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I have few friends in Amazon at Seattle WA and few in AWS at Dallas TX & Herndon VA.This answer is based on their experience as most of them don’t want to come forward and answer it(managers look at the social media activity of their team members). It’s been widely covered in the news media also about the overall working conditions at Amazon. Amazon’s culture is well known to outside world now, thanks to article like thisOutside world experience is not valued.Amazon as such doesn’t care about your outside experience. For example in AWS, they only care about AWS and nothing else. Managers just believe in numbers, they want you to do the certification - even AWS cloud practitioner. Some folks have 4–5 certifications but good for nothing. If any real customer problem do occur, these certification folks who just mugged the contents can’t help at all.Why not AWS Solutions Architect - Professional certification has some phases? Like first one just objective type questions, then some real life assignment to be done without referencing anything and then interview? It’s not real certifications.If AWS Solutions Architect - Professional certification is so good then why don’t these folks are ready to work in AWS Professional services?Squeezing the employees. Real long working hours. Amazon pays well but will extract almost 150%-200% for that salary.Let the team has infighting. Coworkers bitch about each other. Managers use coworkers against each other. Coworkers are encouraged to provide feedback about each other to the managers. Even in the departments which are doing highly technical work - hierarchy of manager is kept. These managers love that coworkers are having issues with each other so that their role is relevant.No place for old men. Amazon wants only younger employees. Average age of employee is 31 years. They look for ways to kick out older workers. Amazon is always monitoring the employees when they are at work and also outside of work. You will be shocked to hear that every employee’s insurance is also monitored. It won’t be a mere coincidence that employee’s who have very high insurance expenses are booted out as Amazon want to keep it’s contribution to employee health insurance the minimum. Employees who take more vacations are also prone.No place for injured or disabled or sick employees. Amazon is a fine weather friend. The moment somebody is injured due to work place injury there is every possible effort to deny the worker’s compensation and then lay off the employee for any other reasons. Only on paper amazon states that we accommodate employee’s work restrictions. Don’t believe what i am saying then refer this Nicholas Stover, Fired Amazon Worker With Crohn's Disease, Files Suit Over Bathroom BreaksRather than firing make them leave. Amazon doesn’t fire but believe in constructive discharge. Amazon top management(supervisor) with the help of HRBP will make your life miserable so that you leave that place.Benefits as bad as policies. Worst benefits. For very first year - only 2 weeks of vacation and 1 week of personal days. In Texas, they dropped the Worker’s compensation and got Amazon TXCare - which is the worst workers compensation. Texas state allows employers not to offer workers compensation or offer a worker’s compensation plan which is not following Texas Department of Insurance. Amazon read this rule very well and introduced Amazon TXCare which is funded and administrated by Amazon only in order to save money(and to make Jeff Bezos even richer). The rules are all made for Amazon. When employees sees that this kind of policies are there, they would prefer to leave. Amazon TXCare has limited number of providers - only triage based diagnosis at urgent care center. No specialist. Aim is to say no to the employee’s work injury. There is no real appeal process. Now way employees can reach out to Texas Department of Insurance and can get an attorney. This makes it easy for Amazon in Texas and that’s why due to these kind of policies they are growing at Texas. No Amazon Prime for employees. Only $100 discount for the first $1000 shopping for the items sold by amazon.com(not 3rd party). Medical, Dental, Vision plans are not at all in line with Microsoft or Google etc.. Heard that during vacation also employees are working.Diversity numbers sucks. Lack of diversity. Apart from lack of diversity, there are often discrimination and unfair treatment by supervisors to employees. HRBP, Employee relations, SVP Beth, CEO doesn’t listen or come for the rescue of the employees. Overall treatment for a non white non American origin employee is bad. Employee relations investigations are good for nothing - mere cover up to collect data to avoid lawsuit in future.Lack of diversity. Either too many white men or Asian Indians. Other races and national origin are almost missing.Long working hours. Too much working hours. Almost 11–15 hours of work per day is very normal in Amazon.Don’t count on stocks. Stock options are given in such a way that very first year - 5%, 2nd year - 15%, then every 6 months 20% vesting. 401K vesting is 3 years. Amazon just contributes 2% to the employee’s contribution. One can understand that Amazon is using AWS Sagemaker or Forecast to observe that most of the employees leave before 1 year so the rules are made this way only. Only shareholders and Jeff Bezos is becoming rich and everybody else is getting poorer. Will Amazon be okay if sellers just pay for any item they were able to sell and only pay 5% price in first year, then 15% in next year and then 20% for every 6 months? So how the stock vesting is justified then? You can compare the stock vesting of Apple, Google, Salesforce and others…they vest 25% stocks every year. They want employees to stay and don’t punish the employees who are leaving early. Amazon on the other hand knows very well that due to bad policies and bad treatments - more than 50% employees will leave in the very first year so cap the stock vesting to only 5%. And worst thing, if anybody goes for parental leave or short term disability or long term disability then the stock vesting and 401K vesting stops. So there is no empathy for any sick employee or employee taking care of sick.Why first year only 5% stock vesting? As amazon knows very well most of the employees(around 55%) will leave in the very first year. Other companies like google, apple etc….has 25% stock vesting every year not like 5% in first year then 15% in 2nd year and then 20% each 6 months.Leadership principals. Amazon has leadership principals like frugality(being cheap), disagree and commit etc…but they don’t have any leadership principals which talks about ethics, morals, integrity, honesty etc…Poor quality hires. In AWS I heard that good number of US Masters degree Asian Indians has joined the company. All these folks were not good when they did undergraduate in India(from private engineering colleges as their parents bought that degree for them and even after that they were unemployed) so came to USA for 2nd chance. Amazon took them even if they were doing MS from mediocre schools. You won’t find bright folks in AWS Enterprise support. It’s very political organization. Employees who are honest and outspoken are simply kicked out of the organization. There is a great culture to boot lick the manager in AWS Enterprise support.Connections surveys are monitoring the individual employees. There are connections survey every day. In this survey manager is getting feedback from the team and team get the overall feedback. It’s about checking the pulse of the 2 pizza size team. None of my friends has ever heard of the bad ass manager being terminated due to this connections survey. In fact connections survey knows which team member answered what option and records the IP/MAC address. Team members are constantly watched based on their responses and other activity. It’s very much prison kind of situation.Large number of lawsuits against Amazon. Amazon is sued multiple times by employees, vendors, customers, partner every day. Though amazon talks about customer obsession. Jeff Bezos simply forgot that if you take care of employees then employees will take care of the customers. Some EEOC lawsuits against Amazon are:Amazon Class Action Says Company 'Thins the Herd' with Age Bias | Top Class ActionsThree Amazon workers allege discrimination at Shakopee warehouseAmazon Sued for Employment DiscriminationNicholas Stover, Fired Amazon Worker With Crohn's Disease, Files Suit Over Bathroom BreaksOne of the current lawsuits Fired Amazon worker sues over pandemic working conditionsManager is always right. Rather than doing any action against the bad manager, it’s always the employee which is beaten up and asked to leave. Hardworking employee can find a job elsewhere and he/she receives few months of severance. In the end Amazon is slowly and slowly increasing number of it’s enemies.More than 50% employees leave during the very first year. At an average more than 50% employees leave amazon within the very first year. They don’t care about the stocks or the reminder of the year sign on bonus.In Amazon it’s not important what you know but whom you know is very important.Raise the bar. During the interview process, Amazonians always tries to find someone who is better than 50% of the existing work force. They call it as “raise the bar”. As per the guidelines, interviewers should treat everyone respectfully as some way or the other, everybody is the customer. But that’s not the case. During my AWS TAM position interview, I got questions only on networking. I have rated myself 2/10 on networking and rated 6 or 8 in other areas. Then why can’t they have the right interviewer for me? Later when i asked my friends who are already working they stated that almost 80% AWS TAMs are from networking, hardware, infrastructure, System Administration or DevOps background(not from Software OR Product development) and that is the reason why the interview process is so screwed up. I can