Amazon Commissioned a Study to Measure Its "Earth's Best Employer" Pledge. It Found Stress, Burnout, and Churn.

In October 2021, four months after Amazon added "Strive to be Earth's Best Employer" to its Leadership Principles, the company commissioned an internal culture study for its most senior leaders. The study was part of the LP #15 initiative itself. Its finding: "We learned we are not seen as distinctively innovative and that our innovation culture is not fun. Innovation at Amazon is associated with stress, burnout, churn, and a cut-throat atmosphere."

Amazon did not release that study. Business Insider obtained it in December 2022. Four years later, the corporate workforce of roughly 350,000 employees has been through managed-attrition quotas, a return-to-office mandate that generated near-universal dissatisfaction, 30,000 layoffs in three months, a CEO memo explicitly telling them AI will shrink their ranks, and a performance review system that uses the Leadership Principles as scoring criteria for who stays and who goes. This newsletter is about what happened to them.

Where the Principle Came From

LP #15 was born in a specific sequence. On April 9, 2021, Amazon defeated the Bessemer, Alabama union drive by a 1,798-to-738 vote. Six days later, Jeff Bezos published his final shareholder letter: "Does your Chair take comfort in the outcome of the recent union vote in Bessemer? No, he doesn't. I think we need to do a better job for our employees." On July 1, Amazon added LP #15 for the first time since 2015. Four days later, Bezos stepped down as CEO.

The principle's full text asks leaders to consider whether their employees are "growing," "empowered," and "ready for what's next." It calls for "a more diverse and more just work environment" and asks leaders to have "a vision for and commitment to their employees' personal success, whether that be at Amazon or elsewhere."

That last clause matters. Amazon's own systems suggest the company takes the "or elsewhere" part seriously.

The 6% Machine

Amazon's corporate workforce operates under a managed-attrition program the company calls "unregretted attrition" (URA). The target: 6% of office employees annually, identified for exit through a system that is stack ranking, regardless of what Amazon calls it.

The 6% figure comes from sworn testimony by an Amazon human resources specialist in a 2021 Washington state labor dispute. Internal documents obtained by The Seattle Times show how it works. Each corporate employee gets a 28-point "overall value" score combining a 7-point performance rating with a 4-point potential score measured against peers. During closed-door calibration sessions called Organizational Leadership Reviews (OLR), managers rank employees against each other. Those who score lowest enter a stage called "Focus."

Focus is the quiet first step. Employees placed in Focus are not formally told they're in it. Amazon's internal training instructs managers to have informal conversations rather than disclose the process. An Amazon HR document obtained by The Seattle Times states the company expects 35% of workers in Focus to leave, and explicitly tracks Focus entries against URA goals.

If Focus doesn't work, the next stage is Pivot, Amazon's formal Performance Improvement Plan. Launched in 2017, Pivot gives employees a choice: accept a severance package upfront, or attempt to meet demanding PIP goals set by the manager. Transferring to another team during Pivot is generally prohibited without VP approval. Employment attorneys who specialize in Amazon cases report that very few employees placed on Pivot are genuinely retained. In practice it's a managed exit with a paper trail.

A Fortune investigation in March 2024 found the system intensifying. Monthly Focus placements grew from under 2,000 in April 2022 to over 3,300 by the end of that year. Pivot entries doubled over the same period. This escalation preceded and overlapped with Amazon's 2022-2023 mass layoffs of 27,000 corporate employees, suggesting the PIP pipeline was being used to manufacture "performance-based" exits ahead of formal role eliminations.

Amazon denies using stack ranking. The company's position is that URA measures organic voluntary attrition, not a managed target. The sworn testimony, the 28-point scoring system, the closed-door calibration sessions, and the internal documents explicitly tracking Focus entries against URA goals are all on the record.

The Compensation Cliff

Amazon's RSU vesting schedule is unusual among big tech companies. The standard grant vests 5% at one year, 15% at two years, 40% at three years, and 40% at four years. That means 80% of an employee's initial equity doesn't vest until after their second anniversary.

