Me in my 20s, hoping to get a job, and me now, independent from Amazon.
Amazon has taught me so much over that time.
These teachings, distilled over time, are not the tens of thousands of lines of code I wrote at Amazon, the countless projects, cutting-edge technologies, future industries, job-hunting secrets, how to thrive in the workplace, or management methods.
Rather, the Amazonian principles and methods for living a subjective, vibrant, and fertile life remain as essential oils.
And these only have power when applied differently in the context of each of our unique lives.
--- p.12

On my first day at work, the first thing I did was get my employee ID card.
My face was printed on a plastic employee ID card with a blue background, which was taken on the spot and was rather awkward.
The employee ID card border will change to yellow after 5 years and red after 10 years.
At the time, Amazon was less than ten years old, so no one had a red-bordered employee ID.
Of course, at the time, I had no idea that I would one day be wearing a red border, nor did I know how much of a burden that color would gradually become.
--- p.22

Come to think of it, the society I lived in was often one where 'words are separate from actions'.
It was a society where the principles were grand, but if you really believed in them and followed them, you would be a fool.
If I quoted the class motto that was hanging in the classroom, such as "Let's do our best honestly," to my friends, I was sure to be treated like a fool.
But Amazon's principles were real.
The people here really believed in that principle and tried to act accordingly, and it wasn't strange or childish behavior.
If I had to describe in one word the difference between the world I've lived in and this place in the Amazon, it would be 'the distance between words and actions.'
In short, Amazon's words and actions were very close.
A place where things are clear and uncluttered, where competence and integrity take precedence, where people work independently, and where principles are truly upheld.
This is my first impression of Amazon.
As time passed, this unfamiliar culture gradually became a part of me, and I began to slowly flow into the Amazon jungle without even realizing it.
--- p.43

Amazon employees' desks are made of thick wood, about half the length of a regular desk.
This desk, called the Door Desk, contains a famous anecdote about Chairman Bezos.
In the early days of the company, when the number of employees was in the single digits, he went to buy desks for his employees and saw that doors were much cheaper than desks. He bought doors and lumber and started making desks.
Even today, every Amazon employee, from interns to CEOs, uses a long door desk.
The conference room is no exception, and a conference room table is created by connecting the door desk.
The desk is so special to Amazon that the chairman revealed in an interview, “The door desk is a symbol of frugality, and it is very important because Amazon only spends money on things that are important to customers.”
It also symbolizes the entrepreneurial spirit of breaking free from conventional thinking and finding innovative and creative ways to solve problems, and it also serves the function of eliminating hierarchies and distances among employees by having all employees use the same desk, regardless of rank.
--- pp.58~59

Amazon's internal slogan, which can be seen frequently throughout the company, is 'Work Hard, Have Fun, Make History.'
Bezos himself made it clear in his first shareholder letter back in 1997 that Amazon is not an easy place to work.
His hiring standards are known to be extremely high, to the point where he once said, “People can work long hours, hard, and smart, and Amazon needs all three.”
This is because he believes that hard-working, smart people are the number one requirement for Amazon's success.
A company where these talented individuals work together to create creations that the world needs and that future generations can be proud of, and where they take pride in doing so.
His wish is reflected in the slogan.
--- pp.79~80

One of the most common things we say at Amazon is, "Start with the customers and work backward."
Before considering profit and loss or technical limitations, the company should first consider what consumers will like and what decisions will be most helpful to them, and then decide what to do based on that.
Is this feature truly necessary for consumers? Does it help them? When I asked the same question about consumer reviews, the answer was simple.
Reviews of a product from previous buyers are of great help to consumers.
Because reviews from consumers like yourself are more trustworthy than exaggerated advertisements.
--- p.105

Developers who moved to Amazon were all vocal in their praise of Amazon's software development environment, which is characterized by its service-oriented architecture and Apollo.
This is the answer I hear every time I'm asked about Amazon's advantages over other companies.
This environment allows developers to focus on production-related tasks, increasing productivity and ultimately driving Amazon's growth.
Amazon has prioritized this task and has a dedicated team to continuously improve its development environment over a long period of time.
And finally, based on the accumulated know-how, related services are provided through Amazon Web Services so that anyone other than Amazon can utilize them.
--- p.169