witness the same in all the AWS certifications - one need to have broad level knowledge not in-depth of anything. I was not told about my interview results even after 6 months. Moreover if you are hiring better than reminder of the 50% - then why these folks leave or asked to leave within the very first 1 yr?Amazon is very centralized. More than 600K employees world wide. They should divide the company in more meaningful entities. But they are not doing it. Some reasons - Jeff Bezos want to have control. Even after his divorce, he kept the voting rights with him. Other reasons - to gain benefits in taxes, still be called H-1B independent employer in USA (less than 15% workforce on H-1B - it’s false as AWS has more than 15% workforce on H-1B visa) etc… It’s the real problem like USSR in late 70’s - too big to manage.Too much dictatorship from top management-every effort to suppress worker unions. Jeff Bezos never let Amazon employees form a union. Every attempt is done by management to suppress unions. Managers are tyrant. Employees should feel lucky if they are having good manager. There is no appeal process for any bad treatment by managers. Ethicspoint is a total joke - it’s just a way for the company to collect data from the employee so that company can prepare itself for future lawsuit. Bad managers are rewarded. Now when Joe Biden is going to be the president - there are high chances of worker unions as in the case of google - where Tech workers formed the union. Now think of forming a union in IT department of Amazon or AWS -where employer/managers encourages in fighting among the employees - they want employees to rip each other out. When amazon warehouse workers initiated union process in USA, amazon is creating obstacles like in-person voting during COVID-19 to some how delay the entire process. And to suppress Alabama unionizing efforts - they are influencing workers to vote against the unions. Influencing workers to vote against the union. Even before a single vote was cast, the union push had garnered national attention and support from figures ranging from Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders to a group of 50 Congresspeople who sent a letter Friday urging Amazon's outgoing CEO, Jeff Bezos, to "treat your employees as the critical asset they are, not as a threat to be neutralized or a cost to be minimized."Amazon want to do things at very fast rate but with lots of flaws. Just 3 months back AWS datawarehouse offering Redshift has some major bugs. Google about Redshift bugs. AWS is too much hype - they tell everything in the world about a particular offering even when it’s not ready. Sagemaker is right now having a demo project of fraud detection which was done by every onPrem Hadoop vendor 4 years back. Result of this quick and dirty work - too much support work that requires lot of co-ordination and documentation. Engineers don’t like this kind of environment and thus leave.AWS never tells about profit margin - no transparency. Every AWS Enterprise Support customer pays at least $15K per month to get the support from AWS(very junior support engineers from South Africa, India and other geographies are working for them). AWS is never willing to share the profit margins with any enterprise customer about the AWS enterprise Support. Unnecessary organization hierarchy is being created on the AWS enterprise support due to this high margins. This unnecessary organization hierarchy rather than helping or supporting the engineers sometimes misuse their authority to satisfy their king size ego. The top level managers travel a lot for their airlines mileage points while not ready to provide basic amenities to the engineers. As good number of these engineers are on OPT or H-1B visa, they are stuck at AWS otherwise the attrition may be even higher. Does AWS ever provides their customers - what is the profit margin? All the enterprise support cases are handled by CSE or even by CSA(without any monitoring of CSEs)Silent Layoffs More than half dozen TAMs/Sr. TAMs are being laid off from AWS Austin TX during year 2019. Why? Because supervisor was not liking their personality. Rather than laying off 6+ TAMs/Sr. TAMs why not lay off the culprit supervisor? Amazon says that we don’t fire or layoff the workers but ask them to leave. Asking them to leave is worse than laying off and firing the employees as such a bad situation is created so that employee can’t even survive in the company.Supervisor and HR has own interpretation of Employee policies Employee Handbook/Policies are ever changing and everybody has their own interpretation. HR and Supervisors keep on using these words about policies and guidelines “it depends”, “it will be dealt case by case basis” etc…When somebody questions then Supervisors will quote the Leadership principal “disagree and commit”.Good for nothing ERC. Any benefit related issues, it’s ERC(Employee Resource Center) which is dealing with that. ERC is all outsourced work force in India. They start working from your 11 pm EST time and have no objectives at all. ERC hires worst quality of resources in India who has no knowledge of Global laws and definitely no ownership or accountability.Wrong doing but not admitting. When a supervisor is against the employee and want to do the constructive discharge. That supervisor uses all the might to get help from HR, Employee relations, top management etc…All these folks keep on telling lies but they believe that if “1000 people tells a lie it becomes truth”. This is how any dissent or dissatisfaction among the employees is dealt with. Result employees leave for ever. They tell others and anybody still joins Amazon, they are only interested in making money, get the tag and then leave.Overall quality of work is very bad. Please refer AWS samples and AWS Labs. Only on paper everything is working. Tryout any solutions from them which were released just a month back. Most of the times, it won’t work. Refer to # of issues and pull requests, there is no action for them. Only to get name and fame, some of the folks publish these repositories with no ownership after that.Amazon growth but in negative direction. How many folks are aware that Amazon tried to launch a search engine as well as Smart phone. Both are major flops. Now CEO is trying to compete with Elan Musk’s SpaceX and going to waste all the money. Why not the same money is being used to make better conditions for warehouse and other workers who are toiling so hard?HR cannot be trusted. One of the my friend who left Amazon told me that never ever trust HRBP and Human Resources Employee relations in Amazon. These folks are agents of evil supervisors.Very less vacations. Amazon Corporate has only 6 holidays. They provide 6 personal days and advertise it a lot. Essentially it’s just 2 personal days(10–6 = 4 national holidays). During the very first year there are only 2 weeks of holidays.Is it day one or year one? Jeff keeps on stating it’s day one culture. But essentially it’s year one culture. Most of the rules in Amazon are kept such a way that any employee who left in the first year is a total loser. He/she gets only 5% stock vesting, no 401K vesting, not the bigger vacation chunk. Remember Amazon doesn’t pay you for personal days(if not used) when you are terminated. All the policies are made in favor of the employer and Amazon know very well more than 50% people are not going to stay beyond 1st year.Very bad treatment after termination. How good or bad a company is, it depends a lot how they treat you on the last day/week? Trust me not even a single Amazon employee I have come across was treated fairly - no matter the employee was good or bad? Employees are human beings and not some items in the shopping cart that Amazon is comparing one line item with another and removing/adding into the cart.Wages not being paid, employees has to earn it via lawsuits. Somebody posted in one of my questions that Amazon and it’s subsidiaries doesn’t even pay their employees. Look at various state department of labor websites. Somebody who complained stated that rather than paying the back wages for the employee, AWS hired private attorney who might be paid 5X or 10X times of the actual back wages amount. Just to save false ego, Amazon can go to any extent.More than 79% amazon employees don’t like the HR. And this is the official survey about Amazon’s HR. Yes, Connections results are conducted every day but it’s not to take action against the bad supervisors and bad policies but to finger point the employees who are providing real feedback(to boot them out). Every connection survey records the MAC ID and other details which can help to identify which employee stated what?Leadership principals are interpreted by supervisors and HR in their own way. If “disagree but commit” is a valid leadership principal then why terminate the employees and put them into pivot? Manager and HR should commit for long term relationship of employee and employer even when they disagree(that employee is not perceived to be doing good which is not true in most of the cases). Internal reports states that once somebody is put on performance improvement plan or pivot - more than 99% cases they are booted out. There is no appeal process.Forcing workers to work even during the COVID-19 crisis just for profitabilityExtreme retaliation against the workers who raises their voice. Chris Smalls and several others.First discrimination followed by retaliation. It’s very common in Amazon and it’s subsidiaries that first the company would like to discriminate for whatever reasons. Expectation from the employee is to tolerate it. But if the employee speaks up then retaliation will start. Many such cases like thisKilling the competition. And this is how Amazon kills the competition. When Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more Inc.’s venture-capital fund invested in DefinedCrowd Corp., it gained access to the technology startup’s finances and other confidential information. Nearly four years later, in April, Amazon’s