AWS reached a private settlement with a female employee who accused now-former executive Joshua Burgin of discrimination and harrasement, Protocol has learned.
The cloud giant agreed to pay the employee $10 million with the mandate that she leave the organization, according to a source familiar with the deliberations, which she did in January. Burgin, who previously led AWS Outposts, left the company in December for VMware, a move harshly criticized by employees of the virtualization software provider.
An AWS spokesperson confirmed the settlement but said the figure was “wildly inaccurate” and declined to comment further. The employee, whom Protocol is not identifying in order to stave off further harassment, declined to comment, citing a confidentiality agreement with Amazon.
Amazon is facing several discrimination and harassment cases. In 2021, at least five female employees filed suits against the company alleging, among other claims, that executives made racist remarks and withheld promotions as a result of their activism.
Amazon previously said it found no evidence to support the claims. Last year, however, the company tapped an outside law firm to conduct a review into how it investigates such allegations.
"We engaged Oppenheimer Investigations Group (OIG) to work directly with employees and conduct an independent investigation of the ProServe organization’s culture. We committed to that being a thorough review, and will continue to communicate with employees about the investigation,” an AWS spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Climate TRACE's data show emissions at the facility-level.Image: Climate TRACE