To mask the thin early years, Amazon pays substantial signing bonuses in years one and two, making total compensation appear competitive with Google, Microsoft, and Meta on offer sheets. But the signing bonus is a one-time payment. The real wealth transfer is in years three and four, when 80% of the RSU grant lands.

This creates a structural financial incentive for Amazon to manage employees out before the year-three cliff. An employee who leaves or is pushed out at month 18 forfeits 85% of their initial equity grant. Across thousands of employees flagged through the URA system annually, the retained unvested equity represents real cost avoidance. Amazon doesn't disclose this figure, but the math is embedded in every managed exit that happens before the cliff.

Average corporate tenure at Amazon runs approximately 1.5 to 1.8 years, per LinkedIn data. Most departures happen before Amazon's biggest equity obligation kicks in. The compensation structure and the attrition system both point at the same exit window, and neither of them is an accident.

In February 2022, Amazon doubled its base salary cap for corporate employees from $160,000 to $350,000, a genuine move to compete in a tight labor market. A 2025 restructure pushed further: employees with four consecutive years of top performance ratings now receive 110% of pay band. First-time high performers receive 70%. The gap between sustained top performers and everyone else is widening by design.

Return to Office, Badge by Badge

In September 2024, Andy Jassy announced all 350,000 corporate employees would return to the office five days a week starting January 2, 2025. The stated reason: "it's easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture."

A Blind poll of 2,585 verified Amazon employees found 91% dissatisfied, with an average satisfaction score of 1.4 out of 5. 73% said they were considering looking for another job because of the mandate. More than a third said they knew someone who had already resigned over it.

When January 2 arrived, Amazon's offices in Atlanta, Houston, Nashville, New York, Dallas, and Phoenix weren't ready. Some locations needed up to 30% more desks. Employees in those cities were told full compliance could be delayed until May 2025.

By January 2026, Amazon had deployed a badge surveillance dashboard classifying employees as "Low-Time Badgers" (median in-office time under 4 hours/day over 8 weeks), "Zero Badgers" (no badge scans at all), and "Unassigned Building Badgers" (badging into the wrong building). The dashboard records sick days, leaves of absence, and PTO alongside badge data, giving managers a single-screen attendance record for each employee.

Jassy denied the mandate was a backdoor layoff at a November 2024 all-hands meeting. KPMG research found 25% of executives across industries admitted they hoped RTO mandates would trigger voluntary departures. Some Amazon employees who hadn't complied with prior RTO policies were informed they were "voluntarily resigning" before losing system access. Amazon laid off 16,000 more corporate workers in January 2026, one year after the 5-day mandate took effect and after investing $125 billion in AI infrastructure.

30,000 Gone

In June 2025, Jassy told employees in an internal memo that AI would shrink Amazon's corporate workforce: "We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today." He instructed employees to "get more done with scrappier teams."

Four months later, Amazon cut 14,000 corporate positions across AWS, Prime Video, grocery, HR, and communications. The internal name for the plan leaked via an accidental calendar invite: "Project Dawn." In January 2026, 16,000 more were cut. Total since October 2025: 30,000 corporate positions, approximately 8.6% of the 350,000-person corporate workforce. WARN Act filings confirmed 2,303 affected employees in Washington and 1,540 in California.

During the same period, Amazon's total headcount grew from 1,556,000 to 1,576,000. The company was hiring in warehouses and logistics while cutting the people who sit in offices. Revenue context: Amazon's 2024 revenue was $638 billion, up 36% from 2021. The company spent an estimated $89.9 billion on AI capital expenditure in 2025 alone.

In November 2025, over 1,000 Amazon employees signed an open letter warning that the company's "all-costs-justified, warp-speed approach to AI development" would do "staggering damage to democracy, to our jobs, and to the earth." Amazon called the climate-related claims "categorically false." It did not address the workforce claims.

Tightening the Screws

In July 2025, Amazon introduced stricter performance reviews requiring documented proof of Leadership Principle demonstration. Because LPs are broad and subjective ("Bias for Action," "Insist on the Highest Standards," "Deliver Results"), a manager can cite failure to demonstrate a principle as grounds for Focus or Pivot without pointing to a specific deliverable failure. The new system uses a three-tiered scale with fixed-percentage distributions, consistent with forced ranking despite Amazon's denial.

