Big Technology Podcast - “It Just Felt Wrong.” Ex-Amazon VP Tim Bray On Why He Left

Episode Date: August 26, 2020

In May, Amazon VP and distinguished engineer Tim Bray said he was leaving the company. Amazon had just fired employees who spoke out against its working conditions, and Bray couldn’t tolerate it. He handed in his resignation and published an astonishing blog post detailing his decision—an unprecedented move for an executive inside the tech giants. “I choose neither to serve nor drink that poison," he wrote. By listening to Bray, we can learn a bit more about how people inside the tech giants view their power, and how they might drive change as Congress and regulators stand still.

Hello, and welcome to the Big Technology podcast. This is Alex Cantoritz. Our guest today, and I'm really excited about this one, is Tim Bray. He's the former Amazon VP and distinguished engineer who quit his job after the company fired his colleagues who spoke out against its practices earlier this year. So just to catch you up, first they spoke out on climate, saying the company did more harm than good, and then on working conditions, saying Amazon was putting its warehouse workers in harm's way. Amazon didn't like getting pressed like that from the inside, and that was pretty

much that. Those whistleblowers are no longer with the company, and now neither is Bray. Okay, a bit of context here. Amazon is not unique among tech companies and seeing its workers stand out and speak up against its practices, and certainly not among the tech giants. Right, Google and Facebook have been the subject of similar backlashes inside their companies. But Amazon came down harder on its whistleblowers and provoked an equal and opposite reaction from Bray. So Bray's decision to quit, standing up for whistleblowers who essentially told the company to stop polluting and listened to employees who tell you they feel unsafe during a pandemic is completely unprecedented for someone at his level. And that's why I'm thrilled to speak with him about his decision and what it might say about the future of how change might be pushed

inside the tech giants while Congress and regulators stand still. So I'm delighted to bring Tim onto the show. Welcome, Tim. Well, I'm delighted to be here. Okay. Does it feel painful or do you feel like you did the right thing? Well, both. I mean, those two things are not really in conflict. Although it's as much the job as the money, it was the world's greatest job, and I really liked the people. And AWS is a treat to work for.

But, you know, that was just not a thing that I could let go by. Yeah, definitely. So I want to get into the story, but the first thing I want to do is contextualize your position at Amazon a little bit. And I think the best way to do this is to paint a picture about how often you spoke with the top of the company leadership. You know, from my understanding at Amazon, things are pretty flat and you often end up in the room with the top people. You know, fairly often you're able to bring your ideas to them. And I'm just curious, how often were you speaking with Bezos and Andy Jassy inside the company? Well, this is indicative. As a VP, I was still four reports from Bezos. And AWS is really run, as are all Amazon organizations, with a huge amount of autonomy. So whereas I've met Jeff twice, that never happened while I was working at Amazon. On the other hand, anybody at a senior rank would have been in a room with Andy Jassy multiple times. As you say, the structure is pretty flat.

But, you know, the kingdom of AWS and the kingdom of Amazon retail and so on really, managed to operate pretty independently. Okay. So you were coming into contact with Jassy fairly often, though. I don't know about fairly often, but yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. You guys knew each other. So now, okay, so I'd like to look a little bit more into what happened with the whistleblower situation. So from your position, you see Amazon fire a few whistleblowers who spoke out against worker conditions related to COVID-19 and had previously spoken about Amazon's position when it came to climate.

And I want to read something from your letter. So you said that firing whistleblowers is evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture. I choose neither to serve nor drink that poison. And that really stuck out to me for a number of reasons. I thought it was really well worded and eloquently put. And then the vein of toxicity to me seemed like something that if I ever got a chance to speak with Tim Bray, this is something I wanted to hear more about. So I was wondering if you could help us understand what's going on there a little bit more.

and explain what that toxicity is? Well, I'm really not going to be able to explain it because I don't understand it. I, you know, I spent five and a half years at Amazon. I would say it is an exceptionally well-managed, well-run company. These days, in the days of late capitalism, you know, 30 years after the, 40 years after the Reagan-Thatcher consensus, there's a lot of things to displease even mildly progressive people about the way big companies are run. And, you know, Amazon operates within the rules of business as they currently operate.

