Inside Amazon's giant spheres, where workers chill in a mini rainforest

Management will make sure no one hogs the tree fort

Three years ago, Amazon.com Inc’s horticulturalist was giving Jeff Bezos a preview of what the company’s three plant-filled spheres — the centrepiece of its $4-billion downtown Seattle office project — would look like on opening day.

One rendering showed the view from a 30-foot-high suspension bridge looking down on a tree. The next showed the same tree as it would look five years later, branches stretching high above the bridge to form a canopy, giving Amazonians the feeling of walking through a rainforest. Bezos didn’t want to wait for the little tree to grow.

“The question I got back was, ‘well, can