“Does your Chair take comfort in the outcome of the recent union vote in Bessemer? No, he doesn’t,” wrote Jeff Bezos in his final letter to shareholders before stepping down as Amazon CEO.

For Bezos, the union drive in the company’s Bessemer warehouse is a sign that “we need to do a better job for our employees.” He pledges to make the company “Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work” (Bezos has always called Amazon Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company, with the modifier “Earth” included because of Bezos’s extraterrestrial colonization plans, though the effect is to make the billionaire sound like an alien.)

It’s an unusual admission of the need to Do Better by a CEO who isn’t prone to conceding any ground when it comes to criticism of the company’s working conditions. Some have pointed out the letter’s dystopian discussion of reducing employee injuries by regulating workers’ muscles, and RWDSU president Stuart Appelbaum responded to the letter by saying that “workers need a union — not just another Amazon public relations effort in damage control.” But others are impressed with Bezos for his lip service to working conditions. CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin called it “far and away, the best shareholder letter I’ve ever read,” adding that, “There are some real and profound lessons in there.” Tech journalist Casey Newton said Bezos’s words sound like that of “a man who has at long last gotten the message.” Hook, line and sinker.