绝版回忆：20年前，在亚马逊工作是什么样的

    1994年，西雅图一家“资金雄厚的初创公司”通过一则网络招聘广告寻找“极有才华的开发人员，以共创互联网商务的先河。”熟悉网络服务器、网站和HTML语言“更佳，但并非必要条件。”成功的候选者将得到“有才华、有干劲、热情、有趣的同事”。薪酬包括“有意义的股权”。

    有兴趣的求职者可以将简历和求职信直接发送给CEO兼创始人杰夫·贝佐斯。

    过去二十年，亚马逊彻底颠覆了商业世界，成为电子商务巨头，年收入超过880亿美元。而在1995年7月15日，贝佐斯创建的只是一家在线书店，办公地便是他的车库。当时网站几乎没有任何库存；根据客户需求向经销商购买图书。网站卖出的第一本书是：《流体概念与创造性类比：计算机思维机制模型》。

    公司第一位员工谢尔·卡普汉在接受GeekWire采访时表示，即便贝佐斯也没有想到公司会发展到如此大的规模。亚马逊早期员工乔纳森·柯契摩尔对《财富》杂志表示：“初期团队的唯一使命是，让全世界每一个人都能买到想要的图书。”随着公司开始出售女性时装、Kindle和其他电子产品，公司的使命也发生了变化。如今，公司投资电视剧和电影，是云计算领域的重要力量，计划提供本地服务的在线市场，并且率先尝试用无人机配送商品。

    亚马逊的野心或许是其他任何公司都难以企及的。亚马逊提交上市文件时，其1995年的销售额为51.1万美元。1996年便达到了1570万美元。在截至2015年3月31日的季度中，公司的销售额达到227亿美元，净损失5700万美元，这相当于1996年总收入的四倍。

    如今，亚马逊已经成为一个庞然大物，它是美国最受尊敬的公司之一，但与此同时也备受批评。有人将亚马逊形容为不遵守规则的竞争对手，并且有相当繁重的工作环境。

    但20年前，亚马逊刚刚起步，正在努力站稳脚跟。以下是早期加入（和退出）的员工对当时工作情景的一些回忆。

    经过其他人的劝说，杰夫·贝佐斯才最终放弃将公司命名为“Relentless”。

    贝佐斯为公司选用的第一个名称是Cadabra，即Abracadabra（魔咒）一词的缩写。卡普汉对GeekWire表示，有一个问题：人们常常将这个词听成“cadaver”（尸体），这至少会令人感到不愉快。后来贝佐斯打算重新命名为“Relentless”，意指一心一意满足客户的期望。卡普汉表示：“经过一番说服他才相信，不见得每个人都会正确理解这个词的含义。”

    有无家可归者睡在公司门口。

    随着公司的发展，贝佐斯的车库已经无法容纳，因此公司多次更换办公地点。其中之一是位于第二大道1516号的哥伦比亚大厦，周边的治安很糟糕。瑞贝卡·艾伦说道：“许多游客会经过这里，那里是西雅图市犯罪率最高的地方之一，盗窃和持刀伤人等事件经常发生。如果网站出现了严重的错误，而且你在家无法解决，你必须在深夜进入大楼，比如凌晨3点，有时候你可能得跨过或绕过睡在门口的人。”在1996年至1998年，艾伦曾在亚马逊担任软件工程师。

    有一次，她吃过午饭走回办公楼时，发现“大楼周边的整片区域都有警察在警戒，因为在十字路口站着一个人手里拿着一把大刀，警察将他围了起来，试图说服他放下武器。”她花了很长时间才让警察同意她越过警戒线，回到办公室。

    有人非常热爱他们的工作，甚至从来不回家。

    即使在最初的时候，亚马逊也以对员工要求苛刻而著称。（哪一家初创公司不是如此？）但有时候，工作意味着从来不用回家。柯契摩尔对一次长时间加班的记忆尤为深刻。他说道：“我有一个月没有回过家。这并非迫于外界压力，而是因为我非常热爱自己所做的事情。从我家到公司乘坐公交车只需要15分钟。幸运的是，楼内设有淋浴，附近有一家服装店。而且还有一家自助洗衣店。”

