Comment by throwawaySlu | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwawaySlu | Hacker News Reader

Amazonion here. The purpose of doc writing is for the author to dump their ideas and convey the critical pieces of information. It lets the reader consume the information at their pace, and re-read even after the meeting. The document starts the conversation and let’s the reader understand the problem, why it’s important, what things we have or have not considered, what trade offs have been made, and how we arrived at the conclusion or solution.

There are many, many things Amazon does not get right. The document writing culture is probably one of our not so secret, “secret weapons”.

At many companies I worked at, we had a PowerPoint or presentation driven culture. And the purpose of those meetings is to listen to the presenter, at the presenters pace. The meeting becomes about the presenter and what they think is important, as opposed to being about the reader. In presentation driven meetings, the presenter talks and questions actually distract from the presentation - often times presenters will bluntly ask for questions to be saved to the end.

My own team has a strong culture of getting engineers to write, and help them write well. It’s not about perfect English, but it is about touching on the key points and letting readers comment and ask questions.

Meetings without documents often go completely off the rails - especially because if the kinds of problems we’re solving. Without focus, meetings delve into tangents and branches off of those tangents. To be fair - this still happens if the document hasn’t been adequately prepared, but often because you find the document owner hasn’t fully thought through the problem or fully did their homework.

In my experience, the issue is not presentations actually. Whatever can be presented using documents can be presented using slides too.

The real challenge is that slides present much less word-count space to deliver the right message, and most authors fail to do that right. A phrase commonly attributed to Blaise Pascal comes to mind [1].

That presentations being synchronous vs. everyone reading their own pace is not the key issue. Sharing the slides in print for the meetings can solve that.

At one employment I was in, we were using PowerPoint even more effectively than we use Word.

[1] https://intenseminimalism.com/2010/if-i-had-more-time-i-woul...

I read the link you shared. There is something to be said about expressing an idea with sufficient clarity in fewer words, without jargon or “officialise” or more information that’s necessary.

And Amazon doesn’t disagree with that principle. If anything, being clear, crisp, and succinct are the hallmarks of a great document.

>Whatever can be presented using documents can be presented using slides too.

For the kinds of problems that require document writing at Amazon, this statement simply just isn’t true.

And the document review is NOT a presentation. Let me say that again - It is not a presentation. Presentations are about the presenter, often presenting as if they are the authority figure on a topic. Written document reviews are about the reader — giving the reader the opportunity to understand how a problem has or hasn’t been evaluated. The document reader is not the authority. As a matter of fact, they share documents to get feedback and find gaps in their thinking, or seek feedback on how they evaluated alternatives, and so on.

Presentations and Amazon document reviews are fundamentally two different things. There is absolutely zero similarity between the two.

The document should focus on the immediate topic, trade offs, solutions while supporting evidence or technical details, design artifacts, and FAQs etc are provided in appendices. This manner of information sharing is simply not possible in any PowerPoint or presentation slide format. And the simple proof to back my statements — Amazon and everything it has accomplished at what people now call “Amazon scale”. This is literally the secret sauce.

## I see two-three aspects that you are conflating together:

1. Expectations on the flow of information, whether the author/presentor is:

(a) the authority figure, is teaching something to the audience and later answering questions or offer clarifications, but may also receive counter-points and feedback.

(b) presenting their current thoughts and looking for feedback on the same to refine their thoughts and plans.

I see no reason why 'b' isn't doable with slide-presentations, and we have actually done that more frequently than 'a'.

2. The container, slides vs. document, in which the information is presented. We are agreeing that slides require being more crisp, which is hard, owing to expectations of less text. Whereas a document also should ideally be crisp, however, expectations of use of a larger number of words and fuller sentences makes it easier. You have stated that the information for "kinds of problems that require document writing" and "topic, trade offs, solutions while supporting evidence or technical details, design artifacts, and FAQs" cannot be put into slides, but without explaining why so. I am questioning this again because I and my team has done all that successfully and repeatedly.

3. Sync vs. async. consumption of #2 by the audience. Even information put in slides can be shared with the audience for a silent consumption before discussions, and also be referred to later if and when needed.