And that leads to some things like situations in the warehouse that concern people. Obviously, it didn't concern me enough for me to quit because I kept on working there for five and a half years. That's right. But then when this firing the whistleblowers and activists thing started, that just seemed different. It didn't seem like a thing that a company ought to do within or without the rules. it just felt wrong and not something that I was comfortable with. And, you know, I think when you carry a VP rank, you really need to be able to, you know, speak for it as the company in a comfortable way and explain, you know,

its reasons for the things it does. And I couldn't. So, so I didn't. You know, having said that, not only did I find that, you know, ethically challenged to an unacceptable degree, I thought it wasn't very smart. You know, have these people never heard of the Streisand effect? it seems like, you know, firing activists is like pointing 50 foot arrows of fire at a situation and saying, oh, there's something here we don't want you to hear about. So I was

disappointed in that. But I just did not feel that that was something I could be a public-facing person as part of a company that did things like that. Yeah. And then going back to the toxicity, so is it more of like a disregard for worker conditions? Is it a disconnect between people in the white collar jobs and the blue collar jobs that? Amazon, how would you describe it? Well, I think that the entire basis of 21st century capitalism builds in a huge amount of disregard for people in blue-collar jobs by people in white-collar jobs. And Amazon is by no means the worst.

I mean, you could look at Walmire. You can look at any number, particularly in the agricultural sector, the meatpacking plants, and so on. So Amazon is by no means the worst. But I think that, you know, that is not. an Amazon problem. That is a societal problem and that if we do not like the way that blue-collar workers are treated, we need to use old-fashioned regulation and legislation to deal with that. Having said that, I thought that firing activists was qualitatively different. It was a step

over the line and not just a routine part of the practice of modern capitalism. It was just something I couldn't be comfortable with. Hey, Tim, are those birds I'm hearing? Yes. You're talking to me in my boat because my boat is my home office because my home office at home is under construction in a renovation project. So there will be birds in the background. Okay, very cool. So yeah, in terms of the whistleblowers, can you tell us a little bit about what the story looked like on the inside? We know that it was pretty challenging in the middle of COVID-19 for Amazon to maintain safety precautions inside the warehouse. And there was a feeling inside that people were just like, this isn't going to work. Oh, I disagree. I don't think that there was a,

this isn't going to work feeling. I think that it's absolutely the case that Amazon invested a huge amount of time and effort in trying to make the warehouses safer and operable in the time of COVID. At the same time, we were hearing repeated and sustained objections from the staff who didn't feel safe at work, and I didn't have any trouble believing both of those things, that Amazon was working hard at this and that there was still a lot of, you know, deeply expressed concern among the staff. I don't believe for a moment that COVID makes it impossible.

to do a business. We're going to have to figure out how to do it, and things may run slower, and they may be more expensive, but I certainly wouldn't be a defeatist about it. So you mentioned that it wasn't smart for Amazon to fire the whistleblowers. Why do you think they did it?

Because you're right, it does bring more attention to the things that they're speaking up about. I absolutely do not know. Sorry, but I just know. Is there a tolerance for dissent inside Amazon? There is a huge tolerance for dissent inside Amazon. One of the core leadership principles they run the company on is disagree and

commit, which means that, you know, dissenting opinions are not only acceptable, they are sought out, actively sought out in the context of any really important decision to make sure that people know what's going on. And I think, you know, the effect of that is that, you know, as part of the leadership, the company may choose decisions that go in a different ways than you'd like to see, but generally you have the feeling that you were listened to, you know, that you you may have lost the argument. And that certainly happened. You know, during my time in leadership there, there were some big arguments that I lost.

But, you know, that was at the end of the day, okay, and I was willing to go and publicly defend the position that we took because I felt listened to. But, you know, that only goes so far. And when the thing, when the occurrence that happens is way outside your ethical bounds, that's different. Okay. Yeah. I want to talk a little bit more about how the leadership principles

inside Amazon do apply to the way that they view workers and then customer activism overall. We are going to do that right when we come back from this break. Hey, everyone. Let me tell you about The Hustle Daily Show, a podcast filled with business, tech news, and original stories to keep you in the loop on what's trending. More than 2 million professionals read The Hustle's daily email for its irreverent and informative takes on business and tech news. Now, they have a daily podcast called The Hustle Daily Show, where their team of writers break down the biggest business headlines in 15 minutes or less and explain why you should care about them. So search for The Hustled Daily Show and your favorite podcast app like the one

