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☆ Leaked internal survey shows Amazon asked engineers about their pay for the first time this year. The results were surprising.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Almost a third of the tech employees expressed dissatisfaction over compensation. The results were also slightly worse than Google's, where 53% expressed pay satisfaction versus 27% unhappy and 20% neutral, as Insider previously reported. Amazon shared some parts of the survey last week in a public blog, but not the results related to pay satisfaction. Other survey results included 22% of the respondents expressing frustration over "bug fixes" that "always interrupt their work," according to Amazon's blog post. Others called for a more streamlined process so "builders can spend more time on innovation," the blog said, a growing complaint among Amazon engineers, as Insider previously reported.

Buying other companies is one option to help maintain its historical 20%-plus annual revenue growth, a person familiar with Amazon's deal process said. While Amazon doesn't necessarily prey on companies in trouble, the company is extremely price disciplined, the person familiar with Amazon's deal process told Insider. Bertucci has been a part of some of Amazon's largest transactions, including leading the MGM and One Medical deals. According to the person familiar with Amazon's deal process, Amazon only brings in investment banks when acquisitions reach roughly the $1 billion mark. Indeed, the One Medical deal alone could have netted Goldman and Morgan Stanley, which repped One Medical, in the tens of millions in fees.

☆ The era of Big Tech moonshots is over. Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are pulling back on ambitious, risky long-term projects after many of them failed.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-29 | by ( Hugh Langley | Eugene Kim | Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have scaled back their ambitious "moonshot" projects. Moonshots like Google X and Amazon Grand Challenge allowed tech firms to build innovative projects. Before Amazon, Parviz led a similar team at Google called Google X. Page and Brin championed X projects they loved, helping them gain funding and headcount within the unit. Parviz, who created the once-hyped-up Google Glass, left Google X in 2014 to start Amazon's Grand Challenge.

☆ The FTC rejected Amazon's request to quash subpoenas ordering founder Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy to testify in a Prime investigation
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The FTC declined Amazon's request to quash or limit subpoenas served to its executives over the agency's investigation into the Prime sign-up and cancellation process. The Federal Trade Commission has ruled against Amazon's request to quash or limit subpoenas served to top Amazon executives including founder Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy over the agency's investigation into the Prime sign-up process. In a previous filing, Amazon disclosed that some of its top executives, including founder Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy, were subpoenaed as part of the probe. Amazon has cooperated with the FTC throughout the investigation and already produced tens of thousands of pages of documents. The filing broadly cites Insider's story from March that first reported about Amazon's internal deliberations over the Prime sign-up and cancellation process.

☆ Amazon's new unit has more than 400 employees, focused on helping engineers avoid rote work
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( Jordan Parker Erb | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Today, we're kicking things off with my colleague Eugene Kim's look at a (secret) new team at Amazon. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is trying to fix the company's crumbling engineering culture. According to leaked documents, Amazon formed the "Amazon Software Builder Experience" group to "focus on improving the experience of software builders across Amazon." Some Amazon engineers have expressed that they're "overwhelmed" by mundane software upgrade work, manual testing and deployment, and hard-to-use developer tools. The Meta CEO announced on Instagram: "Happy to share that Max and August are getting a new baby sister next year!"

☆ Amazon created a 'Builder Experience' unit to help engineers avoid bureaucracy. Here are the team's 6 guiding principles.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The ASBX team wants to help Amazon become "Earth's best employer for software builders." Amazon has a new team focused on solving engineers' frustrations and fostering a better "building" culture, as Insider previously reported. The team, called "Amazon Software Builder Experience," launched earlier this year and now has over 400 employees working across a number of functions, including code automation, developer tools, and tutorials. The stated goal of the ASBX team is to make Amazon "Earth's best employer for software builders." To help achieve those goals, the ASBX team has come up with the following 6 tenets, or guiding principles, according to an internal document obtained by Insider.