## The real challenges are:

A. The popular guidance given for slide-presentations is to keep text on the slides to a bare minimum and have the focus instead on presenter speaking during the meeting. This makes things further worse as the slides by themselves end up being uninterpretable without the presentor speaking. Or in other words, the slides end up being little more than speaker notes. I generally disagree with this blanket guidance, and have used slides in both ways:

(a) Everything I need to communicate to the audience is written and visible on the slides, and I am peripheral to the meeting (think of a Teaching Assistant as opposed to a Lecturer), and

(b) The slides carry just the visuals which I explain live verbally.

Both 'a' and 'b' have their place depending on the context, i.e., the subject matter, audience, expected flow of information, etc. As an example, 'b' is more useful for classroom teaching to kids or otherwise for an audience who are averse to reading (there are many of them outside of work).

B. Use of slides require bring crisper, which we're already agreeing to.

C. Slide-presentations are typically done in sync manner under the status quo (but which need not be as noted in '3' above). The analog for documents would be to have all audience read section-by-section or para-by-para and discussing before proceeding. Whether applied to slides or documents, this is more useful only when the material has a sequential structure, i.e., the next section cannot be understood well or agreed upon until the current one is. Even if such sequencing is not there, sync does not always hurt though. Sync will be less optimal if:

(a) The material is somehow such that the readers must go back and forth through the material before they would understand that the author is communicating. Too much of that won't be recommended for documents either.

(b) When different audience members have widely varying (i) prior knowledge or understanding of the material, (ii) reading/absorption speed, or (iii) interest level in the subtopics or detail. Under this scenario, synchronization is at least one of ineffective or inefficient. Going fast would save time for those who already know, absorb fast, or want to skip subtopics/details, while the others would fail to follow. And vice versa. The said variations apply to document reading also, however, async consumption allows some audience members to finish sooner and then do something else while the remaining finish reading.

## Summary of my understanding

If we do not conflate various above points, we'll find that it's not about document vs. slides. The real problem are 'A' above (bad guidance on how to make/present slides) and 'C(b)' above (cited variability in the audience). Between the two, 'A' is more easily fixed by changing guidance and training. Then using slides with silent reading becomes an available option for 'C(b)' too, except for the challenge 'B' above.

If the authors have the skill for 'B' above, then not only slide-presentations, but also documents will be a lot better. So would also be meeting summaries which usually don't have the vigour/quality even at Amazon.

## Closing comments

Please think through the above carefully and then tell me what you think. I am open to debate. :-)

I want to point out the irony that you wrote a lengthy, dense document, despite your argument in favor of slides. And you’re asking for a debate (or saying you’re open to one). Im certainly not in the mood to write a document after what I previously explained, especially since your anecdotal evidence is that for you, slides have worked as well or better than documents. So having said, I don’t think this would be a productive “debate”. Instead, I’ll take this as an opportunity to provide feedback on your document. :)

I think it’s completely possible that for the scale your organization operates at and types of problems you solve, slides are as good as or even more efficient than documents.

That simply just isn’t true at Amazon, for the kinds of problems we solve. Now not every problem requires a document. But many problems are intrinsically hard, and they absolutely do.

Your document above is super dense, and the main points are ambiguous, even after seriously reading a couple times.

> Whereas a document also should ideally be crisp, however, expectations of use of a larger number of words and fuller sentences makes it easier.

There is no expectation that you use more words than necessary in a document. You should use the number of words required to unambiguously convey the idea to the reader. Help THEM understand what’s in your head. You’re looking at it almost as an act of vanity, and that completely misses the point.

That statement is difficult to decipher, and if you shared a complex topic with me using this writing style, I would actually prefer slides or ask you to explain it to me like I’m 5. Why? Because your document isn’t conducive to a productive debate. The conclusion isn’t immediately clear, and I don’t know what the supporting evidence is. Instead, you have a lengthy introductory text trying to break down the problem across several dimensions, but which of these are particularly relevant here? Unclear.

At Amazon, you would get dinged and the reader would question why you’re using complex sentence structure - is it because you’re compensating for not having done enough research? And passive voice is actively discouraged. I would probably ask you bluntly, “how much of this context is actually relevant?”

> If we do not conflate various above points, we'll find that it's not about document vs. slides. The real problem are 'A' above (bad guidance on how to make/present slides) and 'C(b)' above (cited variability in the audience).

Why such a lengthy write up if this is the summary of your argument? And “lengthy” is an understatement. There’s so much dense information here that you, the author, are not able to refer back to your own writing without having to simplify it down to an abbreviation! This is criminal, my friend.

