Meet Peccy, the bizarre, beloved mascot you didn’t know Amazon had
Universally recognized by Amazonians and a nobody to the rest of us, he’s, well, peculiar—and an unexpectedly rich symbol of the tech giant and its culture.
First of all, he is—I mean this as a statement of fact, not a criticism—a dumpy little blob. His arms are jointless, fingerless nubs. His legs are so vestigial that it’s not clear whether he’s ambulatory.
From his head to the toes he doesn’t have, he’s bright orange: Amazon Orange, or Pantone 1375C, to be exact. And he got his half-dimpled smile from the upturned arrow that has been part of the Amazon logo since 2000.
He’s Amazon’s mascot and cultural ambassador, Peccy.
Wait—Amazon has a mascot? I expect that this comes as news to you. Or at least it did to me. When I interviewed Amazon HR chief Beth Galetti for a profile in our new issue, we mostly talked about topics such as her unlikely career path from electrical engineer to HR pro, the challenges of hiring thousands of people a week, and her quest to use technology to better the Amazon employee experience. But as we wound up our chat, she gave me a laminated copy of the company’s leadership principles. Our conversation ended thusly, as I pointed at the character grinning from the document’s upper left-hand corner:
Me: Does this critter have a name, by the way?
Galetti: Peccy! Oh, I love Peccy. He’s called Peccy because he represents our peculiar ways. We call ourselves at Amazon very peculiar.
Me: How’s that spelled?