anyway, to my culture, your reply seems inappropriately respectful (i am not saying it is since this is obviously a culturally-dependent judgement, just trying, clumsily, to explain...). hence the idea that they must have a hostage.

Better to live in mud huts!

[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/companies-ranked-by-turnover-...

At that growth rate, you'd expect the tenure numbers to be dominated by hiring rather than turnover, a point the article misses completely.

(Per their annual reports, Amazon had 88,400 employees on 12/31/2012, 56,200 on 12/31/2011, and 33,700 on 12/31/2010)

i.e. The faster a company grows, the less likely/harder it is to maintain culture and enforce hiring/recruiting standards - I can see how that may lead to shitty interview questions.