Here's our favorite part of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' annual letter to shareholders. He describes how the company will pay Amazon's warehouse workers up to $5,000 to quit their jobs. 
 
 The intent of the program is to ensure that Amazon only retains people who really, really want to work at Amazon: 
 
 The second program is called Pay to Quit. It was invented by the clever people at Zappos, and the Amazon fulfillment centers have been iterating on it. Pay to Quit is pretty simple. Once a year, we offer to pay our associates to quit. The first year the offer is made, it’s for $2,000. Then it goes up one thousand dollars a year until it reaches $5,000. The headline on the offer is “Please Don’t Take This Offer.” We hope they don’t take the offer; we want them to stay. Why do we make this offer? The goal is to encourage folks to take a moment and think about what they really want. In the long-run, an employee staying somewhere they don’t want to be isn’t healthy for the employee or the company. 
 
 You can read the entire letter here. 
 
 Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions. ||||| Buy Photo Amazon received $30 million in property tax breaks from three counties for 20 years, and $14.9 million in state grants for infrastructure or job training at its five Tennessee distribution facilities, state records show. (Photo: File / The Tennessean )Buy Photo 
 
 Amazon.com hopes its fulfillment center workers are happy in their jobs. 
 
 But if they're not, and perhaps would rather be doing something else, Amazon has a deal: The company will pay them a bonus – up to $5,000 – to leave. 
 
 In a program that Amazon aptly calls "Pay to Quit," those who aren't committed to their jobs are urged to leave on their own, and can get $2,000 in severance pay in the first year of employment, with the bonus topping out at $5,000 in the fourth year. The company has several fulfillment centers in Tennessee, including large ones in Murfreesboro and Lebanon. 
 
 Related: Amazon hiring for 500 more positions in Murfreesboro, company announces in January 
 
 Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos explained the program in his 2013 Letter to Shareholders, released this week. 
 
 "Pay to Quit is pretty simple," he said. "Once a year, we offer to pay our associates to quit. The first year the offer is made, it's for $2,000. Then it goes up $1,000 a year until it reaches $5,000." 
 
 Bezos noted that "The headline on the offer is 'Please Don't Take This Offer,'" adding: "We hope they don't take the offer; we want them to stay." 
 
 But why make such an offer at all? 
 
 "The goal is to encourage folks to take a moment and think about what they really want," Bezos said in the letter. "In the long-run, an employee staying somewhere they don't want to be isn't healthy for the employee or the company." 
 
 More: New laws include Amazon sales tax collection 
 
 The program was started by Zappos.com, an Amazon subsidiary that sells shoes and other apparel, Bezos said. Amazon purchased Zappos in 2009 for $850 million. 
 
 Only workers in the fulfillment centers – where customer orders are packed and shipped – are eligible for the program, said Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Cheeseman. 
 
 "A small percentage of employees take the offer," she said. "We want them to stay, but we also only want people who want to be here. It encourages them to think about what they want." 
 
 Price boost: Amazon hikes Prime membership to $99 per year 
 
 Amazon also offers an education program, Career Choice, in which the company pre-pays 95 percent of the tuition for workers who want to "take courses for in-demand fields, such as airplane mechanic or nursing, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a career at Amazon," Bezos said in the shareholders' letter. 
 
 The goal of both programs "is to enable choice," he said. 
 
 "We know that for some of our fulfillment center employees, Amazon will be a career," he said. "For others, Amazon might be a stepping stone on the way to a job somewhere else – a job that may require new skills. If the right training can make the difference, we want to help." 
 
 The tuition program isn't limited to the fulfillment centers, Cheeseman said – it's open to all hourly employees at Amazon. 
 
 Reach G. Chambers Williams III at 615-259-8076 and on Twitter @gchambers3 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://tnne.ws/1gQGtqE ||||| An employee pushes a cart past rows of storage aisles as he processes customer orders ahead of shipping at one of Amazon.com Inc.'s fulfillment centers in Rugeley, U.K., on Monday, Dec. 2, 2013. Online retailers in the U.K. are anticipating their busiest day as shoppers flush with end-of-month pay-checks seek Christmas deals on the Web. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images | Bloomberg via Getty Images 
 
 Hate your job? Then quit. In fact, we'll pay you to quit. 
 
 That's the philosophy at Amazon's warehouses, according to a new letter by company CEO Jeff Bezos. Here's a snippet from Bezos' letter written to his shareholders this month (emphasis ours): 
 
 The second program is called Pay to Quit. It was invented by the clever people at Zappos, and the Amazon fulfillment centers [warehouses] have been iterating on it. Pay to Quit is pretty simple. Once a year, we offer to pay our associates to quit. The first year the offer is made, it’s for $2,000. Then it goes up one thousand dollars a year until it reaches $5,000. The headline on the offer is “Please Don’t Take This Offer.” We hope they don’t take the offer; we want them to stay. Why do we make this offer? The goal is to encourage folks to take a moment and think about what they really want. In the long-run, an employee staying somewhere they don’t want to be isn’t healthy for the employee or the company. 
 