cloud-computing unit launched an artificial-intelligence product that does almost exactly what DefinedCrowd does, said DefinedCrowd founder and Chief Executive Daniela Braga. So literally they are following the HBO’s silicon valley serial where some crooked company steals the secret from others while asking for the presentation.Stack Ranking, Pivot, the Dev List, Performance Improvement plans, forced attrition, and being managed out. These are the real reasons. I’ve personally heard horror stories from top employees who have had their managers create document-able lies about their performance, force them into unattainable performance reviews, and essentially create a hostile work environment which forces them to quit. This is 100% illegal. Amazon knows it and settles these cases all the time. Hiring managers and talent scouts need to be more up front about the risks associated with working with Amazon. Employees are pitted against each other. Employees vent out on each other on the daily basis. Refer this about the devlist. Employees are not even aware that they are on devlist. Generally managers deliberately put the employees on devlist whom they believe could leave the group. This way manager blocks the employee to get into some other group. Then this manager squeezes this employee(on devlist) like anything. This is called modern day slavery.Mediocre Employees being hired. In fact if you go thru all the profiles of folks working in AWS. You will find a pattern:Majority of them in USA are Asian Indians with Masters. These folks were kids of rich parents who bought them Engineering degrees from mediocre private engineering colleges on payment seats. Later these folks did MS only for 20K H-1B quota. They were not interested in Masters or Advanced degree but just eyeing for H-1B visa.As they are on H-1B, they will stay as Amazon is the largest Green card sponsor company in USA now. They don’t like Amazon but they will stay here just for their green card processing.All these folks had a very short term tenure in their prior jobs like not even a single company where they had worked for 2, 3, 4 or 5 years. But in AWS they are sticking for more time. What one can derive from this?and it’s a vicious cycle - first H1B visa(1st year), then Green card processing(2nd year) and then wait till the 4th year for stock vesting. See what Ronil Hira testified in front of the senate committee about H-1B visa and L-1 visa displacing US workers. It’s multi generation Asian Indian talking about how H-1B and L-1 are systematically replacing US workers and companies save millions of $$$. Needless to say AWS is on the brink of “H-1B dependent employer” as they have 12% of their work force which is H-1B visa.they are not here for any Amazon’s leadership principal like customer obsession or working backwards but simply for their own personal gains.Hearty welcome when you come in and we will show you our colors when you want to go out. When employees get in - they are made to realize that you are lucky to get a job out here. But when the employees are kicked out - they receive the worst possible treatment. Same is the case how Amazon and AWS behaves when dealing with others. For example it’s very difficult to get out of amazon prime membership and return the items once you bought from amazon.com . Similarly AWS is very nice when you are bringing your workload and data to them but when you want to go out of AWS - they will rip you off.Amazon management keeps an eye on the workers always. Do you know that if you are using Kindle(device or app on Windows or Android or IoS platform) Kindle collects all the data and send it amazon? why? Well Amazon has the answer - we are collecting data for some statistics. Same with Alexa in your home. And you wonder if Amazon is trying to keep an eye over the consumers - well they were doing this for decades in the work environment also. Just to suppress unionizing and other efforts, amazon had surveillance.Even after leaving Amzon - the company will haunt you. Read this. AWS/Amazon constantly harassed him. It’s employment at will in USA and amazon often uses this to fire employees. But employee leaves them they have an issue. Amazon truly believe in modern day slavery. Shit always flows from top. This is what Mr. Jeff Bezos did once he was caught cheating with his wife.Opposing unionization at all cost. Just to oppose unions, Amazon made sure that there are in-person voting for Alabama union election even during COVID-19/pandemic era. Management in fact reached out to the workers to stay out of union by voting against it.Stealing wages from the workers. FTC recently found Amazon intentionally took money from drivers paycheck and then fined Amazon regarding the same.Fighting with others - all over the world. In India(2nd biggest market after China), Amazon is using all it’s war machine to defeat Reliance by hook and crookAmazon fight with almost all the state/federal agencies even when most of the time they are wrong. For instance in case of US Alabama warehouse workers, amazon deliberately insisted on in-person voting during COVID-19. At one side Amazon writes to new president elect Joe Biden to have Vaccines their employees and distribute the vaccines which may look at the external world and their ignorant employees that they do care about the employees but it’s just the opposite. If Amazon really cares about the employees why they are so dogmatic in terms of in-person voting for Alabama warehouse workers and which was finally refused by NLRB. Is Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy going in-person to their office? Then why ask the warehouse workers for in-person voting? NLRB understood these dirty tricks of Amazon’s management and realized that it’s nothing but to thwart unionization of the workers and allowed mail in votes by workers during COVID-19.That’s show the overall double standards of Amazon.New York Attorney General sues Amazon, alleging 'deficient' Covid-19 response. How well Amazon handled spread of COVID-19 in Amazon? Even New Attorney General’s office has to sue amazon for that. These kind of agencies generally try to avoid suing others.Amazon can go down to any extent to suppress worker’s dissent. In order to suppress Unionization in Alabama, Amazon changed traffic light timing during union drive As part of its ongoing fight over an Alabama warehouse’s efforts to unionize, Amazon reportedly changed the timing of a traffic light outside the warehouse, according to reporting by More Perfect Union. Union organizers at the site had previously accused the company of altering the timing so that pro-union workers would not be able to canvass workers while stopped at the light. Until recently, the altered timing on the traffic light outside the factory had been dismissed as a rumor. But More Perfect Union confirmed with Jefferson County officials that last year, Amazon notified the county of traffic delays during shift changes and asked for the light to be changed. On December 15th, the county increased the green light duration in an effort to clear workers off the worksite faster. There’s no indication that the county was aware of the ongoing organizing drive or any effect the traffic light changes might have on the effort.Who is worse - President Trump or Amazon? Look at the article at nytimes . Just the way President Trump tried to undermine voting in the 2020 elections, same is the approach of Amazon regarding union elections in Alabama.Amazon going to any extent to stop the unionization effort. Refer to this article which talks about why unions are necessary in large employers like amazon which does everything to exploit the workers. Amazon is running a website to sabotage the unionization efforts.Amazon is putting cameras in its delivery vans and some drivers aren't happy. Delivery driver's work environment is set to change as Amazon announced this month that it has begun to roll out cameras inside its delivery vehicles that monitor both the road, and its drivers."If one thing messes up, I'm going to freak out," Elizabeth told CNN Business. "That's my job, it's over. They're going to see it on camera." Amazon is going further and embracing cameras consistently pointed at drivers, which rely on artificial intelligence to voice real-time feedback. Drivers will get real-time warnings if they run a stop sign, tailgate, or are distracted.Amazon drivers say negative experiences with the company's existing driver monitoring system contribute to their concerns.Victor Fuentes, an Amazon driver in California, has said on YouTube that he hates the cameras, as he sometimes needs to bend or break rules to get his work done quickly. For more, refer this. The decision sparked some backlash, and one driver told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the policy change had driven him to quit, calling it an invasion of privacy. In the report about a driver quitting as a result of this new system, the former employee saw the system as a "sort of coercion." Amazon has faced controversy over claims of surveillance in the past. In January of this year, more than 200 workers signed a petition sent to the CEO Jeff Bezos asking for an end to what the employees called "labor surveillance" ahead of unionization efforts.Amazon Executive Fired After Upgrading Flight. It's very common for any long hours flight(if it is more than 8 hours duration) to fly in business class or something more than a bare minimum economy class. But Amazon fired it's executive, Marc Sadeghi(Global head of visual effects for Amazon Studios) when he upgraded his 14 hours long flight to New Zealand. After return from his trip, HR told him that his assistant had made complaint against him for something that he is not even aware of(of course HR in Amazon is really good in making up the things) and fired him. Just think of this company Amazon, if they can fire Global head level executive, how they are treating other low level workers who have no voice or recourse or access to legal system. Amazon Executive sued amazon after this. Recording some other employee in Amazon is not allowed as per the policy but here HR used the recording from the assistant to make a case against this executive. Every terms and conditions are twisted by Amazon in it’s own favor.AMZN’s work culture is atrocious. Boys club, PIPs out the wazoo, and general penny pinching. If Bezos could treat the VPs and Engineers the way he treats warehouse workers without mass quitting, he would.The NYT article from a few years ago is accurate and nothing has changed.Not good for Blacks or African American communities. More than a dozen current or former employees at Amazon's corporate headquarters say they witnessed systematic disadvantages for Black and underrepresented workers, according to Recode. The tech news website quoted an Amazon diversity manager, who said: "We struggle to bring [Black] folks in because there's not a whole lot of desire, in my opinion, to go outside of our normal practices." Once inside the company, those employees sometimes had difficulty advancing, the manager told the outlet. For more information, please refer thisAmazon hit with federal suit alleging race and gender discrimination. The suit was filed by Charlotte Newman, a Black woman who joined Amazon four years ago as a public policy manager and currently works as head of underrepresented founder startup business development at Amazon Web Services.The suit says Newman originally applied for a higher-level job but was hired on as public policy manager.