Corruption cases are often like this. You look at the case itself and think "this money for that much risk?"

Ehud Olmert was removed from office as Israel's Prime Minister for taking bribes (in exchange for rezoning) years earlier as mayor of Jerusalem. The amounts seem very petty. About $25k IIRCC. We actually went from Prime Ministership to jail over it.

I suspect the reason these bribes always seem petty is that only a fraction are uncovered. These people take bribes regularly, sometimes for decades. They get busted for one or two.

$100K for a staffer that reviews merchants and product listings is probably more than their yearly salary, in fact it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s not even about double.

This aren’t people on high comp packages the bulk of Amazon’s workforce even if you discount the warehouses isn’t paid SV salaries.

It's amazing what a disgruntled employee will do, and how little it takes to make them do it.