Org Split Shows How Amazon Can Go Bad

I'm a former Amazonian and I think it's important to note that each line of business runs itself without much oversight from above. Some are run with compassion, others with fear and many are in between. I was on teams where it was a great experience and others where it was terrible. I think the problem with the bad ones is that it is assumed that if you think an org is terrible then you must be the problem.

I've seen one line of business split into two parts: one was healthy and the other was rapidly being cannibalized by a very bad management team. The former was fun and the latter was a nightmare. No matter how many people were hurt by the bad managers, their leadership and HR did nothing to fix the problem. In fact, they would double down on mistreated employees by blaming the victims and showing them the door as fast as possible. In these situations, there's no path to success other than being favored by the bad managers, because all of the talent, hard work, and success metrics just don't pay off on their own, no matter how much Amazon claims to be a data-driven company.