The thesis is hidden at the end of a complex jungle of different points, with lists that are broken down into more lists. “lists” and bullet points, even if you try to weasel them in without newline separated bullet points, dont help the reader. Now The reader has to go back and put all this complexity in context, creating a tree of all this information and each node in their head. You’re actively making the reader work hard to understand your idea. At Amazon, we often dismiss this document writing as the author doesn’t know how to write well (and we need to help them), or they’re intentionally bullshitting us.

Going back to your doc — Why make the reader work hard to decipher everything else, which merely ended up being tangential? And your fundamental argument is a begging the question fallacy. The take away from your post is that slides are as effective or perhaps more so than a document, but you provided nothing to actually back up THAT statement. Your presenting what you are arguing for as being the truth in the first place.

Btw if this was an actual document review, my comments would be attached directly to your document and left as feedback that you or anyone else can revisit later on. We wouldn’t need to record the meeting or have someone separately take notes of the discussion.

Overall, this was more work to read than it ought to be. With so much unnecessary jargon and tangential points, it’s no surprise than you feel something other than a document would be more productive.

I’m convinced if you are able to write with clarity and conciseness, your opinion would change. You certainly produced a document in your post, but it’s as if you have preconceived notion that a document had to include jargon, lengthy sentence structure, and “officialese”.

> I want to point out the irony that you wrote a lengthy, dense document, despite your argument in favor of slides.

I am not opposed to document writing. I am however saying that the true reasons when and why it works better are misunderstood. There is no irony here. :-)

> And you’re asking for a debate (or saying you’re open to one). Im certainly not in the mood to write a document after what I previously explained,

There are flaws and oversimplifications in your previous arguments that I am pointing out. :-)

> Instead, I’ll take this as an opportunity to provide feedback on your document. :)

You're welcome. :-)

> But many problems are intrinsically hard, and they absolutely do.

Problems being intrinsically hard does not mandate requiring of a document vs. slides. The reasoning in the middle is important to cover, which is what I am trying to do. :-)

> > Whereas a document also should ideally be crisp, however, expectations of use of a larger number of words and fuller sentences makes it easier. > There is no expectation that you use more words than necessary in a document.

Nor did I say that there is one. What I am saying is use of slides puts a harder requirement on the author to do that well. :-)

> I don’t know what the supporting evidence is.

I am not providing evidence in support that slides are better than documents. I am only providing counter-arguments to the reasoning you present. Your own arguments are not only non-evidential but also often oversimplified, incomplete or wrong.

> At Amazon, you would get dinged and the reader would question why you’re using complex sentence structure - is it because you’re compensating for not having done enough research?

> I would probably ask you bluntly, “how much of this context is actually relevant?”

Part document-complexity feedback accepted. :-)

However, I am claiming that the complexity of arguments here is inherent complexity, not incidental complexity. If you get deep into the arguments I have made to understand them, you may see how.

Alternatively, please explicitly point out which arguments of mine you find wrong or irrelevant. I wrote the arguments only because I did find jumping-to-conclusions in yours, so I am trying to bring the true ones to light. :-)

> And passive voice is actively discouraged.

So is that why you chose to make the above sentence passive? :-)

It is a myth that passive voice is bad. There are genuine cases where passive voice fits better. Steven Pinker has written about the same [1, 2]. (Note: This isn't an 'appeals to authority' bias like someone once claimed when I said the same thing. I support the arguments made by Pinker.)

> > If we do not conflate various above points, we'll find that it's not about document vs. slides. The real problem are 'A' above (bad guidance on how to make/present slides) and 'C(b)' above (cited variability in the audience).

> Why such a lengthy write up if this is the summary of your argument? And “lengthy” is an understatement. There’s so much dense information here that you, the author, are not able to refer back to your own writing without having to simplify it down to an abbreviation! This is criminal, my friend.

To reduce the density of my writeup, I'll need to increase the length of it which you've also complained about. So the only way to address it is to eliminate irrelevant arguments. I am claiming from my side that they are all relevant to counter the hidden and false assumptions and reasoning I see in your statements like "Now not every problem requires a document. But many problems are intrinsically hard, and they absolutely do."). Problems being intrinsically hard does not directly mandate a document over slides.

Please point out which arguments I have made are irrelevant, and I'll review. :-)

> Now The reader has to go back and put all this complexity in context, creating a tree of all this information and each node in their head. > which merely ended up being tangential?

