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Comment by aerosmile | Hacker News Reader

A guy supposedly tells another guy that some highly weird thing that makes no sense at all is common at their company. This is how we learned about Enron, so sure, let's admit the evidence. But also, this is how 99% of BS spreads across the internet, so whenever possible let's please use more than just anecdotal evidence from an anonymous account. If your friend has a story to tell, please direct them appropriately - we all know that the NYT would love to tear Amazon a new one. But please recognize just how weak your argument sounds as of right now.

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It’s undisputed that Amazon has a quota for attrition that managers must meet. The only question is how are they meeting it. Why is it so hard to believe that a manger who likes all of their employees would inflate their headcount request to get someone new to fire? It’s practically a mechanical result of the quota. Of course they wouldn’t go on record about this, it’s wrong and possibly illegal (the manager must have lied when filling out some paperwork). But it would be more surprising if it didn’t occur.

> It’s undisputed that Amazon has a quota for attrition that managers must meet.

Citation needed.

That's not correct. The article simply says they are tracking a metric. There's no mention of a "quota".

Metrics are quotas at Amazon. There is a literally a training during your onboarding about Amazon's "metrics culture", and how the only reason you track a metric is if you have a corresponding target for that metric, as well as someone responsible for ensuring that the metric reaches that target. Amazon doesn't just track random metrics for the hell of it. Those metrics and targets are used either for or against you during annual performance reviews, and URA/RA targets are one of the most important metrics for manager-track employees. If that isn't a 'quota', then I don't know what would be.

https://archive.is/nf8tn

Leaked internal memo shows that if an org doesn’t meet the target this year, they have to make it up next year.

There are a heck of a lot of anecdotes with the same hire to fire claim and I have heard them as well from former Amazon employees. Plenty of them on Blind as well, which verifies company employment.

Sure, fire has not been found, but there is a ton of smoke on this.

Someone literally did that already, but with BI rather than NYT! That’s why we’re talking about this! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills reading this overall thread.

Based on my experience with you elsewhere on this page, I was already wondering if you were a troll or just genuinely confused (on top of being rude and being a name caller). Let me help you out:

You are in a subthread that branched off of this statement:

> I was personally told by a former manager who used to work at Amazon that he hired to fire. He hated that the company forced him to fire good people and left.

So the conversation veered away from the BI article, and we're now focusing on the relevancy of anecdotal evidence that was presented by another HN member. The fact that you needed this explained completes the picture for me with regards to all your other comments.

Who in their right mind would go on record blasting a company worth as much as Amazon? It'll ruin their career. Unless corporations stop being as powerful, whisper networks are all we have.

The NYT has a great track record of protecting their sources.

Except when they don't. Did you miss the Scott Alexander / SlateStarCodex saga recently? It revealed that NYT's policies around revealing people's identity are pretty hit-and-miss.

Not aware of this. But as a former NYT employee, I can tell you they try harder than anyone else out there.

Scott Alexander was the subject of a story, not an anonymous journalistic source which is what the poster you replied to was referring to when they said the NYT protects their sources.

I am not disputing that the NYT revealed his full name, they absolutely did so that, against his wishes.

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