A dark and lengthy exposé of the work culture of Amazon, the world’s most powerful online retailer echoed round the world last week. The article, in the New York Times, made Amazon sound like the Hunger Games crossed with 1984. The sick and the pregnant fell by the wayside, trampled on by colleagues who are encouraged to snitch on co-workers. Only the meanest survived.  A tidal wave of think pieces followed along with calls for a boycott. Dr Evil himself – Amazon founder Jeff Bezos – was forced to speak out and claim such behavior was anathema to himself and the company. But a week on, the reaction from shoppers and – perhaps more importantly – Wall Street and the tech community is a big “meh”.  Related: Amazon stock surge makes CEO Jeff Bezos $7bn richer in 45 minutes  In the week following the story, Amazon stock did the financial equivalent of a emoticon shrug: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. On Monday, Amazon opened at 528.67, down from 531.52 it closed at on Friday. A wobble, sure, but one driven by broader market fears, not worries about Amazon’s future. The company’s shares have risen more than 55% this year.  At the end of July, after the company announced its second-quarter results, its stocks climbed by more than 40 points. In less than 45 minutes of after-hours trading on 23 July, Jeff Bezos added more than $7bn to the $34.7bn fortune and Amazon surpassed Walmart as the highest-valued retail company in the world (if you don’t count debt).  On Monday after the story ran, Bezos emailed Amazon staff letting them know that “such lack of empathy” would not be tolerated at his company. “The article doesn’t describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day,” he wrote. “It claims that our intentional approach is to create a soulless, dystopian workplace where no fun is had and no laughter heard. Again, I don’t recognize this Amazon and I very much hope you don’t, either.”  This dark side of Amazon is nothing new to those who have been paying attention. The investors just shrugged, filing away the latest report alongside the company’s other transgressions. Among those transgression is employing Americans living in homeless shelters as its “seasonal elves”, requiring hourly blue-collar workers to sign non-compete clauses, and providing its employees with “unsafe working conditions” by forcing them to work in overheated warehouses.  Related: Homeless and working for Amazon: the trap of the seasonal job cycle  Some have argued that this newest report was just a compilation of complaints by white-collar workers that are not that different from other high-demand industries.  “The public doesn’t care much about high-paid millennials working long hours. They don’t even care about low-paid workers at Walmart,” said Sydney Finkelstein, a management professor and faculty director at Dartmouth’s Tuck Center for Leadership.  “‘Those new tech giants’ employees are coddled, entitled, overpaid babies!’ ‘Those new tech giants’ employees are cruelly mistreated!’” Marc Andreessen, billionaire co-founder and general partner of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, tweeted mockingly. Later, Andreessen responded to one Twitter user that “of course [the New York Times piece] isn’t accurate”.  "Those new tech giants' employees are coddled, entitled, overpaid babies!" "Those new tech giants' employees are cruelly mistreated!"  “This is not an Amazon-only story. Taking a look at any of the top companies in their field, anyone can find scathing critiques,” said Kevin Kelly, managing partner and chief investment officer of investment company Recon Capital. He added that since Amazon employs over 150,000 full-time and part-time workers, there are bound to be displeased current and former employees.  “It’s hard to manage a fit, culturally, with every single employee,” he said. This is most notably an issue in banking and investment banking where “there has been a plethora of work-life balance stories”.  These “negative” stories are a necessary cost of a culture where employees are encouraged to think and act like owners, said Fabrizio Ferri, business professor at Columbia University and expert in corporate governance.  “If you incentivize employees to think and act like owners – which seems generally desirable – the ‘cost’ is that they will be subject to the same stress and lack of work-life balance that many founders and owners experience when running a business: up at night for work, difficulty in taking any time off, being basically always ‘on call’,” explained Ferri.  “Institutional investors like that approach and don’t see it as a concern as long as it does not violate any regulations or creates some long-term risk. Amazon-type firms will attract the type of employees who are willing to take that approach and will naturally screen out those who are not the right ‘match’.”  But not everyone thinks this will blow over quickly.  “There is a big distinction between an ambitious and hard-working culture and a culture of exploitation, which I would argue is where Amazon is,” Bex Hay, co-founder of the Amazon Anonymous protest group, told the Guardian. “If you are a long-term investor, the former might give you some good returns, but the latter becomes an investment risk if that culture starts dismantling the brand and reputation that is the secret to the company’s value.”  Related: Amazon Christmas boycott campaign gathers weight  Hay describes Amazon as a 21st-century technology company with Victorian working conditions. She expects that the New York Times exposé will lead to some strong concerns from investors.  Another potential outcome could be a boycott of Amazon and its services.  “I can easily see this boycott going international. It just takes someone to get it going,” said Hay, noting that she started Amazon Anonymous with just two friends. “We were Amazon customers and we’d had enough. We run the organization in our spare time when we have the time. There’s now over 200,000 people with us, and it’s only going to get bigger.”  According to Hay, between the time the New York Times story ran and Thursday, over 60,000 people had signed Amazon Anonymous petition calling for Amazon UK to pay a living wage and treat their workers fairly.  What are we going to do?? "Boycott Amazon!" When are we going to do it?? "......" 😶  Some like Andreessen have mocked the possibility of an Amazon boycott.  “What are we going to do?? ‘Boycott Amazon!’ When are we going to do it?? ‘…’,” he tweeted.  The problem is that very often the benefits of using Amazon services outweigh the moral outrage over its treatment of its employees.  “Customers are more concerned with the product, price, convenience and service. Prime membership continues to grow worldwide,” Kelly pointed out.  While Amazon has yet to release the official number of Amazon Prime members, estimates have put the numbers at 20 million in January 2014 and 40 million in January 2015.  If anything, the one problem facing Amazon would be alienating the people it needs to stay on top: workers willing to put in the long hours.  “If they get the image of an unfriendly place to work for tech people, that would be a disaster. Google and Facebook don’t have this reputation,” said Finkelstein. “They would end up having to pay people more to attract them to the company, a hit to the bottom line and a competitive disadvantage.”  Bezos is very much aware of this. In his email to the staff, he said that anyone working for a company like the one described by the New York Times would be “crazy to stay”.  “The people we hire here are the best of the best. You are recruited every day by other world-class companies, and you can work anywhere you want,” he said. “Hopefully, you don’t recognize the company described. Hopefully, you’re having fun working with a bunch of brilliant teammates, helping invent the future, and laughing along the way.”  Translation: please stay. Bezos knows that as soon as the talent goes, so does the money.
A press report detailing an allegedly soulless, dystopian workplace at the online retailer generated headlines but has had minimal impact on the bottom line