India, March 11 -- A former Amazon employee - one of the company's earliest - has opened up about his time at the e-commerce giant and his experience of working with Jeff Bezos. Steve Yegge spoke to Business Insider about joining Amazon as a technical program manager in 1998 and working on a "secret project" commissioned by its billionaire founder.

Yegge, 56, was frank about his dislike for some of the company's practices (he called it a "horrible" place to work), but full of admiration for Bezos's vision and magnetism.

Steve Yegge, who is based in Washington, quit Amazon to join Google in 2005. In his conversation with Business Insider, he said: "I found Amazon could be a horrible place to work."

The software engineer recalled how the...