Yes, agreed that here is very often a tree in arguments (more generally a DAG or unrestricted graph too) and there's one in mine. :-) I am claiming that in this case this could only be helped by writing a longer text as I disagree with the statement that my arguments are tangential.

> And your fundamental argument is a begging the question fallacy. The take away from your post is that slides are as effective or perhaps more so than a document, but you provided nothing to actually back up THAT statement. Your presenting what you are arguing for as being the truth in the first place.

I disagree. This is not "begging the question fallacy". I am not backing my statement with arguments but rather pointing out the nuances which you are not seeing, which is thereby leading you to misunderstanding or oversimplifications in your arguments.

> Overall, this was more work to read than it ought to be.

Deep dive is also one of the leadership principles at Amazon. :-)

---

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/11/passive...

[2] https://bobbypowers.net/steven-pinker-writing-tips/

> I am however saying that the true reasons when and why it works better are misunderstood. There is no irony here.

You provided a deeply dense document arguing in favor of slides. You're now stating it was more about "oversimplifications" in my post – and honestly, that's not my take away from your document.

You did write in favor of slides and communicated they're as, or even more effective of a medium, than written documents. And the document that you provided did not provide evidence or substantial points to back that claim. The document you did provide has unnecessary context and excessive, distracting sentence structure. The same argument you made could be provided in 1/4th of the text.

Doc writing is a "tool". If you're not able to use it effectively, it won't be any more helpful than slides or no written material at all. It just becomes a distraction. To restate my point, you offered a document with a different point of view, but the quality of your document, and your statements on expectations of a document (e.g. expectations of using more words) only prove that your definition of a document and its expectations are widely different than Amazons. They're not apples to apples.

>There are flaws and oversimplifications in your previous arguments that I am pointing out.

>Problems being intrinsically hard does not mandate requiring of a document vs. slides. The reasoning in the middle is important to cover, which is what I am trying to do.

You are "trying to do" but you didn't, nor did you outline what those flaws or oversimplifications are. The only reasoning provided was that slides have worked as well or even better for you (anecdotal evidence).

What I'm saying is that the necessary information – the amount of information that you must provide for the reader to truly grasp the issue and your thinking around it in 45-60 minutes – cannot be captured in a PowerPoint deck. And nor does the slide deck provide sections like appendices with varying levels of details. And finally, it doesn't facilitate readers leaving comments and questions directly inline.

And no matter how you try to twist the slide medium into being more like a document by forcing an appendices section or recording notes manually – it doesn't replace the document writing process.

As the author writes a document, they will get stumped on certain topics or struggle to find words to articulate a problem succinctly. This exercise helps the author discover gaps in their thinking and know immediately what areas still need to be disambiguated.

>Deep dive is also one of the leadership principles at Amazon. :-)

This comment comes off as trolling, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt and assume it was meant in good faith.

To force your PowerPoint audience or document reader to actively "work hard" to understand YOU is not an example of having them dive deep. If anything, it comes off as being lazy – you the author didn't care to clean up your document so the reader can focus on the problem itself. Instead, they have to focus on the puzzle you've concocted. If I have to "dive deep" just to understand your ideas, then you haven't adequately prepared your ideas. The mere act of being able to follow your idea shouldn't require a deep dive. Once I read your document and form my questions, the deep dive comes in the discussion when the reader wants to dive deeper into specific parts of your thesis.

>Your own arguments are not only non-evidential but also often oversimplified, incomplete or wrong.

I'm sure my arguments come off as being "anecdotal". And that's fine. No disagreement there.

I think we can end the discussion here –

This is in no way a debate. Amazon has the secret weapon, and I'm literally giving you the blueprints. You can choose to use it or not use it.

Amazon, an almost $2 trillion company operating across retail sales and logistics, cloud services, entertainment, streaming, consumer electronics, and myriad other industries, has decided that 1 pager and 5 pager documents are critical to its success. And so much so that slide decks are banned for any substantial discussion. Slide decks are only acceptable at "presentations", and "presentations" =/= business or tech reviews.

What more evidence would you like? (Yes, this is a rhetorical question).

I presented my understanding in a simple to understand way here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27551350

The response from you on that comment is not sounding right to me, and so I present counter-arguments.