☆ Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is trying to fix a crumbling engineering culture with a secret unit that tackles 'foundational pain points' raised by the company's frustrated developers
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Amazon created a new team called "Amazon Software Builder Experience," leaked documents show. Amazon software engineers are so frustrated by bureaucratic inefficiencies that the company has created a secret new team to address their concerns. Earlier this year, Amazon formed the "Amazon Software Builder Experience" group with the ambitious goal of turning the internet giant into "Earth's best employer for software builders," according to internal documents obtained by Insider. "The Amazon Software Builder Experience (ASBX) organization was created to singularly focus on improving the experience of software builders across Amazon," one of the documents states. One of the slides presented during the speech, obtained by Insider, shows mounting frustrations among Amazon engineers.

☆ An Amazon manager told staff to collect donations if they wanted to keep buying cereal for their office
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-15 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

In one instance, an Amazon manager took away free cereals to save money, a former employee said. The episode is one of many stories recently shared among ex-Amazon staff, who now work at Google. You are free to solicit donations to try and keep it running,'" this person said in an internal email thread seen by Insider. The incident is one of several signs of Amazon frugality going overboard, according to former Amazon employees who now work at Google. The stories were shared through an internal Google email thread in recent weeks, as Insider previously reported.

☆ Google employees who used to work at Amazon complain to each other just how 'frugal' their former employer was: No second monitors, no MacBooks, and splitting one bagel between two people at office me
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-15 | by ( Britney Nguyen | Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Over two dozen former Amazon employees at Google started an internal email thread about Amazon. In one email, an employee who left Amazon in 2020 said his team only got one computer monitor. Amazon employees having to ask for higher quality work devices became an example of the term "frupidity," which is spreading throughout Amazon's offices. To get a second monitor, Amazon employees would hire summer interns who would get a monitor, then take them after the intern left. The email thread is followed by over 2,000 people, and is meant to connect former Amazonians who are now Googlers.

☆ A bunch of Googlers who used to work at Amazon are internally sharing horror stories about their former employer's 'frupid' and aggressive culture
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-14 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Googlers who used to work at Amazon are sharing how much they hated being at the e-commerce giant. Amazon is a very kill-or-be-killed environment," one of the people on the email thread told Insider. By default, product managers received subpar Windows laptops and weren't eligible for Apple devices, this person wrote. "Pretty frupid to save $200 on something that could increase the productivity of an engineer you were paying six figures to," this person wrote. "I tend to like everything about Amazon culture better than Google except one thing: how the employees are treated ;)," another person wrote.

☆ After 28 years, 'Day 2' finally arrives at Amazon
▼ + stars: | 2022-08-24 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Amazon is known for "Day 1" culture, maintaining a nimble mindset found on a startup's first day. This is a big challenge facing Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who replaced founder Jeff Bezos last year. On May 26, Amazon retail CEO Dave Clark held a fireside chat with employees at an internal event called Fishbowl. But 28 years on, Day 2 has finally arrived, according to more than a dozen current and former Amazon employees who cited problems including a stodgy engineering culture, extra management layers, and rising red tape. "Historically Amazon was one of the best places for builders, but now when people want to build, they leave Amazon," this person said.

☆ Andy Jassy's Amazon is going shopping, spending billions on iRobot and One Medical. Here are the companies it could buy next.
▼ + stars: | 2022-08-10 | by ( Katherine Long | Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Amazon is set to buy the robot-vacuum maker iRobot for $1.7 billion, the companies said Friday. And Amazon said last month it would buy the One Medical chain of physician offices for $3.9 billion. The purchases may mark the start of an Amazon buying spree as tech valuations plunge. Amazon hasn't "shown a historic proclivity to buy things," but the iRobot and One Medical deals show "there may be a few more coming," Shmulik added. Here are areas where Amazon could spend big:

☆ Andy Jassy officially starts as Amazon CEO today. Insiders describe his 'CHOP' meetings, micromanagement, and 'Nice' emails.
▼ + stars: | 2021-07-05 | by ( Eugene Kim | Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +22 min

On July 5, Andy Jassy officially became Amazon CEO, succeeding Jeff Bezos, who steps into the position of executive chairman. When Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy has a big decision to make, it usually comes at the Chop. "If you go to a Chop meeting with Andy, you better be ready," one former senior-level employee told Insider. Though he's one of the longest-serving executives at Amazon and a close confidant of CEO Jeff Bezos, Jassy still remains relatively little-known outside tech circles. Early on in the pandemic, Jassy told AWS employees that "the world is relying on Amazon," according to an email seen by Insider.

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