Seattle has a retailer loved by customers. It’s called Costco, and it’s loved by employees as well.

Replies to the brutal NYT reporting of what it’s like to work at Amazon make a direct case: To create ‘the world’s most innovative technology company’, one can’t have employees taking vacations, having families or getting cancer treated — a core principle of Amazon, Frugality, capital F and all. Dickens would be proud of the euphemism.

(The importance of Amazon is a point of contest between the NYT and Amazon’s defenders. Amazon is probably somewhere between a means ‘of delivering swim goggles and rolls of Scotch tape to customers just a little quicker’ and the world’s most innovative company. Probably a bit closer to famous potatoes.)

Does a company need to be frugal, in the Amazonian sense of being brutal to employees, to become great? Seattle has another retailer, one famous for decency towards its workers: Costco. Both retailers have amazing, globe-spanning, logistic operations. Both are loved by customers. Both deliver what they promise, consistently and well. Costco’s core value? Pro-worker means profitability. Investment in people over Frugality.

What’s the best path, the (humane) Costco model, or the (brutal) Amazon model? Amazon’s defenders are quick to establish Amazon as a data driven company. Allow me to provide some data:

When only one P-E chart needs a log scale, you have an answer without a lot of fancy statistics. (Data and charts from Wolfram Alpha.)