“Within months of starting at the company, she in fact was assigned and doing the work of a senior manager-level employee while still being paid at and having the title of the manager level. To make matters worse, and in defiance of the anti discrimination laws, Ms. Newman was paid significantly less than her white coworkers, particularly in valuable Amazon stock," says the suit. For more info, refer thisFinally Jeff Bezos will be paying some income taxes but look at the overall income disparity in Amazon. Jeff Bezos would owe $5.7 billion in taxes for 2020 under the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act proposed by a group of Senate and House Democrats and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Sanders, I-Vt., and others unveiled their proposed wealth tax, saying it would raise trillions in much-needed revenue and help reduce a wealth divide that has only grown wider during the pandemic. The tax would be a 2% annual levy on wealth over $50 million and 3% on wealth over $1 billion. Think how much Jeff Bezos is earning compared to what average Amazon worker earns(less than $15 per hour). Now Mr. Bezos will use his ditty tricks department to somehow not to pay this tax.Richest man but still the greediest. Now look at what happened to this lawsuit. Obviously anybody who is going to sue Jeff Bezos won’t be having this much money what Jeff Bezos is having. This greedy CEO asked for too much in damages. Even the Judge found that it’s unreasonable. Jeff Bezos wanted $1.7 million in legal fees from his girlfriend’s brother for successfully fighting off his defamation lawsuit. He got much less. A Los Angeles judge awarded the world’s richest man $218,385, saying Amazon’s founder needlessly put too many lawyers on the case. Even though the defamation fight was more complicated than usual, more than 2,070 hours billed in the case were “not reasonable,”Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John Doyle said in a ruling on Friday.“This was not a matter that required seven partners and 11 associates,” Doyle said. Read hereAmazon expands gamification program that encourages warehouse employees to work harder. Amazon is expanding an existing program that gamifies warehouse work to encourage its fulfillment center employees to improve their efficiency and compete against others for digital rewards like virtual pets, according to a new report from The Information. The program is called FC Games, and it includes as many as six arcade-style mini-games that can be played only by completing warehouse tasks in the workplace. It’s been known since at least 2019 that Amazon uses gamification in the form of workstation games to try to incentivize employees to improve productivity, but The Information reports that Amazon is now expanding those methods to warehouses in at least 20 states throughout the country. Many of the games tend to be simple virtual representations of how fast the worker is completing a task. One, called MissionRacer, moves a car around a track while a picking employee sorts products into appropriate boxes, as reported by The Washington Post at the time. But how dare they trick their employees into having fun?Amazon employee testifying in US Senate to speak the truth about the working conditions at Amazon. An Amazon warehouse employee testified before the Senate Budget Committee on Wednesday about the "grueling" working conditions that led her and others to organize the milestone union election currently underway in Bessemer, Alabama. "Amazon brags it pays workers above the minimum wage. What they don't tell you is what those jobs are really like," said Jennifer Bates in her testimony. "We have to keep up with the pace. My workday feels like a nine-hour intense workout every day. And they track our every move -- if your computer isn't scanning, you get charged with being time-off-task," said Bates, a learning ambassador who helps train other workers at the facility and who has been a vocal organizer behind the union push. "From the onset, I learned that if I worked too slow or had too much time-off-task I could be disciplined or even fired." Amazon spokesperson denied Ms. Bates comments as usual. Mr. Jeff Bezos was also invited but he prefer to run away—he is bigger than Almighty God it seems.Black employees are paid less and have to wait more for promotion, another AWS employee sued Amazon. An Amazon employee filed a lawsuit Monday accusing the tech giant of deliberately paying her and other Black employees less than their White counterparts, becoming the latest on a growing list of current and former Amazon workers to accuse the company of systemic racism. In her complaint, Charlotte Newman, a 38-year-old Black woman who lives in Washington DC, said Amazon Web Services hired her four years ago to work as a public policy manager even though she had applied for and said she was qualified to work as a higher-level senior manager, a practice Newman suggests is routine."Many of Ms. Newman's colleagues observed a consistent practice of paying Black employees less than similarly situated White employees, and a near-total lack of Black representation in and very few women in the upper echelons of the group's leadership," Newman's attorneys wrote in the complaint, filed in federal court in Washington, DC.The complaint also accuses the company of "de-leveling" Black employees when they are hired — "dropping them a level below the job they applied and were qualified for or will be performing." This high profile case is right now in Federal court with jury trial.Another black employee left Amazon due to sad state of affairs. When Chanin Kelly-Rae started working at Amazon in 2019 as a global manager of diversity in the company’s cloud computing division, she had big ambitions for her new job. She had nearly two decades of experience leading diversity and inclusion efforts inside important institutions, like Washington state’s governor’s office, but she’d never worked at an influential global business leader like Amazon.But less than a year later, Kelly-Rae quit. Her tenure inside the company convinced her that Amazon’s corporate workplace has deep, systemic issues that disadvantage Black employees and workers from other underrepresented backgrounds. And she was dismayed by her perception that Amazon leadership was unwilling to listen to internal experts about how to identify and fix these problems. “Amazon was not doing things in a way that represents best practices that would advance diversity and inclusion in any way that is meaningful and thoughtful,” she told Recode. “Let me add: Amazon appeared to be taking steps backward instead of forward.”Amazon workers go on strike in Italy over labor conditions Amazon warehouse and delivery workers in Italy have gone on a 24-hour strike to call on the company to make changes to workloads, shifts and benefits. Trade unions FILT-CGIL, FIT-CISL and Uiltrasporti said it’s the first strike to affect Amazon’s entire logistics operations in Italy.The strike comes as tensions have grown between Amazon and its front-line workforce in Europe and the U.S. amid the coronavirus pandemic. Warehouse workers in Italy and other parts of Europe went on strike last year to call on Amazon to implement greater coronavirus safety measures. Workers across the U.S. also participated in walkouts and protests last year to highlight similar concerns.Amazon delivery drivers have to consent to AI surveillance in their vans or lose their jobs. But after installing machine learning-powered surveillance cameras in its delivery vans earlier this year, the company is now telling employees: agree to be surveilled by AI or lose your job. As first reported by Vice, Amazon delivery drivers in the US now have to sign “biometric consent” forms to continue working for the retailing giant. Exactly what information is being collected seems to vary based on what surveillance equipment has been installed in any given van, but Amazon’s privacy policy (embedded below) covers a wide range of data.The data that drivers must consent to be collected includes photographs used to verify their identity; vehicle location and movements (including “miles driven, speed, acceleration, braking, turns, following distance”); “potential traffic violations” (like speeding, failure to stop at stop signs, and undone seatbelts); and “potentially risky driver behavior, such as distracted driving or drowsy driving.”Amazon removes workers from an internal directory as part of union busting. The new controversy centers on Amazon