stack rank then yank

The culture of Amazon is really mean. There is lots of favoritism and a complete absence of effective leadership. There are also lots of backstabbers and people that will do anything to get promoted, no matter how evil. The "stack rank then yank" method leads to backstabbing and petty politics that distract everyone from getting any quality work done. 

If you end up with a new manager (which you will because each team is always reorganizing for no reason other than to help managers promote themselves), then kiss your opportunities goodbye. You can never succeed at Amazon unless your success is directly tied to your manager's promotion and even that won't help you after his promotion goes through and he decides to get rid of you so he can hire someone more senior to help his next promotion.

There are simply too many jerks getting promoted to the next level at Amazon (such as my boss) because Amazon leadership encourage people to be jerks! 

EVERYTHING in the NYT article was true. I have 3 years of proof for anyone who doesn't believe it.