In September 2024, Jassy directed every leadership team to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by end of Q1 2025. Amazon had approximately 105,770 managers at the time, implying roughly 13,800 manager roles eliminated. Employees report fewer advancement paths as a result.

The diversity commitment is contracting alongside everything else. In January 2025, Amazon began halting DEI programs. In February, the company's 2024 annual report removed all specific references to "inclusion and diversity" from the section about LP #15. The previous filing read: "As we strive to be Earth's best employer, we focus on investment and innovation, inclusion and diversity, safety, and engagement." The new version: "We strive to be Earth's best employer" with generic language about "numerous and evolving initiatives." Amazon also edited its public policy webpage to remove separate sections for "Equity for Black people" and "LGBTQ+ rights."

Three active federal discrimination lawsuits test whether the old language meant anything. Wilmuth v. Amazon (November 2023) alleges systematic underpayment and under-titling of women in the research division. Newman v. Amazon alleges pervasive racial and sexual discrimination in AWS. Stockwell v. AWS (March 2025) alleges age and gender discrimination in a restructuring where 45 of 75 terminated employees were over 40. All three are ongoing. Amazon denies the claims.

Who Benefits from the Principle

LP #15 is embedded in every behavioral interview, every performance review, and thousands of recruiter talking points. Amazon received one million job applications in a single day during Career Day 2021, the same year the principle was added. The principle is recruiting infrastructure. Candidates prep for LP #15 behavioral interviews. Managers get scored on it in their own reviews. LinkedIn is full of posts about "what it means to be Earth's Best Employer at Amazon." The language replicates itself without Amazon spending a dollar.

The secondary function is cover. When the NYC Retirement System and NY State Common Retirement Fund ($5.3 billion in Amazon shares) advocated against re-electing two board members in 2025 over injury rates and labor practices, Amazon could point to LP #15. All five shareholder proposals at the May 2025 annual meeting failed. A freedom of association proposal was excluded from the ballot for the fourth consecutive year.

The financial incentive is structural. The URA system manages out 6% of corporate staff annually. The 5-15-40-40 RSU schedule means anyone who leaves before year three forfeits 80% of their equity. Every managed exit before the cliff saves Amazon money it allocated on paper but never has to deliver. Jassy's 2024 compensation was $40.1 million, tied to stock performance. The employees managed out via Focus, Pivot, and badge surveillance are costs. LP #15 is the language that makes the system sound aspirational while the spreadsheet runs.

What's Real

Amazon's total corporate compensation is genuinely competitive in years three and four for employees who survive the gauntlet. An L6 engineer's total comp can exceed $400,000 annually at current stock prices. The base salary cap increase to $350,000 was a real market response. Career Choice has enrolled 300,000+ workers in tuition-free education. Amazon raised average warehouse pay twice in 2025 to over $23/hour, with total compensation above $30/hour. Day 1 healthcare at $5/week starting 2026 is genuinely accessible. AWS employees rate the company 4.2 on Glassdoor, well above the 3.6 overall average.

Amazon is a well-compensated place to work if you make it to year three, stay in a high-performing team, and land in the right division.

The company does not appear on Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For" list, which surveys actual employees. It ranks third on Fortune's "Most Admired Companies" list, which surveys executives and analysts. Those are two different questions with two very different answers.

The Principle and the Filing

LP #15 asks: "Are my fellow employees growing? Are they empowered? Are they ready for what's next?"

Amazon's 2024 annual report answered by removing "inclusion and diversity" from the principle's stated scope. The company has never disclosed its corporate turnover rate in any SEC filing. It runs a managed-attrition system targeting 6% of office workers annually, backed by a compensation structure that makes early exits financially advantageous for the company. The internal culture study commissioned to measure LP #15's impact found "stress, burnout, churn, and a cut-throat atmosphere" within four months of the principle's announcement.

The principle costs nothing to maintain. It pulls in candidates, gives shareholders something to point to when labor proposals come up, and shows up in every performance review used to decide who gets managed out. Whether LP #15 was ever meant to change Amazon's corporate culture or simply to describe it more palatably is the question the company's own records keep answering.