deleting the profiles of hundreds of thousands of entry-level warehouse employees.Last week, Amazon made changes to its internal online staff directory, deleting hundreds of thousands of entry-level warehouse workers’ profiles from a tool that allows any company employee to view the full names and photos of other employees.The employee directory in question is known as the Amazon Phone Tool, which allows employees of all levels to do things like search for other employees anywhere in the company, see where they work, and view the hierarchy of managers all the way up to Jeff Bezos. The tool also allows employees to create or accumulate virtual awards and icons for everything from making it through the peak holiday shopping season to acing a quiz about the company’s leadership principles. Previously, all entry-level warehouse workers — known as Tier 1 associates in Amazon parlance — had profiles in this directory and would turn up in search results. But as of last week, Amazon removed them.In Trumpian move, Jeff Bezos reportedly orders Amazon chiefs to hit back at critics and they are hitting back at elected representative like Senators also.The behavior of the Amazon News corporate account and of executive Dave Clark on Twitter over the past week, lashing out at prominent critics in an uncharacteristically spiteful and petty manner, calls that seemingly obvious proposition into question. Turns out there may be a good explanation for that. The boss may have taken matters into his own hands. As reported by Recode, Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, with enough money to do anything he could ever imagine besides this, appears to be behind the change in tone. And it’s not just the pugnacious style of the tweets that have a distinctly Trumpian echo, it’s also the motivation behind them: he doesn’t think the company is punching back hard enough at its critics.German union calls four-day strike at Amazon sites ahead of Easter. The trade union Verdi has called for workers at six Amazon sites in Germany to go on strike from Sunday evening for four days in the latest attempt to try to force the U.S. e-commerce group to recognize collective bargaining agreements.Amazon’s aggressive PR campaign ahead of union vote shows how worried it is, labor and antitrust experts say. Amazon is playing an aggressive defense against its critics as it stares down a historic union vote at one of its warehouses in Alabama. In recent days, Amazon has sparred with a handful of high-profile lawmakers on Twitter over its working conditions, tax policies and threats to break up Big Tech. The jabs came from Amazon’s official social media account, which counts close to 175,000 followers, and Dave Clark, the company’s consumer boss.Amazon Recruited Twitter Army to Defend Company and CEO Jeff Bezos, Leaked Document Reveals A leaked document reveals how Amazon recruited a number of ambassadors to defend the online reputation of the company and its CEO, Jeff Bezos. The Intercept published the internal document uncovering the secret project, which Amazon allegedly conceived in 2018 under the codename "Veritas." The 10-page dossier shares details of how the company handpicked employees, specifically those with a "clean HR record" and "great sense of humor," and then trained them to confront critics on social media and online forums in a "polite, blunt way.""To address speculation and false assertions in social media and online forums about the quality of the FC [Fulfillment Center] associate experience, we are creating a new social team staffed with active, tenured FC employees, who will be empowered to respond in a polite—but blunt—way to every untruth," reads the program summary. "FC Ambassadors ('FCA') will respond to all posts and comments from customers, influencers (including policymakers), and media questioning the FC associate experience." So much money to waste on army of attorneys and liars, why not amazon looks for ways to treat employees well and compensate them for their hard work?Amazon finally acknowledges delivery driver bathroom problem. Amazon acknowledged Friday that it has a looming problem.The web giant fessed up that its delivery drivers have limited access to bathrooms, meaning that accusations of them urinating in bottles or elsewhere in public are likely to be true.“We know that drivers can and do have trouble finding restrooms because of traffic or sometimes rural routes,” the online retail giant posted on its AboutAmazon portal. “And this has been especially the case during Covid when many public restrooms have been closed.” The admission comes following a Twitter spat with Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.) last month in which the congressman accused Amazon of being a union-busting operation that will “make workers urinate in water bottles.” So even now when Amazon acknowledged the issue but Amazon is still blaming COVID-19 which made Amazon and Jeff Bezos ultra rich.'Harsh' and 'Heartless': Amazon's Automation Is Causing a Spike in Employee Lawsuits An inability to reach an agreement with the company on accommodation of a work-related injury or health issue is a common thread in many of the Amazon suits. Lawyers who’ve litigated against Amazon said a recurring issue in the employment litigation is the anonymous, bureaucratic face the company presents in its dealings with employees who seek answers on such workplace issues as disability leave. And that’s due in part to the high level of automation in the human resources department, those lawyers said.The National Labor Relations Board found Amazon illegally fired workers who criticized warehouse conditions. The National Labor Relations Board has reportedly determined that Amazon last year illegally fired two employees who spoke out publicly against warehouse conditions and pushed the company to address climate change. The agency told the employees, Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, that it would accuse Amazon of unfair labor practices if the online retail giant doesn't settle the case, reported The New York Times on Monday, citing correspondence shared by Cunningham. Amazon fired the two tech workers in April 2020 after they spoke out publicly against warehouse conditions during the coronavirus pandemic. User experience designers Cunningham and Costa, both active members of the advocacy group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, had offered match donations up to $500 for warehouse workers, citing insufficient protections.Unfair labor practices by Amazon. Amazon pressed USPS to install a mailbox outside the warehouse to defeat union move. The union has complained about the mailbox, which the Postal Service installed just before the start of mail-in balloting for the union election in early February. It has argued that the mailbox could lead workers to think Amazon has some role in collecting and counting ballots, which could influence their votes.Worker died then Amazon lied. Jody Rhoads was a 52-year-old mother and breast cancer survivor in Carlisle, PA. Her neck was crushed by a steel rack while she was driving a forklift in an Amazon warehouse, killing her. “We do not believe that the incident was work related,” an Amazon manager reported to the federal government, falsely suggesting her death was from natural causes. Refer Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America by Alec MacGillisAmazon wrongly brags about minimum wages and responsible for economic inequality. MacGillis tells the story of three generations of Bodani men who worked in the Sparrows Point steel mill, near Baltimore. The youngest, William Bodani Jr., was making $35 an hour in 2002 (about $52 in today’s dollars), along with bonuses. That’s enough for a solid middle-class income.With the steel mill gone from Sparrows Point, Bodani instead took a job at the Amazon warehouse that occupies the same land. He was in his late 60s at the time and was making a fraction of what he once had. Refer Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America by Alec MacGillisEven Jeff Bezos addressed concerns about the firm's treatment of its workers.In his final letter to shareholders as the company's chief executive, he addressed concerns about the firm's treatment of its workers.This is how Amazon won the rigged union election.Amazon "created the impression of surveillance" of the mailbox because it maintains security cameras in the parking lot, the filing states. Beyond the mailbox, the union alleged that prior to the start of the election, which began in early February, Amazon "agents" threatened that workers could lose benefits, including health insurance, or that the warehouse may even close if the union effort were successful. The company also allegedly emailed employees that it would have to cut thousands of workers because of the union. In its filing, the union also alleged that Amazon attempted to stifle some of its workers and union organizers through a variety of tactics, including selectively enforcing social distancing policies to crack down on employees discussing support for the union, and terminating a union-supporting worker for passing out union authorization cards in non-working areas. The union alleged this "had a chilling effect on support for the union." We won't let Amazon's lies, deception and illegal activities go unchallenged, which is why we are formally filing charges against all of the egregious and blatantly illegal actions taken by Amazon during the union vote," the statement said.Amazon.com: FULFILLMENT Winning and Losing in One-Click Americahttps://www.amazon.com/s?k=FULFILLMENT+Winning+and+Losing+in+One-Click+America&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

