Don't think about helping

Before joining Amazon, ask yourself if you are you the smartest person at your current company. If you confidently feel that you are, then you may do well at Amazon. It is an environment for those of you who confidently feel like they are always right. There is little room for folks who question right from wrong. You will be gobbled up by the system if you hesitate. You may soar to great heights if you are confident that your strategy is the right one and you have the tenacity to fight off other options. But don't expect help because you're on your own at Amazon. I was told by my manager: "if you see someone drowning at Amazon, be sure to swim away from them so that they don't pull you under with them. Don't even think about trying to help." Nice people do exist at Amazon, but they are the exception and a tiny minority at best. The rest of the folks don't try to close the void. They work on building their own career (or their empire if they're a manager) and don't really care for others at all. If anything, they want to step on others to get ahead.

Despite Amazon growing at such an incredible pace, employee retention is still dismal. Eventually, they will have to solve the employee retention problem when they can't fill the seats in the office (which will probably happen as soon as the stock drops, whether on its own or due to overall market conditions). It looks like they've started to recognize the problem with the new employee performance review system last fall, but it's barely had any real effect in the first 6 months of this year.