To Fire List

I learned while working at Amazon that there is an internal "to fire" list that many managers are keeping all the time so that they can keep firing enemies of their friends whom they want to promote. 

I saw the effect of this first hand - one of my managers who came from Microsoft only promoted other people hired from Microsoft. Another guy also got promoted because his manager and him were from same previous company.

Don't believe anyone who tells you that Amazon cares about merit.