Pre-launchPrior to the channell's launch, the original concept for providing continuous weather reports to the public over television stations stretched as far back as the late 1950s and early 1960s on the varying incarnations of CATV. Through those systems, which typically brought in up to a dozen stations to the viewer from across the region, twelve slots on a cable dial would often leave a few vacancies.Early cable providers then devised a system where a single black and white camera, often one that was formerly used for local news production after an upgrade, would be placed on a rotating pedestal, capturing various dials and gauges on different stations to which it would pan automatically and remain in a given view for a few seconds before moving on. The different stations featured the time, temperature, barometer, wind speed, wind direction, and wind chill factor. Slides with the day's complete forecast, brief news headlines and community events often drawn up by the station's art department rounded out the package. This was the same system as that used by the early Devotional Channels and for the Stations of the Cross during the Christmas season.The Weather Channel itself was the brainchild of veteran television meteorologist John Coleman (former chief meteorologist at WLS-TV in Chicago and Good Morning America forecaster), who took his idea to Frank Batten, the then-chief executive officer of Landmark Communications.[1] A major part of the plan for the new network was that it would be able to provide localized weather information to its viewers. This would be done through the use of specialized computer units, known as WeatherStars ("STAR" being an acronym for "Satellite Transponder Addressable Receiver"), which would be installed at the headends of cable providers that agreed to carry the channel. These WeatherStars were able to insert current local conditions, forecasts and weather warnings over the national feed, with the weather data being received from the vertical blanking interval of the TWC video feed and via satellite, which is then transmitted to the WeatherStar unit; the WeatherStar systems would also be capable of adding or removing segments seen during each local forecast segment, and providing other forms of non-forecast data (primarily local contact and address information for businesses advertised on the channel's national feed, which the STAR unit overlaid on a static graphic seen after certain commercials). The Weather Channel, Inc. was founded in Atlanta, Georgia on July 18, 1980.The early years (May 1982–March 1986)The Weather Channel launched on Sunday, May 2, 1982. Programming began with an introduction to the channel by Batten and Coleman, which led into an inauguration ceremony that launched the channel's first official broadcast at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time that evening, anchored by meteorologists Bruce Edwards and André Bernier. The channel originally focused on strictly providing weather reports and other meteorological information for the United States and other countries. The Weather Channel originally gathered its national and regional forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its local forecasts were sourced from the various National Weather Service Weather Forecast Offices around the country. After only one year in the role, in 1983, John Coleman was forced out as the channel's president and CEO; at that time, he returned to his previous occupation as a television weather anchor, first becoming employed at WCBS-TV in New York City.The original Weather Star I model often interfered with the channel 2 signal at the cable headend; this issue was fixed with the upgrade to the Weather Star II in January 1984. The channel later rolled out Weather Star III, the third-generation STAR unit, to cable providers – which began upgrading to the system in early 1986; the Star III included additional hardware improvements, and also added several extra forecast and observation features.On June 17, 1986, The Weather Channel switched to an anchor format, and was relaunched as The New Weather Channel. Meteorologist Charlie Welsh said "Good afternoon everyone and welcome to The New Weather Channel. We're covering the weather for you everything you do". The campaign included a custom lyrical theme (which was remixed in 1989) – two versions of which were created: a full one-minute theme that was rarely seen on-air, and a more commonly seen 30-second version. In 1989, the channel introduced Prime Time Tonight, a three-minute segment that appeared eight times daily from 7:57 to 11:27 p.m., which served as guide to programs airing on other cable channels and provided airtime information and video clips.1990 saw the introduction of the first Weather Star 4000 models, which similar to the Weather Star III, originally generated only text-based products. Radar imagery was added to the units in June of that year, with graphical backgrounds being introduced in July, making the 4000 the first STAR to be capable of generating graphics and the first to incorporate the channel's logo in the forecast segments. Also in 1990, The Weather Channel began including snow condition reports at five minutes after the hour."Largely considered the height of the classic TWC by enthusiasts, The Weather Channel underwent a major graphical revamp (with the introduction of a new slogan, "Weather You Can Always Turn To") on March 6, 1991. Graphic elements included heavy use of gradients and the Caxton typeface. On July 3, The Weather Channel Connection, a toll-free phone service providing weather information, the phone number was reassigned in 1992 to 1-900-WEATHER, a number was also used to promote the service in on-air and print advertisements. On November 1, The Weather Channel filed for a trademark on TWC, a common shortening of the name that was sometimes seen on-air.By 1993, The Weather Channel was available to 90% of U.S. households with cable television service. On January 10, 1994, TWC placed an order to build 1,000 units for a new STAR model known as the Weather Star Jr, a budget model developed by Wegener Communications, which builds equipment for cable headends.1995 brought a variety of changes to TWC, setting the stage for more changes that occurred the following year. Minor graphical tweaks were made, while local forecast segments began incorporating Short Term Forecasts issued by local National Weather Service offices as the "Local Update" (which in turn destabilized flavor lineups and caused the discontinuation of narration). The 30-Day Outlook was discontinued by the National Weather Service (which required TWC to discontinue the product). New programs included the introductions of WeatherScope (a top/bottom of the hour weather discussion) and a special on how weather affected the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7. That year also featured the premiere of Sky on Fire, a documentary on lightning. The music of Trammell Starks, used on Weatherscan and emergency cases since 2000, premiered at the end of the year with Starks' various other music pieces being used by the channel until early 2012.In two years, The Weather Channel dramatically changed its on-air presentation. The first wave of change came on April 15, 1996, with the introduction of a new slogan ("No Place on Earth Has Better Weather"), that was heralded with a trio of humorous spots promoting the accuracy of TWC's weather coverage. Months later, The Weather Channel received its biggest graphical overhaul since 1991, the modernization of TWC's presentation included the introduction of a newer, flatter logo (although its previous logo remained in use on some segments, and some specialty segments retained narration by Dan Chandler and/or the previous TWC logo into late 1997[12]), as well as a new graphics package featuring rotating globes and compass points for introductions, and new music. 1996 also saw the launch of The Weather Channel's website,The Weather Channel logo used from 1996 to 2005; this logo was still used on the Weather Star 4000.On October 15, 1996, Landmark Communications purchased a building at 300 Interstate North (near the junction of Interstates 75 and 285 in Atlanta) to house The Weather Channel's operations. Landmark had been looking for new studio facilities for the channel, and requirements included 18-foot ceilings. Improvements were made to bring the building up to code before TWC moved into its new headquarters at the end of 1996 (but it did not begin broadcasting from the facility until early 1997). By 1996, The Weather Channel reached 63 million homes, with average ratings totaling at 130,000 viewers at that time.On March 31, 1997, the channel revised its programming schedule with the introduction of a news wheel format. On August 25, the channel debuted a memorable advertising campaign, The Front, created by ad agency TBWA Chiat/Day. The promos (which used the slogan, "Weather Fans, You're Not Alone") were set in something akin to a sports bar, with the major difference being that weather was the central focus. That October, 1997 World Series became the first major event that TWC covered with live reporters.] New title bars were introduced for national segments on January 6, 1998.The second wave of change (March 1998–June 2001)On March 11, 1998, TWC introduced a graphical refresh, featuring heavy use of the Akzidenz-Grotesk typeface and footage of clouds at the core of the new identity (though maps with the new look had been in use since January of that year). For the first time in the channel's history, there was no slogan or unifying theme, aside from an oval symbol with a crescent shape seen frequently in graphics (such as the Weather Center titlecard on the right). WeatherScope was replaced with Weather Center, a program which essentially comprised The Weather Channel's entire 24-hour daily programming schedule at the time in the form of three separate programs (Weather Center AM, a morning program focusing primarily on business, commuter and leisure travel weather; Weather Center PM, an evening program with a focus on forecasts for the day ahead; and an afternoon broadcast simply using the Weather Center title, which focused on ongoing weather conditions). April 1998 saw updates to "The Front" image campaign; one of the new advertisements specifically mentioned the 36-hour