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Amazon "is conducting a little-known experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers," said Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld in The New York Times. Interviews with more than 100 current and former Amazonians — as employees refer to themselves — reveal a punishing workplace culture at the retailer's Seattle headquarters. Underperformers are nixed in annual cullings described as "purposeful Darwinism." Employees are instructed to "rip into colleagues' ideas," both in person and behind their backs, by anonymously complaining to co-workers' bosses. Eighty-hour workweeks are the norm, and no excuses are tolerated for poor performance. A woman who had thyroid cancer was given a low performance rating on her return and told by a manager that while she was out, "her peers were accomplishing a great deal." Breakdowns are common. "Nearly every person I worked with," said a former Amazonian, "I saw cry at their desk." Attrition is high — the median employee tenure is only one year, "among the briefest in the Fortune 500."
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