The he-said/she-said of these comments makes me think that nobody is actively distorting, but that it's just such a big company that different people can have wildly differing experiences.

There are people who are low level enough to maybe not have seen this stuff.

But I also saw stuff that, like that letter, I consider to be wrong. The latter refers to criminal actions-- I am not a lawyer so I can't say whether what the company did was illegal or not, but I certainly thought it was wrong.

One thing about that letter that rang true in my experience was that the company does not follow its own internal policies or handbook.

Amazon HR was dishonest to me, deceptive and engaged in what I consider to be fraud.

How does me, a single person and a simple SDE, being defensive (was I being defensive just because I wanted to clear up misconceptions?), says anything about an entire company's culture and image?

You called him a liar. That's pretty defensive.

Personally, I have no trouble buying a lot of what he's selling, not least because I've seen his posts around here for a good while and he seems like a decent sort, but it also dovetails with my own experience. YMMV, but I'm not calling you a liar.

It seems fair to call someone a liar if you know they've said something factually untrue. (I'm no weighing in on the debate itself, but it's possible for someone to be factually wrong and it's appropriate to highlight that when it happens.)

You can be correct in the face of untruth and still be shitty and defensive about something; remember that Reddit storm when the CEO beefed with a fired employee?

I'm somewhat doubting that MCRed is lying, because he has some credibility to me through a history of good and productive posting, but it's possible.

Not to butt in, but if someone says something untrue, they are a liar. If I accused Amazon of killing babies, that would be a lie (I hope?), and you wouldn't be being defensive by calling me out for it.

Strictly speaking, it has to be knowingly untrue for it to be a lie. It is possible to just be wrong.

For the record, everything I said was true, and after calling me a liar, he effectively admitted it!

This. I don't know any other major tech company that generates these horror stories with such a reliable regularity.