

I was working at Amazon when the 2-pizza team idea was introduced. A week or two later, we though "we're a 2-pizza team now, let's order some pizza". That when we found out that there was no budget for pizza, it was merely a theoretical concept. At the time the annual "morale budget" (for food and other items) was about $5 per person.

These days I think the morale budget is a bit higher; in 2013 there were birthday cakes once a month.

You've got to give respect to Amazon. In most companies you have the grunts, then the engineers. Google will shower engineers with benefits, but the guy driving the google maps car gets nothing (contractor), Facebook? Shower the engineers with benefits! Have to read through death threats daily? You. Get. Nothing! (Contractor). Amazon? Fuck you, you're all getting gruel.

Good point, I wonder why Amazon doesn't point this out whenever people give them a hard time about how the fulfillment center jobs suck. They could present themselves as paragons of egalitarianism.

Applications are open for YC Winter 2020