>> For the kinds of problems that require document writing at Amazon, this statement simply just isn’t true.

This needs details. I can take that what you wrote after the above are those details. :-)

>> Presentations are about the presenter, often presenting as if they are the authority figure on a topic.

Not necessarily true, as I stated in my response comment.

And you haven't yet refuted my that comment. :-)

>> As a matter of fact, they share documents to get feedback and find gaps in their thinking, or seek feedback on how they evaluated alternatives, and so on.

This can apply equally well to slides as well, as I stated before. Hence it is not helping the argument you are making.

>> The document should focus on the immediate topic, trade offs, solutions while supporting evidence or technical details, design artifacts, and FAQs etc are provided in appendices. This manner of information sharing is simply not possible in any PowerPoint or presentation slide format.

Above too is a statement you've made without giving reasoning and which you repeated in the above comment too. Can you please explicitly say why "This manner of information sharing is simply not possible in any PowerPoint or presentation slide format." and why "the necessary information ... cannot be captured in a PowerPoint deck ..."? Why cannot sections like appendices be there in slides (assuming the information has been made short and crisp to fit in a slide or a few)?

>> And the simple proof to back my statements — Amazon and everything it has accomplished at what people now call “Amazon scale”. This is literally the secret sauce.

>> Amazon, an almost $2 trillion company ..., has decided that 1 pager and 5 pager documents are critical to its success. >> What more evidence would you like? (Yes, this is a rhetorical question).

There are many aspects involved contributing to Amazon's success. Well-executed meetings using document-reviews would be one of them, however, that does not counters the points I made in my original comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27551350

I am sure that you do not consider Amazon being successful itself as a proof that document-review is better than slides (that may involve fallacies like hasty generalization, post hoc fallacy, survivor bias, and even appeals to authority).

>> for the kinds of problems we solve. Now not every problem requires a document. But many problems are intrinsically hard, and they absolutely do.

As you are the one who made this statement, the onus is on you to supply the reasoning why intrinsically hard problems requires documents over slides. I am just questioning your statement. :-) And that's where I have said that the reasoning in the middle is important (for you) to cover. :-)

>> You are "trying to do" but you didn't, nor did you outline what those flaws or oversimplifications are.

>> The only reasoning provided was that slides have worked as well or even better for you (anecdotal evidence).

I did lot more than that, did I not? :-) I have given many arguments, which you are finding irrelevant, but I am claiming to be relevant. :-) Only if you supply the reasoning behind your own arguments would you see the relevance of what I am saying. :-)

>> And finally, it doesn't facilitate readers leaving comments and questions directly inline.

PowerPoint has commenting feature too. :-)

It does not have "Track Changes" feature. I would agree if you bring that as an argument for document vs. slides. :-)

>> And no matter how you try to twist the slide medium into being more like a document by forcing an appendices section or recording notes manually – it doesn't replace the document writing process. As the author writes a document, they will get stumped on certain topics or struggle to find words to articulate a problem succinctly. This exercise helps the author discover gaps in their thinking and know immediately what areas still need to be disambiguated.

Can you pls. provide the reasoning as to why the same does not apply when an author creates slides? Whether I create a document, slides, this happens. :-)

>> I think we can end the discussion here

As you wish. :-)

>the onus is on you to supply the reasoning why intrinsically hard problems requires documents over slides.

I think I've provided sufficient examples on why this is the case, and I have almost a $2 trillion dollar company that agrees with me and has made this our policy. You can try to pick whatever logical fallacy, but the actual company and its leadership believes the document culture gives us a strong competitive advantage over PowerPoint or slide deck driven organizations. You're more than welcome to compete us and try to beat us.

>the onus is on you

I honestly have nothing to prove to you. This is turning more into your ego and your refusal to consider that others may be working on problems that require document writing whereas maybe the complexity of your work requires a few bullet points. Not to disparage any of your work, but it's narrow thinking at best.

Furthermore, you're repeating your previous posts, and each of your comments now all ending with a ":-)" is deliberate trolling. It's clear you're posting here in bad faith.

Feel free to respond again, but I won't engage with you any further.

If you want to troll or flash ego, you certainly can. But your personal information and even a profile URL are attached or linked from your HN profile. Maybe that's intentional and the shtick of "I'm right, and I'll condescend with smiley faces to show I'm superior" – that's how you try to sell yourself?

I hope it works out for you. Good luck!

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