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.

I disagree, too many of these articles leave the wrong-doers unnamed and unscathed. I am happy Kivin is taking names and calling the whole thing for what it is. Amazon gave a 4-week severance and 18month non-compete clause, which falls even below than unfair.

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.

You misunderstand. This isn't culture rot, this IS the culture at Amazon. The only way to get ahead is to step on the neck of your teammates, because at review time the group is graded on a curve. Somebody's getting a bad review (even if the entire team is doing well), so you had better make sure it's not you. (source - worked at Lab126 for 18 months)

Does Amazon use some kind of stack ranking?

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

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

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.