    公司有官方宠物狗。

    紧凑的时间表，一定程度上意味着人们没有太多时间待在家里。对于埃里克与苏珊·本森来说，这意味着要么将他们的爱犬鲁夫斯留在家里，要么带着他去公司。本森夫妇在2001年离开了公司，鲁夫斯也在2009年去世，但亚马逊网站依然保留着曾经为它设立的一个网页。鲁夫斯会在走廊徘徊，旁听会议，员工们对他宠爱有加，他还经常收到顾客的礼物。

    网站上有许多错别字。

    艾伦表示，系统确实有令人印象深刻的地方，但“它也具有当时的特色，就像是用泡泡糖和电工胶”粘在一起。公司使用的信息源自经销商的数据库，这些信息并不对消费者公开，因此书名或作者姓名经常出现拼写错误。

    艾伦加入公司时，公司仅有一种覆盖数据库内容的“初级”机制。艾伦说道：“我加入亚马逊的时候，奥普拉的读书俱乐部几乎同时成立。营销部门的某位负责人与奥普拉的人进行了交流，并说服他们提前告知他们要公布的下一本书。”那是娥苏拉·海吉的《河中之石》。结果数据库拼错了她的名字。“我们的目标是不能太难看。有几个人来找我，要求我纠正错误。”艾伦问他们是否能绝对保证拼写正确，因为即使进行一次修改也要承担风险。他们信誓旦旦；结果，他们还是错了。那个问题虽然得到了解决，但为了保持公司运转，我们需要解决的问题总是一个接一个。事实上，在繁忙的圣诞节期间，除了程序员，其他所有人都要去包装货物。就连贝佐斯自己也在仓库里忙碌。

    贝佐斯打算给员工配备护膝。

    在创新技术诞生的过程中，有一些简单的事情有时会被人忽视。亚马逊的员工在包装货物时，一直蹲着或跪在地上。贝佐斯建议为每个人配备护膝。贝佐斯曾经的室友、将贝佐斯介绍给柯契摩尔的尼古拉斯·拉夫乔伊指出，在桌子进行包装会更容易。贝佐斯称赞这个主意“太棒了”。据报道，亚马逊仍在增加桌子腿，在户外组装桌子。

    薪酬非常可怜。

    忘了现在科技公司的理念吧，比如回报员工，提供各种丰厚的福利等。柯契摩尔说道：“当时，我们许多人非常贫穷。工资很低。我经常吃面条配冷冻青豆。”但最终，我们的付出获得了回报。艾伦在职场倦怠期之前离开了公司。她说道：“我来自一个工薪家庭。我不需要太多。看着已经得到的，我问自己：‘我为什么在这里？’于是我离开了。”但她依旧持有公司的股份，这是一笔巨大的回报。“我再也不必工作了，”她说道。（财富中文网）

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    审校：任文科

    In 1994, an online job posting from a “well-capitalized start-up” in Seattle looked for “extremely talented … developers to help pioneer commerce on the Internet.” Familiarity with web servers, websites, and HTML “would be helpful but not necessary.” Successful candidates could expect “talented, motivated, intense, and interesting co-workers.” Compensation included “meaningful equity ownership.”

    Those interested could send a resume and cover letter directly to the CEO and founder, Jeff Bezos.

    In the last two decades, Amazon has completely redefined the world of commerce, becoming an e-commerce giant with $88 billion-plus in revenues. But Bezos launched the company as an online book seller July 15, 1995 and operated it out of his garage. There was virtually no inventory; books were bought from distributors as customers demanded them. The first title sold: Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought.

    Not even Bezos realized how big the company would become, according to an interview that Shel Kaphan, the company’s first employee, gave to GeekWire. “The early group came on board with the sole mission of making [books] available to everyone in the world,” Jonathan Kochmer, an early employee, told Fortune. That soon changed, as the company began selling everything from women’s fashion to the Kindle and other electronics. Now the company bankrolls TV shows and movies, is a major force in cloud computing, plans an online marketplace for local services, and is pioneering product delivery by drone.

    The level of ambition may be unmatched by any other company. When Amazon filed its paperwork to go public, its 1995 sales were $511,000. In 1996 they hit $15.7 million. In the quarter that ended March 31, 2015, sales hit $22.7 billion, with a net loss of $57 million, or almost four times the total revenue of 1996.

    Today, Amazon is a behemoth that is one of America’s most admired and much-criticized companies. Some consider it a bare-knuckled figure of a competitor with an equally punishing work environment.

