#CollateralDamage at Amazon?

The NYT recently ran a feature (“Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace”) describing the meat grinder through which Jeff Bezos puts his foot soldiers and lieutenants. According to the authors, “the company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers to get them to achieve its ever-expanding ambitions.” Meanwhile, a study published in the Lancet medical journal has found that employees working long hours are more likely to suffer a stroke – by 33 percent for those logging in over 55 hours per week. And, as we all know, chronic stress can take a severe toll – unless you are one of those ultraperformers who somehow thrive on stress hormones. So here is a task for Bezos’s beloved big data, alongside the more pragmatic uses to which it is put within his empire: calculate how many employees have faced premature death as a result of the “purposeful Darwinism” pervading the company. On a different note, it’s remarkable how libertarian polemicists can still depict political institutions as the main force placing constraints on individual choice and self-actualization.