The Death of Amazon's Writing Culture: inside the erosion of its memo-first decision making
herbertl · hn · 2026-10-15
HN discussion of the essay "The Death of Amazon's Writing Culture" by former Amazon engineer Steve Huynh. The piece argues Amazon's famed narrative writing culture — six-page memos, no PowerPoint, silent reading sessions instituted under Bezos — is eroding as the company scales, management turns over, and the AI-era pace favors slides and fragmented communication, weakening clear thinking and decision quality. Commenters debate whether the writing discipline ever delivered value and whether big companies can sustain such heavyweight process.
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