    But 20 years ago, the company was a start-up and trying to get its feet squarely on the ground. Here are some memories of what it was like to work there at the time, from people who got in (and, in some cases, got out) early.

    Jeff Bezos had to be talked out of renaming the company, “Relentless.”

    The first name Bezos chose for the company was Cadabra, as in an abbreviated version of Abracadabra. As Kaphan told GeekWire, there was one problem: People often heard the name as cadaver, which was, to say the least, off-putting. Bezos then wanted to name it “Relentless,” as in intently satisfying customers’ desires. “It took a little convincing that perhaps that was not going to have the right connotations in everybody’s minds,” Kaphan said.

    There were homeless people sleeping in the doorway.

    After getting too big for the Bezos garage, the staff moved into a series of buildings. One of them, the Columbia Building at 1516 Second Avenue, was in what you could call a tough neighborhood. “A lot of tourists go through there, but it’s at the corner of one of the highest crime corners in the city of Seattle, everything from purse snatchings to knifings,” said Rebecca Allen, a software engineer at the company from 1996 to 1998, told Fortune. “If you had to go into the building late at night, like at 3 AM, because something horrible had gone wrong and you couldn’t fix it from home, you sometimes had to step over or around people sleeping in the doorway.”

    Once when she was walking back from having lunch, “a whole chunk of the area around the building was cordoned off by police because there was a guy with a big sword standing in the intersection surrounded by police officers trying to talk him down,” she said. It took her a few minutes to talk her way past a rope so she could reenter the office.

    Some people loved their jobs so much they never went home.

    Even back in the day, Amazon was known as a demanding place to work. (What start-up isn’t?) But sometimes work meant never having to go home. Kochmer remembered a particularly long stretch. “There was a month when I did not go home once,” he said. “It wasn’t because people were breathing down my desk. It was because I was incredibly passionate about what I was doing. I only lived a 15 minute bus ride away. Luckily there was a shower in the building and a clothing store nearby.” And a nearby laundromat.

    The company had an official dog.

    Part of the hectic schedules meant that people didn’t necessarily get much time at home. For Eric and Susan Benson, that meant either leaving their dog, Rufus, at home or taking him with them.” Even though the Bensons left the company in 2001 and Rufus died in 2009, he still has a webpage on Amazon’s site. Rufus would wander the hallways, sit in on meetings, get spoiled by employees, and receive presents from customers.

    The site had lots of misspellings.

    The system did some impressive things, but it was also strung together in the “bubblegum and electrical tape nature of how things worked at the time,” Allen said. The company used information from distributor databases that was never intended to be seen by consumers, so titles or author names were frequently misspelled.

    When Allen joined the company, there was only a “rudimentary” mechanism to override the database contents. “Oprah’s book club started around the same time I started at Amazon,” Allen said. “Somebody at the top at marketing talked to Oprah’s people and convinced them to tell us slightly in advance the next book announcement so we’d know what it would be.” It was Ursula Hegi’s Stones from the River. Her name was spelled incorrectly in the database. “Our goal in this was to not look bad. A couple of people came over to me and asked me to make the correction.” Allen asked if they were absolutely sure of the spelling, because making a change even once was risky. They were sure; they also were wrong. That got fixed, but the need to keep things running never ended. In fact, programmers were the only ones who were exempt from packing boxes at the Christmas rush. Even Bezos was busy in the warehouse.

    Bezos wanted to get the staff knee pads.

    For all the drive to create innovative technology, it was the simple things that sometimes could escape notice. While packing boxes, people had been squatting on the ground or working on their knees. Bezos had suggested getting everyone knee pads. Nicholas Lovejoy, a former housemate and the one who introduced Bezos to Kochmer, pointed out that using tables to pack would be easier. “Brilliant,” Bezos called the idea. The company still reportedly builds tables out of doors by adding legs.

    The pay was terrible.

    Forget the current concept of tech companies feeding employees and offering all manner of luxurious benefits. “At that point, many of us were still very poor,” Kochmer said. “The salaries were kind of low. I ate a lot of ramen with frozen peas.” But eventually the gamble paid off. Allen left before hitting the burn-out stage. “I come from a working class background,” she said. “I don’t necessarily need that much, looked at what I had already, and asked, ‘Why am I here?’ I left.” But she held onto her stock, which was the big payoff. “I’m never going to have to work again,” she said.