An article in The New York Times back in August described the working environment at Amazon.com as driven if not downright treacherous. At the time, CEO Jeff Bezos responded in an internal e-mail that the descriptions in the article didn't "describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day." After a few days of news cycle tumult, it appeared the story was pretty much out of sight, out of mind. You could have said it was until Amazon decided to bring it back up again this week. Why?
Jay Carney, Amazon's senior vice president for global corporate affairs, wrote a rebuttal of the Times' article and posted it on Medium, an online publishing platform, on Monday. In his piece, Mr. Carney, the former White House Press Secretary for the Obama Administration, countered that the Times engaged in sloppy reporting by taking stories out of context and failing to ask Amazon to respond to specific allegations.
Of Jodi Kantor, one of the two reporters working on the story, Mr. Carney wrote that she "never asked us to check or comment on any of the dozen or so negative anecdotes from named sources that form the narrative backbone of the story."
Source: Amazon
Mr. Carney goes on to point out specific shortcomings of the initial report and claims there is an institutional bias against Amazon as evidenced by the Times' own public editor calling out the paper's coverage of the e-tail giant's negotiations with the book publisher Hachette.
As would be expected, the Times had a comeback for Mr. Carney. Dean Baquet, executive editor at the paper, defended both the substance and tone of the original article in a reply on Medium.
"Our reporters spoke to more than a hundred current and former employees, at various levels and divisions, over many months. Many, including most of those you cited, talked about how they admired Amazon's ambitions and urgency even as they described aspects of the workplace as troubling," wrote Mr. Baquet.
The rebuttal of the Times' coverage has made Amazon's culture news again. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, which is owned by Amazon, found himself having to answer the culture question at this week's WSJDLive global technology conference.
Mr. Hsieh replied that maintaining Zappos' employee-friendly culture was part of the agreement in the deal to be acquired by Amazon. In some cases, Amazon has adopted Zappos' methods including paying employees on the job for four or five weeks to quit if it doesn't seem like the right fit for them.
While not passing judgment on Amazon, Mr. Hsieh said that companies with strong cultures tend to adapt and find success when others do not.