you're using right now. We're back here with Tim Bray, a former Amazon VP and distinguished engineer who left after seeing the way that the company treated whistleblowers and didn't want to stick around because he felt that by remaining, he would condone the actions. And when these people were out speaking up for workers. It's not something that Tim wanted to give his sign off on implicit or explicit. So we talked a little bit before the break about the Amazon leadership principles about dissent. And one of them is disagree and commit. If you don't like something, you voice your opinion. You're welcome to voice your opinion. And then when leadership says we're going to go with this move and everybody goes along with it. Now, I wonder if Amazon, you know, I hear also like

in a place like Facebook, they talk a lot about feedback, but oftentimes they're interested in inside feedback and not outside feedback. And I wonder if disagreeing commit inside Amazon applies when it comes towards building things that Amazon wants. And I wonder if, you know, they live that leadership principle when it comes to dissent or when it comes to allowing for disagreement on things in terms of ethics and not in terms of product development. Curious what you think, Tim? Well, I think that to the extent that any very large company is, Amazon basically does follow the rules. Obviously, once you have a regulatory framework, large organizations are going to skate right up to the edge of it. And that's why regulations have to be very carefully written.

But I would have to say that during my time there, I simply did not see anything that I thought was even remotely illegal or unethical. The problem isn't that. Amazon says that they manage things in a customer-obsessed way, and that is absolutely true. And if you look at what Amazon's retail side offers, they offer broad selection, low prices, and fast delivery. Well, how could anybody be against those things? Those are obviously good things. Having said that, nothing is free. There has to be a price for everything, and I think I have a broad concern, not just for Amazon in particular, but for our economy and society as a whole.

that when you work out the arithmetic there, the experience and life of the powerless is not factored into that arithmetic. And the structure of our society makes that far too easy. You know, and I return to my main point, which is that this isn't an Amazon problem. This is, by and large, a societal problem, and it comes from the really, I think, unacceptable difference in power and wealth between the powerful and the powerless. It's, you know, what was described as the 1% versus 99% problem. And the structure of society is such that people like those who work in the warehouses have essentially very little bargaining powers. Specifically in the United States, they have even less because the regulatory framework

in America is so powerfully anti-union. And then what even sharpens the contrast is that in America, your health insurance is tied to your employment. So the prospect of losing your employment is terribly, terribly frightening. And all those things work together to create a situation, which I think needs to be changed. Did people inside Amazon senior ranks ever talk about these issues? I mean, it seems like it's something that's being discussed in our politics overall, but I'm curious if it actually gets discussed inside the workplace.

Oh, no, generally not. There was very, very little political discussion. We were, you know, we were in Amazon Web Services where I were, we were trying to solve the problem of, you know, making IT better by applying cloud technology. And let me tell you, that was a big enough subject to occupy 150% of our time. That's right. What do you think would have happened if you were to bring up the fact that, like, you know, Amazon, we here at Amazon are working in a broader system that does lend itself at times to worker exploitation? Oh, I don't think it's a secret that I was a person with progressive opinions.

I'm also a loudmouthed environmentalist. And, you know, by Canadian standards, I am, you know, moderately progressive, which means by U.S. standards, I'm sort of a basic red-toothed commie. You know, here in British Columbia, the province I live in in Canada, we have a provincial government that is not far off where Bernie Sanders is, you know, in the States. So, you know, I don't think anybody didn't know that I had a lot of progressive opinions. Okay. But like if you were to voice then, you would say by and large the, do you think the leadership was by and large concerned, for instance, with, like, worker well-being? Well, let me tell you, in the context of AWS, Amazon Web Services. we, because I was a member of that leadership,

we're extremely concerned with worker well-being. And it's an example of that when COVID came along and all of a sudden we started a massive, large-scale work-from-home experiment, we bent over backwards to make sure that this was working out for people because work-from-home works for some, but not for others. If you're a small family living in a small apartment with kids who suddenly aren't going to school, work from home can be pretty hellish. Yeah, but to drill down on the retail workers, though.