 The idea is based on a program employed by Zappos, a shoe and clothing retailer now owned by Amazon, which offers new hires a bonus to quit. (Apparently very few of them take it.) 
 
 But Amazon warehouses are often staffed by temporary workers who wouldn't qualify for the pay to quit program. An Amazon representative confirmed to The Huffington Post that the program is only for full-time Amazon employees. 
 
 Amazon warehouses are massive distribution centers where workers often work long shifts performing grueling physical labor while fetching customer orders. 
 
 Amazon and workers at warehouses in Nevada are currently in the midst of a lawsuit being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court . The lawsuit concerns long waits in mandatory security check points that are meant to prevent workers from stealing pricey goods. The case will determine whether Amazon and other companies have to compensate workers for the time they're forced to wait in line. 
 
 This story has been updated to include comment from Amazon. ||||| The cruel and back-stabbing environment described by The New York Times in a report this weekend on the workplace culture at Amazon.com has struck a nerve with Jeff Bezos. In a memo to employees this weekend, obtained by GeekWire, Bezos says he doesn’t recognize the company described in the article. 
 
 In the memo, Bezos encourages Amazon employees to read the report, and requests that anyone seeing the type of abusive culture described in the piece should report it immediately to human resources or directly to him. 
 
 “The article doesn’t describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day,” Bezos writes. “But if you know of any stories like those reported, I want you to escalate to HR. You can also email me directly at jeff@amazon.com. Even if it’s rare or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero.” 
 
 He adds later, “I strongly believe that anyone working in a company that really is like the one described in the NYT would be crazy to stay. I know I would leave such a company.” 
 
 And he concludes, “But 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.” 
 
 I strongly believe that anyone working in a company that really is like the one described in the NYT would be crazy to stay. I know I would leave such a company. It is rare for Bezos to respond so directly to a news report. Faced with criticism throughout its history — whether dealing with book publishers or diversity issues — Amazon’s approach has been to stay quiet. Amazon authorized “a handful of senior managers” to talk with the Times reporters for the article, but declined to make Bezos or other top leaders available for interviews, according to the story. 
 
 But the reporting clearly has Bezos’ attention now. 
 
 The New York Times piece — based interviews with more than 100 current and former Amazon employees — cited several cases of alleged employee mistreatment, depicting managers who were unsympathetic to employees even when they were faced with illnesses or family issues. Reporters Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld describe a hard-charging environment at Amazon where employees often are pushed to the point where they nearly “combust.” 
 
 Here’s the full memo from Jeff Bezos, as obtained by GeekWire: 
 
 Dear Amazonians, If you haven’t already, I encourage you to give this (very long) New York Times article a careful read: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html I also encourage you to read this very different take by a current Amazonian: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/amazonians-response-inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-nick-ciubotariu Here’s why I’m writing you. The NYT article prominently features anecdotes describing shockingly callous management practices, including people being treated without empathy while enduring family tragedies and serious health problems. The article doesn’t describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day. But if you know of any stories like those reported, I want you to escalate to HR. You can also email me directly at jeff@amazon.com. Even if it’s rare or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero. The article goes further than reporting isolated anecdotes. It claims that our intentional approach is to create a soulless, dystopian workplace where no fun is had and no laughter heard. Again, I don’t recognize this Amazon and I very much hope you don’t, either. More broadly, I don’t think any company adopting the approach portrayed could survive, much less thrive, in today’s highly competitive tech hiring market. The people we hire here are the best of the best. You are recruited every day by other world-class companies, and you can work anywhere you want. I strongly believe that anyone working in a company that really is like the one described in the NYT would be crazy to stay. I know I would leave such a company. But 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. Thank you, Jeff 
 
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– Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos sent out his annual letter to shareholders this week, and Business Insider takes note of one part in particular about the company's "Pay to Quit" program. Amazon offers some employees up to $5,000 to leave, and Bezos explains that the principle is "pretty simple": "Once a year, we offer to pay our associates to quit. The first year the offer is made, it’s for $2,000. Then it goes up one thousand dollars a year until it reaches $5,000. The headline on the offer is 'Please Don’t Take This Offer.' We hope they don’t take the offer; we want them to stay. Why do we make this offer? The goal is to encourage folks to take a moment and think about what they really want. In the long-run, an employee staying somewhere they don’t want to be isn’t healthy for the employee or the company." The Tennessean fills in some gaps: The offer is good only for employees in the company's "fulfillment centers"—the warehouses where all those online orders get packed and shipped. A spokeswoman tells the paper that only a "small percentage of employees take the offer." The Huffington Post, meanwhile, notes that many of those warehouse workers are part-timers, and it's unclear whether they would qualify for the deal. Still, it's an interesting idea, writes Max Nisen at Quartz, and it shows how Bezos isn't afraid to experiment to improve his workforce.