Amazon is famous for its lack of marketing, including TV advertising.
This is because Chairman Bezos particularly dislikes the smell of perfume.
Making a mediocre product and then hyping it up to sell it to customers is the kind of perfume Amazon hates.
In contrast, Amazon's approach is to be strict with itself and focus on the essentials.
In fact, Amazon does very little media marketing for its corporate brand beyond essential marketing to promote new products or services.
--- pp.191~192

March has come again.
March, when peer reviews take place, is a tiring month for Amazon employees.
When I logged into the performance evaluation system, a list of people who had already asked me to evaluate them appeared.
Among them were my boss and team members, as well as managers and developers from other departments with whom I interacted while working on the project.
Even after excluding those I hadn't met very often and didn't have much to say about, I still had to write reviews for eight people.
Moreover, I didn't have the confidence to finish the self-evaluation, which required even more writing, even if I stayed for two full days.
Not only was it time-consuming, but it was also something I didn't really like.
Perhaps because of the culture I grew up in, I felt uncomfortable using words without the other person knowing, and it was also very awkward to evaluate myself.
--- pp.223~224

In the hallways of Amazon, you can easily see walls covered in Post-it notes, which are status boards for the Scrum process called Scrum boards.
The memos are usually categorized as 'To Do', 'In Progress', 'QA', 'Done', etc., and each memo contains one task that a developer can do in a day.
These to-dos are determined in the sprint planning meeting held on the first day of the iterative cycle.
After that, the developers gather here every morning for a short meeting, where they take turns talking about the work they finished yesterday and choosing a new task to work on today.
After two weeks of 'full-throttle' like this, the cycle concludes on the last Friday afternoon by demonstrating the work in front of the stakeholders and discussing how it can be done better.
A new sprint begins next Monday, and this cycle repeats indefinitely.
--- p.235

The hardest part about working at Amazon was often not the work itself, but the gaze of those around me.
Because there were so many smart people, I was worried that I would feel discouraged by even small mistakes or that I would be ignored since I was already a minority.
As time passed, my emotional turmoil grew as colleagues who had joined the company around the same time got promoted.
Even while driving, I would shake my head when I remembered a slip of the tongue I made in a meeting, and I would slowly change the frame of my employee ID card, which can be changed after I have completed my years of service, because I felt uncomfortable with the gazes of others.
In short, it seems like I lived my life with great care to avoid being called an 'idiot'.
Of course, the more that happened, the more my nerves became sharp and my expression became stiff, like someone always being chased by something.
--- p.279

I've met a lot of people working at Amazon, but none of them were truly happy working there.
I've never met anyone, regardless of title or job title, who felt that working at Amazon was their calling or a dream come true.
Rather, when they gathered in groups of three or five, they were busy talking about how tiring their lives were.
At the time, there was a colleague on the team named Bill.
Not only was he excellent at his job, but he also arrived at work earlier than anyone else and worked late, so to me, he seemed like someone who had truly found his calling.
But I remember being very surprised when one day he came to me personally and confided in me that his current job was too difficult and he wanted to find another path.
Moreover, seeing many colleagues who changed companies fall into the same cycle again after a few years, I came to believe that simply changing companies is not a fundamental solution.
It was clear that my body and mind were periodically sending me strange signals, and I didn't even know what the problem was.
So, at that time, if I were to meet Chairman Bezos personally, there was only one thing I wanted to ask.
“Are you truly happy?”
--- pp.290~291

Although it was painful, I realized that I was not an irreplaceable employee, so I had to break out of the Amazon framework and find something that only I could do.
Since I was already in my thirties, I thought I should play using the cards I already had rather than trying to create a new one with great effort.
I've been doing something for the past 30 years, so I'm sure there's something I'm better at than the countless geniuses at Amazon.
If my English was lacking, wouldn't I have at least been able to use the limited information to hit the mark? --- p.300

Amazon was never a generous teacher.
It's been three years since I left Amazon, but sometimes in the evenings I still get the aftereffects of having to go to work there the next day.
The Amazon was a place I was grateful for, but it was also a very difficult place, so much so that I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized I didn't have to go there any time soon.
I endured each day for 12 years, to the point where it felt like a mystery to me.
Sometimes people around me ask me, “Do you regret leaving Amazon?” and every time they ask, I just shake my head.
Actually, I have no regrets left as an Amazonian.

--- pp.320~321