Ignorance of Amazon culture and practices, greed, visa issues, many don't believe it's as bad as it is until they experience it. Many use Amazon as a stepping stone because it looks good on your resume and will guarantee you an interview at most places. For the fulfillment centers folks and blue collar ops; desperation.

Retention for engineers is really low, some say as low as 12 months. So thousands work there, but many do not stay. Also the reason why their compensation is mostly in stock. They know you won't last.

This is all gleaned from friends who work there or have worked there. It's a place you want to be seen working, but doesn't work out for many.

Because they offered me more money than anybody else, and because I liked the mentor I had when I was an intern there. Not having to re-interview for a fulltime job after my internship was nice too. As to why I took the internship... because the money was good and I like ebooks. Not very good reasons, but those were my reasons.

(I've since quit, after readjusting my priorities in life.)

The Amazon department responsible for AWS is awesome to work in. Amazon, the online store, is terrible.

I get this sort of advice from all sorts of career posts. Try to avoid working at a place where IT is a cost-center, a thing grudgingly needed to support the actual business.

Just because something is a meme doesn't mean it's true or true all the time.