UPDATE, 2019-stylez:
Wow. Something something hindsight, amiright? I don’t think most folks here in two-zero-nineteen would think Bezos cares much of anything for his employees. More than likely, the business reasons I hypothesize were “how can I extract maximum work from this husk of a human being, and what can I automate away from them?”
I’m already a huge fan of Amazon.com but Silicon Alley Insider’s short piece on Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, spending a week working in a warehouse with hourly employees made me even more comfortable with the business I give the online mega-store.
I’m sure there are significant business reasons behind the move, but I imagine it will have the added benefit of boosting morale. It’s not often that we hear of executives directly participating in the low-level labor of their enterprises.
There’s actually a name for a boss spending time on the floor in the lean six sigma culture and it is certainly encouraged, but rarely does it filter all the way to the top (though it should). This type of thing would be considered an extended “Gemba Walk” (gemba being japanese for “where the truth can be found”). For all you business nerds out there.