Well, I didn't because I was working on AWS, but hold on. And I have a point here that I want to make, which is that we took extreme interest in how this thing's working out. And we worried a lot about the AWS workers. And I think that illustrates something important. The fact of the matter is that the Amazon Web Services workers are mostly engineers and knowledge workers who were empowered. They were high paid. And if they didn't like their job, they could walk across the street and get another one. And so here we have one group of workers who are being taken really excellent.

care of. And another group of workers who are expressing, you know, terrible fear and concern about their health and safety at work, well, what's the difference? It's power. You know, the workers who are empowered get a much better level of treatment from their employers. Do you think that companies can, I mean, you obviously voiced your opinion about the way that a company operated in this system. Do you think that companies can push change here? I mean, given your discussions with leadership, do you think that a company can say this is how the system works, but we're not going to operate by the rules just because we can. We're actually going to do better by workers. Or do you think it's going to take the government to change them?

I really wish, you know, if I or the president of the United States were to talk to the big companies, the way I talk to my kids saying, now play nice or no dessert, you know, kind of thing, that would work, but it won't. I absolutely think that it is precisely the role of government and politics to address this kind of situation. And if some of us are concerned, with the way that people are being treated in context, such as warehouses, then what we need to do is to change the regulatory and legislative framework so that it is no longer acceptable to do that. And I'm sorry, that means getting down and grinding out,

boring old politics, knocking on doors, finding candidates to support, organizing behind them. Politics is a slow, messy, and for many people unpleasant business, but it's the tool we have for changing things in society we don't like. That's interesting. So when you were in Amazon, did you believe, in having the government come in and regulate the company? Or was it only after you left, did you think that regulation would be the move?

Canada, I'm a supporter of a party called the New Democratic Party, which is currently the government here in my local province, which is pretty well along the lines of the Democratic Socialists in the States. So, yeah, you know, I actively gave money and, you know, my family knocked on doors and things like that. So, yeah, I've been politically active on and off for years. But in terms of actually wanting Amazon itself to be regulated, I guess it would come in in terms of being regulated as far as the way that worker protections are implemented overall. But when you were working there, is that something you wanted to see the government come and rein it in? So I absolutely do not want to regulate Amazon. I want to regulate the operation of the larger economy. I think the rules should be the same for all big companies.

and I think the rules should do a much better job of empowering the powerless in society. So, yes, I'm an activist. Yes, I would like to see stronger regulatory and legal frameworks. No, I'm not particularly interested in going after Amazon in particular. Right. So just capturing Amazon in a regulation that would affect the broader economy. What percentage of Amazon executives do you think hold that perspective? By and large, this is an interesting subject, by and large, the technological,

workers tend to be vastly progressive. In the American context, that means they tend to vote for and give money to Democrats rather than Republicans. Obviously, the higher you move up the food chain, probably the less is true. But I'll be honest, I never had a political discussion with a member of the senior leadership team. One of the reasons for that is that being in leadership at a large successful company, such as Amazon Web Services is fantastically fun.

It's about the most fun you can have and get paid for. And when you're doing it, it occupies 110% of your attention. And, you know, you might be the kind of person who just simply doesn't want to think about politics at all because you're just too busy making customers happy and making the business work. So the rank and file, sure. Rank and file, I'm sure that, you know, I was not really a big outlier.

Senior leadership, it's a mixed picture. Okay, we will come back after one more quick break here with Tim Bray. So stand by and we'll be back in a moment. All right, we're back for our last segment here with Tim Bray, former Amazon VP who left after speaking his conscience. So, Tim, I would love to ask you, you know, there are these two different ways people register dissent inside companies. One is they go and they bring their issues internally and try to get it fixed that way.

and two is they exit. So why did you choose exit? Well, I didn't. I did both. I did, in fact, raise the issue internally and had some extensive discussions before I left. And the reasons I left, we've discussed fairly clearly. And for people who want to dive deeper, if you go and Google for the string, buy Amazon, as in B-Y-E, bye-bye, Amazon, Tim Bray, you'll come up with the piece I wrote, which goes into a great deal of depth about that. So certainly, I felt, you know, as a duty as an employee to express my opinion strong, to the right people, and I did that. And having done that, I then left the company. When you brought those issues up internally, what did people say? Were they like, Tim,

what are you talking about? This is sort of the way we do business? Well, unfortunately, those are probably under the covered by my non-disclosure agreement. And, you know, I was a team member, and I trusted and valued my team members. And I just don't think it would be appropriate for me to go out, dive into the details of that. Right. Did you generally come away with an impression thinking that things could possibly change inside Amazon, or did that seem sort of like something that wasn't going to happen there? You know, I'm just not going to dive into that. Okay.