text forecasts (which, at the time, were still supplied by the National Weather Service), but heralded new Local Forecast graphics. The machine that produced those graphics, the IRIX-based Weather Star XL, was released to cable providers later that year as the first new mainline STAR unit manufactured in eight years. The catalyst for a top-to-bottom modernization of the local forecast segment, the XL's graphical and technological capabilities were significantly more advanced than the 4000, with an animated, high-quality output consistent with TWC's national graphics and new scalable icons that would be used for eight years on TWC1999 brought the removal of the unpredictable-length Local Update product on the Weather Star 4000, which stabilized flavor lineups. Also in 1999, The Weather Channel launched a spin-off network called Weatherscan Local (now Weatherscan), a channel offering continuous weather information 24 hours a day, which exclusively provided local forecasts generated by specialized STAR units. Originally exclusive to Comcast systems, cable operators could add optional packages featuring expanded weather information or specialty forecasts (such as golf, boat and beach, or marine weather) to their Weatherscan STAR systems. The Weather Channel also appointed Decker Anstrom to serve as president of the network. By 1999, The Weather Channel reached 70 million homes, or 98% of all households that subscribe to cable television. It also provided radio forecasts to more than 250 radio stations and weather information to 52 newspapers. Between 1999 and 2000, TWC aired weather observation reports from Mount Everest using battery-powered sensors.In 2000, the channel's Weather Star XL systems introduced an audio function, Vocal Local, which assembles narration tracks heard during local forecast segments to introduce forecast products, and read descriptive forecasts and primary weather observations; while most cable operators added the Vocal Local feature, some did not employ it on their Weather Star XL units. The cycling of music playlist changes was increased from a quarterly to a monthly basis; as such, 2000 is considered to be the year the split between the "classic" TWC and "modern" TWC occurred by several websites. On August 23 of that year, the channel debuted Atmospheres, a weekly newsmagazine-style program hosted by Jim Cantore and Mishelle "Mish" Michaels. Also in 2000, The Weather Channel starting moving away from showing 24/7 Weather Center with the introduction of two new morning programs: First Outlook (5-7am) and Your Weather Today (7-9am). Weather Center AM now only broadcast from 9am to noon on weekdays, however it continued to air full-time on weekends until early 2001.In 2001, Weatherscan introduced forecast products compiled by TWC, which replaced the zone forecasts sourced from National Weather Service forecast offices. Whereas the NWS forecasts were produced for various U.S. jurisdictions (counties, parishes and boroughs), the new TWC forecasts focused on more individual areas, beneficial to multi-county viewing zones served by one STAR. In May 2001, TWC launched "Rays Awareness", an initiative focused on sun safety, in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and American Academy of Dermatology.On June 25, 2001, The Weather Channel introduced completely redesigned introductions for its local forecast segments and forecast programs, as well as a new slogan ("Live By It"). The separate morning Weather Center AM and nighttime Weather Center PM programs were also discontinued, with Weather Center becoming a single general program rather than existing in the form of three separate daypart-specific editions, having been significantly pared down with the introduction of new programs such as Evening Edition (weeknights 9pm-3am (including long-form programs)) and Weekend Now (weekends 5-11am). The Weather Star XL received a graphical refresh for the first time in September 2001, which included the introduction of different colors on text boxes, a new cloud background, improved regional forecast and radar maps, and new title bars and fonts that, as with the previous version, matched the on-air graphics that were used by TWC at the time.In April 2002, the TWC-compiled local forecasts introduced the previous year on Weatherscan replaced the forecasts sourced by the National Weather Service on the WeatherStar systems. As NWS bulletins/warnings were included in the old forecasts, a Weather Bulletins page was introduced that displays the applicable watches, warnings and advisories (on WeatherStar 4000 units, The Weather Channel incorporates National Weather Service bulletins in the text-based local forecast, as the 4000 does not feature the Weather Bulletins slide among its products). TWC celebrated its 20th anniversary in May 2002; in honor of the event, the channel premiered a retrospective special, as well as a book chronicling the channel's history, The Weather Channel: The Improbable Rise of a Media Phenomenon, written by TWC founder Frank Batten and Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and published by Harvard Business Press.The first long-form programs debuted on The Weather Channel at the beginning of 2003, with Storm Stories becoming the first program that was not weather or a documentary-type special. Also in 2003, the "Live By It" campaign was refreshed slightly. Weatherscan received a new graphical design in February and moved to a modern STAR platform, known as the IntelliStar. The FreeBSD-based IntelliStar is more flexible than the IRIX-based Star XL for making software and product updates. Plans to revive "The Front" as a weather discussion board were proposed and scrapped that year.STAR systems were introduced and decommissioned during 2004. The IntelliStar systems began to be rolled out to various cable providers around the U.S. to generate The Weather Channel's local forecasts and Lower Display Line. The Weather Star III was also discontinued from service as it did not meet DTMF tone and weather warning regulations. In October 2004, the United States Postal Service and TWC teamed up to create stamps depicting clouds and an accompanying "Cloudscapes" educational campaign – aimed at kids in grades 3 through 5 – to help learn about cloud types to tell of pending weather conditions that was sent to 200,000 educators around the U.S., was unveiled at the Blue Hill Observatory in Boston, Massachusetts.In early 2005, The Weather Channel announced that it would undergo a major branding refresh in August. The rebranding was part of a long-running effort aimed at reducing the network's dependence on "commodity" viewers (those looking for forecast information) and attracting what then-TWC president Patrick Scott calls "vitalists" (those with an active interest in weather) and "planners" using the channel to plan the week.[25] The new look officially debuted on August 15, 2005 at 5:00 a.m. Eastern Time, which included the debut of a simplified square logo and a new slogan ("Bringing Weather to Life"). Additional long-form programs were also introduced, such as the climate-focused The Climate Code with Dr. Heidi Cullen (later renamed Forecast Earth) and It Could Happen Tomorrow.In May 2007, The Weather Channel celebrated its 25th anniversary. To commemorate the event, select past Weather Channel promotional campaigns were featured on-air during commercial breaks; a modified 25th anniversary edition of its logo was also used. On June 17 of that year, TWC entered into an exclusive partnership with MSNBC to provide weather content for the MSNBC On September 26, The Weather Channel launched a high-definition simulcast feed; it also introduced a major refresh for the IntelliStar, with new titles and backgrounds on October 23.2008 started with uncertainty, as reports surfaced about sexual harassment allegations regarding on-camera meteorologist Bob Stokes. Fellow TWC meteorologist Hillary Andrews filed a lawsuit against The Weather Channel in Cobb County district court alleging the abuse by Stokes (in which she alleged Stokes made suggestive statements to her such as "will you lick my swizzle stick" and that TWC "covered [the harassment] up"). Andrews won her lawsuit that May, and was awarded an undisclosed amount of money. During the proceedings, it was revealed that Melissa Barrington, who co-anchored alongside Stokes before Andrews was assigned the duties, was also harassed by Stokes. At the same time, Landmark Communications announced it would be selling most of its assets, including broadcast television stations, newspapers, The Weather Channel, and data center facilities.On June 2, 2008, The Weather Channel unveiled its first major modernization since 2005. This included the introduction of new graphics and opening title sequences for every TWC program, a new lower display line for IntelliStar units that incorporates tabs (another first) to serve as a rundown for the forecast data being shown on the LDL, and a full thrust into the channel's new high definition studio and set. By August 12, the channel stopped broadcasting its forecast programming from its former studio facilities at the Cumberland headquarters, which would eventually be converted into offices.On July 7, 2008, NBC Universal and private equity firms The Blackstone Group and Bain Capital purchased The Weather Channel and all related assets (including Weather Services International and a 30% stake in Canadian company Pelmorex) from Landmark Communications for $3.5 billion. Later, Landmark announced it was halting the sales of most of the other properties except for one newspaper; The Weather Channel was the only property sold by Landmark (the company would resume the sale of its other remaining assets beginning in 2012, concluding with the 2014 sale of KLAS-TV in Las Vegas to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group). As a result of its new association with NBC, live programming such as Your Weather Today began featuring live video content sourced from the network's owned-and-operated and