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Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

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Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#461

Post by gwright »

asdff wrote: post #382
gwright wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't the way a business works. There is no intrinsic value to "staff", positive or negative. The value comes from the way staff (or any other resources) is utilized. Building twice as many widgets by building and staffing a second factory could have a huge negative value if there is no demand for twice as many widgets in the market, for example.

So then the solution is to not fire people, but manage them better on something more profitable. What makes you more money in this pet example you've set up: having 1 widget factory, or two factories producing different widgets that are both in demand? The latter, obviously, or else amazon would still be entirely in the business of selling books today.

> but manage them better on something more profitable.

Well, yeah. I mean the entire endeavor of operating a for-profit business is to find the combination of resources/effort/ideas that creates value. The problem space is enormous though and more often leads to failure than success. If you see a successful combination though, stop posting here and start your own business!

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#462

Post by bombolo »

capableweb wrote: post #423
bombolo wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked with a very mediocre former amaxon developer who felt like he was god's gift because he had worked there. Avoid if possible.

This is my experience with most people coming from FAANG in general. Started using it as a signal for people to avoid hiring instead of as a good signal.

Seems we are rubbing former amazon developers the wrong way

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#463

Post by devmunchies »

asdff wrote: post #380
devmunchies wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if the employees that were cut were working on a product that was losing money, then its more akin to liposuction. Its not about the employee's skills either, it's the business unit. If you start cutting database or network engineers on the AWS team, now we're talking about cutting off limbs. Put another way, lots of startups are failing or are going to fail in this environment. Layoffs are like killing "internal sta…

Why is it better to lay people off than to just put that labor on something more profitable? If labor isn't productive that's not a labor issue, thats a management issue from them mismanaging their labor. It's a shame these workers have to suffer from being mismanaged.

>If labor isn't productive that's not a labor issue, thats a management issue from them mismanaging their labor

You're assuming that any group of talented people can have a 100% track record of success. Some startups (or projects) just fail and it has nothing to do with the talent.

You gotta take bets on new products/markets and sometimes they don't pan out. Sometimes it's just a market issue. There's not always a way to know if it was going to fail beforehand either. If we want innovation, then unfortunately I think these types of sh*tshows are part of the deal, although a 17,000 layoff is pretty gnarly.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#464

Post by UncleMeat »

oblio wrote: post #460
UncleMeat wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a new system that has annual reviews rather than biannual reviews. It slightly changes the expected rating distributions and introduces a "meets most" rating that is between the old "needs improvement" and "consistently meets expectations" ratings. There is no expected PIP rate. It was developed in 2021 and rolled out early in 2022. The ratings changes were small compared to process changes, which are intend…

> There is no expected PIP rate. Do you say that as at least a senior manager or based on what the company told you as an individual contributor?

I've been managing a team at Google for like six years now. I'm doing GRAD ratings literally today (spending too much time avoiding it on HN). I have not been told of an expected PIP rate either explicitly or through innuendo. In fact, I have never PIPed a single report in my entire time here and I've never even got a whiff of people being concerned about that.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#465

Post by asdff »

strgcmc wrote: post #435
asdff wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you hire that musician, you can create more products you can license. The worker generates more revenue streams for you. This is why streaming companies are leasing soundstage space, to create more stuff to license themselves.

But not all types of music are equally in demand. If consumer tastes change, it would obviously make sense to layoff musicians trained to make music for a genre that nobody wants to buy anymore.

That's one way of thinking which IMO is a cold way to look at the world. I would say its just simply nicer to retrain your staff to meet your goals versus cutting them off and finding new staff all the time. Too bad nice typically goes against profits in this economy.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#466

Post by lmm »

EFreethought wrote: post #413
lmm wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the board be happy? Do they think they know something the market doesn't?

Well, if they understand the concept of "business cycle", then yes, they do.

Surely the market should understand that equally well.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#467

Post by CydeWeys »

andirk wrote: post #419
CydeWeys wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/netflix/salaries/software-e...

It's only one product that does one thing: shows videos. It's huge and great but I still think we should replace it with AirBnb, which also has high salaries, in the acronym.

The number of products produced by a given company has never been part of the definition of FANG. And the exact companies in the acronym don't really matter anymore anyway; the overall 'vibe' of it is simply top-tier tech companies, i.e. those that pay the most. Agreed that AirBnb should also qualify, but the exact companies that fit are fluid and it doesn't make sense to keep changing the acronym all the time as the constituent companies change, as the overall idea doesn't change. E.g. consider the Dow Jones index; the constituent companies have changed over time but the name of the index doesn't.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#468

Post by lightbendover »

asdff wrote: post #378
ascotan wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently they're not the source of profit: ```Amazon initiated a broad cost-cutting review to pare back on units that were unprofitable```

Seems like a better solution would have been to shift that labor to more productive uses that can generate revenue, than to throw some of the oars off your boat to go faster.

Not everyone is fungible. How can you repurpose recruiters effectively when you're not recruiting? How can you repurpose well-paid robotics engineers when you've realized you have over-invested?

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#469

Post by oars »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #365

In October, after mentioning to the neighbor plumber friend that massive tech layoffs would be arriving just in time for Christmas, he told me that he did not really care what happens to tech workers because "people will always need a good plumber." Tonight, same plumber friend told me that his company's workflow has gone from ~50 hrs/wk to 30hrs/wk — and that includes "organizing the company truck." He now understan…

Fascinating. I assume you and your plumber friend live in an area dominated by tech jobs? E.g. Seattle?

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#470

Post by junar »

ferdowsi wrote: post #219
mahidol wrote: post #205

This is worrisome - joined Amazon ~4 months ago because it seemed like the most sensible thing to do considering my immigration status. Have one last attempt left at the H-1B lottery; PERM is underway but no hopes of getting it finished before STEM OPT runs out. Was thinking of getting married to my girlfriend soon, but not too sure about that anymore (she's in the 3rd year of her PhD so she cannot really move with m…

How did you go from 9 to working age without getting residency in the US or another country?

* Come to the US as an H-4 dependent of H1-B parents

* Age out at 21: H-4 no longer valid, green card process delayed because of country-specific quota

* F-1 student visa gives you a few more years, but still no path to residency

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/01/1023393351/documented-dreamer...

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