I do believe that, as I was saying a little earlier, the technology, knowledge worker workforce is by and large a very progressive demographic. And as relatively has had relatively little involvement with politics, historically, we're starting to see that changed. You know, there's my story. There's been some activism over at Google. There was an outburst of dissent over at Facebook. I suspect that should the knowledge worker demographic wake up and realize that it has a lot of political power potentially and start exercising it, that could be a really substantial force for a change in our society.

So, you know, you ask specifically, do I think Amazon has the potential to change? I don't know. But I do think that, you know, big tech has the potential to buy, as a reflection of the activism of its employees, become. a force for change in progress in society. Right, but we also have been through a year of employees standing up and speaking their mind. And many of them have, you know, you took at Google, that's an analog. A lot of the Google activists have left the company, you know, Amazon, either, you know, activists like you, who sort of did your activism on the way out or the whistleblowers who ended up getting fired.

So I guess like, you know, from my point of view, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, But I'm a little pessimistic that the knowledge workers can get anything done, given their track record so far. What do you think? Well, I'm a natural optimist, but I would actually disagree with you. I think that, you know, five years ago, we had zero employee activism. A couple of years ago, we had a little bit. You know, last year we had really quite a lot. That's right.

And, you know, Amazon did, in fact, for example, change its posture on climate, the climate emergency. I doubt they would come out and say it was because of it. employee activism, but I'd be surprised if it was entirely unrelated. I think that the potential for this to grow and get traction, particularly, you know, in a year of, in America in particular, profound political disturbance is non-trivial. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see some real game-changing activism going on. Yeah, I don't doubt that it's registered in the heads of the people running these companies that they probably can't be as unfeeling as they were in the past because employees will speak up. Okay, well, here's a question for you. Amazon, in terms of, we talked a little

bit about its leadership principles, and I'm thinking about how Amazon might change. One thing that Amazon is pretty clear about is its obsession with customers. And we talked a little bit earlier about how that means, like, you know, giving people low prices and getting things to them quickly. And I'm curious what would happen, whether it might change a company like Amazon, if customers got together and started to lobby it like they did lobby government, essentially saying, hey, we're the customers, your leading leadership principle, is you're obsessed with us. And this is what we want. And it's not just about getting the box quickly. It's about treating workers better, you know, being better stewards in society. How do you think that would be received inside of Amazon if it was a big enough movement? I don't know. I mean, you know, Amazon. is not kidding when they say their customer obsessed and they say that they listen to what the customer is saying. And, you know, there's occasionally you hear people saying, well, I'm going to boycott Amazon. I'm not going to buy stuff there anymore. And you're proposing a hypothetical

scenario where people say, okay, well, we're going to start boycotting Amazon unless we see more evidence of a humanistic outlook. Well, not a boycott. This is more of just, you know, it's like you can lobby the government and still be a citizen, essentially saying, you know, we might still be Prime members, but if the customers went to Amazon and said, we want, as part of customer obsession, you'd actually be obsessed with more than just getting us a package quickly, but actually responding to some of the values that we see in the world. This is what your customers want. I suppose. You know, I think that, I think that broad selection, low prices and fast delivery at the end of the day, speak very, very loudly. And those are, those are you very,

are good things and things that, you know, I certainly support focusing on. I think that as, you know, I think it was John Adams first said it, you know, we live in an empire of laws, not of men. Of course, we'd say people now. But, but I think that's true. And I think the most appropriate way to try and change the shape of society is through operating in a rules-based manner and instituting rules that you think everybody can compete equally on the basis of and let the, you know, the best competitor win. And right now, I think that the facts on the ground demonstrate that the rules tolerate an unacceptable imbalance in power and wealth. And we just need to change those rules.

