankly surprised that Amazon manages to operate if they treat their employees like this.
All of the above, and I really don't see the ad hominem in there. It's just a description of a state of mind with respect to another entity.
Example: My girlfriend sat on my Kindle and broke it. I called and said that it was broken. Without any questions they just offered to send me a new one for free! After something like that I will always go back to Amazon (and tell my friends about it)...
That's amazing to me. I thought such things were never done in software anymore because: why not leave the company and do the same thing in your own startup? Same hard work, high risk, etc, but with giant upside. Was it because of something wrong with Seattle's startup culture?
Not only for deep funding pockets, but also for existing relationships. Say you had an idea that would dramatically improve online retail - you can either develop a white-box solution and try to shop it around (and have them clone it out from under you), or you can build your own online retail empire (good luck), or you can join one.
It's part of what got me to stick around AMZN as long as I did. Myself and some colleagues were very much of the internal-entrepreneurial mindset. We developed lots of prototypes, some of which received rave recognition throughout the company. I left after I realized my management chain (can't speak for others) had little to no real interest in turning them into products. They were more than happy to give lip service, trophies, and have me put together presentations on how innovative and scrappy we were, though.
(I've never worked at Amazon, but I'd also heard that AWS was a small skunkworks project that basically got cover from Amazon's CTO, Werner Vogels, who protected and nurtured it until it was too big to kill.)
A lot of this is due to the lack of a VC infrastructure I think. no sand hill road there.
This is not to dispute your observations in any way, shape, or form. Just that it's a huge T-Rex from the outside in terms of objective metrics like products shipped, even if it does have dysfunctional internal organs.
Most people believe Amazon's press releases. In 2006, they said that AWS powered Amazon.com. It was a flat out lie. But how could I prove it? Fortunately, others there at the time have posted in the thread as well. But come back to HN in a couple weeks when AWS has done their next press release, and say that, and you'll likely be down voted to oblivion.
The thing is, Amazon, and Jeff Bezos are damn good at spin. You see glowing articles that talk about Jeff as if he were a visionary, boldly leading his commerce site into the future of web services. (As I understand it, AWS was pirate operation, which got cover from a politically endowed VP in the company, and they were able to get it far enough along that Jeff saw the value of it, when he'd previously wanted to knife that baby.) Their manipulative ways extend to other people as well.. and when you're getting most of your stuff from them, and you've had good customer services, you naturally inclined to want to believe in them.
People believe Amazon must be good in all ways, because they are good in one way.
Amazon is really, FREAKING, good at fulfillment. Amazon prime, their return policies, their streamlined ordering policies... at this point, ordering things from other websites has so much more friction that they just feel old. "You mean I have to enter my credit card? Why don't you just sell this thing on Amazon.com and let them do it right!"
I don't know how Amazon treats their stockholders. They treat their employees terribly (but they do tend to hire a mix of type-A aggressive and meek. The meek just are grateful to keep their jobs and the Type-As love the political sport). But they treat their customers damn good.
And they have the fulfillment thing nailed cold. I give them respect for that.