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Jeff Bezos Says the NY Times' Amazon Exposé Is All Wrong

Word hard, play hard.

Jeff Bezos is none too pleased with the New York Times.

Amazon's CEO hit back at the paper of record late last night, saying its recently published exposé about poor working conditions at the online retailer were not representative of the company culture he wants to foster.

"The article doesn't describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day," Bezos told employees in an internal memo obtained by GeekWire. "Hopefully you don't recognize the company described. Hopefully, you're having fun working with a bunch of brilliant teammates, helping invent the future, and laughing along the way."

What's all this about? The Times' report, which too the better part of six months to produce, describes Amazon as a hellish workplace with uncaring managers who expect employees to work long hours even during times of illness or family issues; where employees routinely snipe at each other to management via a pseudo-anonymous feedback tool; and where poor performing employees are quickly shown the door for not fitting into the company's bruising culture.

While the report was well-received in journalistic circles ("All this to ship a toaster?"), Silicon Valley predictably responded with a collective shoulder shrug, effectively saying, "Successful company has high expectation, news at 11."