If you have the luxury to think about that, you can choose not to work for Amazon in R&D. I know people who used to work for Amazon and left because they didn't like that aspect, but isn't that Amazon's problem more than anything?

Or is it even a problem? Maybe Amazon deliberately puts on their best Ebenezer Scrooge to weed out people with too much taste and not enough nose-to-grindstone.

You guys clearly think more about what messages the workplace is sending you than maybe Amazon wants their employees to. ;- )