affiliated stations to provide supplementary coverage during significant weather events, as well as live or videotaped field reports from reporters employed by local NBC stations. TWC personalities and on-camera meteorologists, such as Jim Cantore and Mike Seidel, have also appeared on NBC News and MSNBC since the sale.In September 2008, TWC launched a new program airing from 4:30am to 5am every weekend, Sunrise Weather, presented by Ray Stagich alongside Mike Seidel on Saturdays and Alex Wallace on Sundays. It had the shortest runtime and placed more emphasis on straightforward forecasts than most other TWC shows. However, it was one of the channel's lowest-viewed show (as it broadcast in weekend early slot).In November 2008, The Weather Channel became part of NBC Universal's "Green is Universal" campaign to promote environmental awareness. The channel utilized a green version of its logo for use during the campaign; IntelliStar systems were sent an update that allowed them to display the logo when the campaign is ongoing during November and April (which is normally done from master control on other networks). Ironically, in the middle of "Green Week" (on November 20), The Weather Channel instituted major layoffs – described as cost synergies – including three active on-camera meteorologists and one former one, (however, certain portions of the Forecast Earth unit remain with TWC). The layoffs took effect on November 30, (The Weather Channel later stated it would air other environmental programs).With the shutdown of NBC Weather Plus that month as a result of NBC Universal's partial acquisition of The Weather Channel, certain meteorologists from the digital broadcast network were eventually integrated into TWC's on-camera weather staff; forecasting, radar and graphics systems used by other NBC Universal television news properties (including NBC News, CNBC and MSNBC) replaced the Weather Plus-branded banner graphics to fit The Weather Channel's graphics scheme. Meteorologists that were employed with NBC Weather Plus continued to be based from NBC Universal's corporate headquarters at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, and appeared often on MSNBC until the 2009 closure of the entire division. One of the motives for the cuts was in order to aid a $500 billion budget cut at NBC Universal's parent company General Electric; NBC Universal and CNBC also made cuts to slash their budgets.In February 2009, The Weather Channel laid off four on-camera meteorologists. Midway through the month, it was discovered by members to a TWC fan forum and a leak on the channel's media kit that The Weather Channel would radically revamp its schedule; between February 21 and March 1, TWC would drop four programs (Evening Edition, Abrams & Bettes: Beyond the Forecast, Forecast Earth and Weekend Outlook), while dramatically revamping Weather Center and reassigning meteorologists Mike Bettes and Stephanie Abrams to host the block of the program that replaced Beyond the Forecast. It had already been announced that Storm Stories would return as part of "Tornado Week", a seven-day event featuring original specials and episodes of its original programs centering on tornadoes. The program changes were some of the most far-reaching since 2003, which saw the creation of programs such as Day Planner and PM Edition. In March 2009, TWC personalities and programs dramatically ramped up use of Twitter – at the same time, other NBC Universal properties (especially MSNBC) did the same; programs now regularly feature tweets submitted by viewers.On March 5, 2009, TWC appointed Geoffrey Darby as Executive Vice President of Programming and Production. Under Darby, Abrams and Bettes were reassigned to host Your Weather Today; First Outlook was reduced by one hour to make way for Wake Up With Al, a new weather and entertainment program hosted by Today weather anchor Al Roker; the jazz music long featured during the channel's local forecast segments was also dropped and replaced with instrumental rock music at Darby's request; this particular change was even confirmed by Chris Geith, the only remaining jazz artist whose music was featured in the forecast playlists, who stated that TWC had sent out a request proposing the creation of production music branded with a common signature for the channel. TWC began showing weekly movies related to weather on Friday nights, beginning with the October 30, 2009 telecast of The Perfect Storm (other films aired by the channel, some of which had only marginal ties to weather at best, included March of the Penguins and Misery); this particular decision was heavily criticized by many viewers and media analysts. The move to air movies on TWC had been planned for some time, even before the NBC/Blackstone/Bain acquisition.[34] After December 2009, these weekly movies were temporarily replaced by the primetime edition of Weather Center, which already aired in the time period during the rest of the work week. Despite the controversy, the Friday night film block returned on March 26, 2010 with the broadcast of Into Thin Air; additional viewer criticism stemming from both the broadcast of movies on a news and information channel and an incident during an April 2010 tornado outbreak in which a scheduled broadcast of the movie Wind aired instead of wall-to-wall severe weather coverage, resulted in TWC deciding to permanently drop its film block in May 2010.In January 2011, TWC announced that Australian-born landscape photographer Peter Lik would be starring in a new half-hour action-adventure nature reality series, From the Edge with Peter Lik, which debuted on March 31 and is produced by NBC's in-house production unit, Peacock Productions. Lik also served as a special contributor for TWC, providing segments from his frequent travels to weather-impacted locales.Later in 2011, the Intellistar 2, the first STAR unit capable of generating high definition graphics, began to be gradually rolled out to cable providers across the country.[36] The Intellistar 2 is strictly used to generate data and graphics for the "Local on the 8s" segments seen on the high definition feed, while the first-generation Intellistar remains in use to provide weather information on The Weather Channel's standard definition feed.The Weather Channel marked the 30th anniversary of its launch in May 2012. In August 2012, former CNN meteorologist Reynolds Wolf joined TWC as a weather forecaster.DirecTV removed the Weather Channel from its lineup on January 14, 2014, after the two parties were unable to come to terms on a new carriage agreement; as a result, DirecTV became the first major pay television provider to drop the channel in its history. Two weeks before the channel's carriage agreement was set to expire on December 31 (after which the deadline for a new carriage deal was extended by two weeks), the satellite provider began carrying WeatherNation TV (the successor to the Weather Cast and owned by WeatherNation, LLC) on channel 361 on December 16, 2013 – placing the channel next to the Weather Channel's slot on channel 362; WeatherNation replaced the Weather Channel on channel 362 – while still being carried on channel 361 – when TWC was pulled.The Weather Channel's chief executive officer David Kenny stated that it offered DirecTV the best rate for its programming (according to SNL Kagan, the Weather Channel's average carriage fee at the time was 13¢ per subscriber), and blasted the satellite provider's removal of the channel by stating that it was putting profits ahead of public safety.[58] Representatives for DirecTV stated that it added WeatherNation TV in response to subscriber complaints regarding the number of reality programs on the Weather Channel, which it estimated had amounted to 40% of its daily schedule (WeatherNation TV, which outside of its carriage by DirecTV is primarily carried on broadcast television stations as a main channel affiliation or a digital multicast service, does not run programming outside of forecasts with the only interruption in its weather coverage coming from affiliates that carry children's programs to fulfill FCC educational programming requirements; however, WeatherNation has been criticized for its very limited amount of live programming, which TWC does provide, especially during significant weather events). DirecTV stated that weather information is also available through broadcast television stations carried as part of its local channel tier, as well as the provider's designated emergency channels. The Weather Channel fought back by airing commercials encouraging people to not subscribe to DirecTV by parodying the provider's popular "Get Rid of Cable" ad campaign.On April 8, 2014, the Weather Channel and DirecTV both settled on a new agreement (TWC decided to alter its programming lineup by trimming the amount of reality programming on weekdays in half, restricting them to its nighttime schedule, in response to complaints from DirecTV subscribers), with the provider restoring the channel on channel 362 the following day. Access to local weather content using the red button feature did not return until May 2, 2014On March 22, 2018, Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios announced its intent to acquire the Weather Channel's television assets from the NBCUniversal/Bain/Blackstone partnership. The actual value is undisclosed, but was reported to be around $300 million; the channel's non-television assets, which were separately sold to IBM two years prior, were not included in the sale.Slogans1982-1983: We Take Weather Seriously...But Not Ourselves.1983-1984: The Cable Television Network for America's Lifestyle.1984-1986: Weatherproofing America.1986-1991: You Need Us The Weather Channel for Everything You Do.1991-1996: Weather You Can Always Turn To.1996-1998: No Place on Earth Has Better Weather.1998-2001: Keeping you ahead of the storm.2001-2005: Live by It.2005-2008: Bringing Weather to Life.June 2-late 2008: The Weather Has Never Looked Better.2013-present: It's Amazing Out There.