I'm not saying people shouldn't try and organize the kind of thing you talk about, but my own preference would be for old-fashioned political activism. Yeah, and I think it could happen in both ways, but I'm just curious how you think Amazon leadership would respond if they saw a broad movement within their customers to essentially lobby them as if they were a government and say, if your customer obsessed, this is what the customers want. If you're obsessed about us, you should respond to these concerns. There would be an interesting conversation because obviously people would be concerned by saying, well, if we do that, and as a result, we have to extend our deliveries or raise our prices, would they decide to go across the street to Walmart? You know, you'd have to really have sufficient critical mass to address those concerns. And that's why I think, you know, you should go and apply that hammer to Amazon and Walmart at the same time. And the best way to do that is through politics.

Do you want to break these tech giants up? Oh, absolutely. Why? Well, I think that if you look at organizations, several reasons. If you look at organizations like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, to start with, they're simply too big. It becomes intractably difficult to operate in a humanist way either towards your employees or your customers when you're operating at that scale. Secondly, the tables are stacked. The pattern you normally see with these big techs is that they have stumbled across some really great piece of business that throws off a fountain of cash,

which they then use to fuel invasions of other sectors, putting the incumbents in the other sectors at a competitive disadvantage. I mean, the classic example is web search ads on Google, one of the most insanely profitable businesses that has ever existed, which has enabled them to do a bunch of bad things. I mean, they are doing office automation with Gmail. They're doing maps and ads on maps and reviews on maps with maps.

They're doing, you know, they have lots of other businesses. And, you know, another side effect of that is that they, and Facebook have established a duopoly in the advertising business, which are putting the continued existence of advertising-supported publications at a huge risk. You know, in the case of Microsoft, it's the continuing cash cow of office and windows that throws off this fountain of cash that is used to subsidize Microsoft's various other business ventures. And I just don't think that is something that legal frameworks should allow. And in fact, they didn't used to.

You know, there was an era of antitrust in the United States where that kind of behavior was simply not tolerated. And I'd like to turn back the clock a little bit and go back to that. Fascinating. Chances you think that will happen? That's what happens in November. I think there's actually quite a lot of antitrust energy, latent antitrust energy built up in the American populace as a whole. And, you know, and in general, a disaffection with big business in general and big tech in particular. that's been dramatic, you know, as recently as five years ago, the big tech companies were

kind of broadly admired and their leaders were sort of hero-worshipped. And I don't think that's true in 2020. I think there is, and, you know, my departure and the reaction it got is another small piece of evidence for that. So I think that, you know, given how the, depending on how the election goes, I would be really unsurprised to see, you know, an aggressive ramp up in the strength of antitrust activism. Yeah. Okay. Well, we will see. All right, last question for you before we leave. You wrote this by Amazon post. You're sitting there about to hit publish.

What did it feel like in that moment? It was hilarious. Not so much that moment, but a few moments later. So I wrote it over the weekend after I'd left, Friday being my last day. And I published it late Sunday night, getting towards midnight. And I have my own little server with my blog runs on. And I was a little worried about the configuration and so on. So I stayed up until 2 in the morning after, you know, fooling around to the service,

making everything was optimized and image loading and, you know, all the stuff you normally do. And forgetting that I was now an unemployed bum, I still had my alarm on for early in the morning. So, you know, well before 7 in the morning, my alarm goes off. And I wake up, you know, I don't have to get up. Wait a second. I should just see. Did that get any reaction? Oh, my God.

It just flew up, huh? That was the moment when I realized, wait a second. You know, Tim quitting suddenly became a news story. That's right. did your inbox look like at the point? Oh, you can't imagine. My inbox, my LinkedIn, my, my Twitter DMs, you know, my Facebook. It was, it was all running high. Well, Tim, I appreciate you sitting down and speaking with me today. You know, it's a great opportunity to be able to speak to you as we kick off the big technology podcast. And, you know, I wish you nothing but the best. And I have to say

your decision to go out and put that, put that blog post up and leave Amazon because of the principles that you held was a gutsy decision and not something we see every day. So it'll be interesting to see if more follow and commend you for doing it. Well, thank you kindly and nobody can predict the future. Sounds good. All right. Thanks everybody for listening. We hope to see you on the next episode of the Big Technology podcast.