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Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

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Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#201

Post by Terr_ »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #180
dfxm12 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data probably suggests they should lay off a bunch of people & that this might be best way for them to do so, in terms of not legally needing to offer severance, legal issues, PR, stock prices, etc.

I have read this reasoning from time to time, but how does it make sense? Wouldn't most of the high performers who don't want to go back to the office, just quit and get a better job, while low performing individuals would stick as long as possible since they could keep slacking as long as they go to the office three days a week?

"We already successfully exclude low-performers due to Stack Ranki--er, Unregretted Attrition--so this policy will only be impacting the insufficiently dedicated." /s

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#202

Post by hunson_abadeer »

offbyone wrote: post #158

If you want my cynical take, here's the real reason that Amazon and other big companies are all-in on RTO: the commercial real estate collapse that may (will?) happen if downtown office districts don't repopulate: https://wapo.st/3QXHpFT I think the reason that Amazon leadership isn't bringing data to support RTO is that not only are they aware of the "Urban Doom Loop” that this article is referring to, but I'd bet y…

Facilities and real estate are among the most significant expenses for any tech company in a prime location such as Seattle or SFBA. If remote work turned out to work flawlessly, there would be a huge financial incentive to shed all that.

I find it frustrating that we always need to come up with some sinister explanation for any decision we don't like. It's always the corporate profit motive, and when it doesn't fit, we try to invent some personal profit motive for execs to act against the best interest of the company, without a shred of evidence.

I know several execs involved in RTO decisions for a public company. They have sincere convictions and some arguably flawed data to back it all. I don't agree with it, but this way of thinking that everybody up to and including my pay level is a good and smart person, and everybody above is clueless and evil... it's just juvenile.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#203

Post by rco8786 »

xt00 wrote: post #160

Seems most of these top down driven mandates could be explained by some simple logic—if you don’t like your job very much as CEO, then you are thinking “man I wish I didn’t have to be here”.. and then it starts resentment toward people who also aren’t suffering along with you.. basically these mandates seem likely to be driven by stress at the top of the management, not based upon actual data. If you are asking for d…

> basically these mandates seem likely to be driven by stress at the top of the management, not based upon actual data. If you are asking for data that means you aren’t in charge sadly.

Data is great and all (and I'm not defending this particular decision), but at leadership levels you have to make judgment calls all the time even in the face of data that may say otherwise.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#204

Post by kaibee »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #180
dfxm12 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data probably suggests they should lay off a bunch of people & that this might be best way for them to do so, in terms of not legally needing to offer severance, legal issues, PR, stock prices, etc.

I have read this reasoning from time to time, but how does it make sense? Wouldn't most of the high performers who don't want to go back to the office, just quit and get a better job, while low performing individuals would stick as long as possible since they could keep slacking as long as they go to the office three days a week?

> Wouldn't most of the high performers who don't want to go back to the office, just quit and get a better job, while low performing individuals would stick as long as possible since they could keep slacking as long as they go to the office three days a week?

Maybe, but that sounds like a problem that isn't guaranteed to happen and isn't one that you'd be personally held responsible for, since everyone else was doing the same thing... how could you have known? No one ever got fired for buying IBM and all that.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#205

Post by ghaff »

softwaredoug wrote: post #177

Given recent Big Tech behavior -- ie Amazon hiring based on work flexibility , then laying people off, then switching to RTO, who would trust these companies enough to move across the country for a role? In my (40 yo+) peer group people have largely settled down somewhere not near a home office during the pandemic. People have the entire cost structure of home ownership, day care, and commuting built around not needi…

>open more regional branch offices

To what end? If most of the people you work with are scattered around different regional branch offices, what's the point of going into the nearest one other than to have basically a company-supplied co-working space?

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#206

Post by brandall10 »

wallawe wrote: post #182

A lot of complaining from one of the most privileged and highest paid classes of workers ever to exist in human kind. Talk of "exploitation", etc. To put it in perspective, you sit at a computer and type, and get paid $200k+ a year for it. Forget other people in the other part of the world, just compare your situation to the average American for a second - they don't have a choice of whether or not to be at the offic…

Keep in mind there are people who signed on as remote employees that own a primary residence in an area far away, have children in school, a spouse who can't relocate, and so on. These folks effectively need to now look for another job.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#207

Post by huevosabio »

lapcat wrote: post #121

Jassy said the quiet part out loud and admitted what I've always suspected, that most CEOs don't have original thoughts, instead governing by groupthink: > Other company CEOs helped Jassy make up his mind too. Jassy spoke to "60 to 80 CEOs of other companies over the last 18 months," and "virtually all of them" preferred in-office work, he said. I bet that none of those individual CEOs could empirically prove that re…

I think you are spot on.

In the last 3 years we had insane hiring sprees, layoffs, full remote proclamations, RTO proclamations, all perfectly synced between companies.

This synchronized zigzag makes me think that 1) C-suite pay is indeed too high, and 2) we may have concentrated risk.

On the latter, when SVB busted, it was clear that a small cohort of VCs in chat rooms dominated the decisions of tons of startups, thus they all had very similar behavior.

Perhaps the stock market is the same at a larger scale: a relatively small number of large investors can mostly steer what companies do.

If so, then there should be opportunity for companies that don't dance to the same tune.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#208

Post by GingerBoats »

offbyone wrote: post #158

If you want my cynical take, here's the real reason that Amazon and other big companies are all-in on RTO: the commercial real estate collapse that may (will?) happen if downtown office districts don't repopulate: https://wapo.st/3QXHpFT I think the reason that Amazon leadership isn't bringing data to support RTO is that not only are they aware of the "Urban Doom Loop” that this article is referring to, but I'd bet y…

This.

It's the only major reason to bring people back to Urban centers. Real estate, both commercial and residential, would take a hit in every high cost of living urban center. City centers, like Seattle, have been begging Amazon to bring workers back into the city.

This may be a bit bias on my part from what I've seen, but businesses are finding that remote workers just do their job - nothing more. No white-boarding sessions. No coffee chats on cool ideas. No being pressured into doing some weird prototype.

I work for a MAANG company and get nasty emails monthly about my "attendance". Yet, I have in my contract that I work a week in the office and a week out of the office.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#209

Post by dangerlibrary »

jupp0r wrote: post #166
RomanPushkin wrote: post #111

Corporations will do whatever they want to until we have unions in this country. Mass layoffs, termination with no reason, dictating how they want the workforce to be exploited. If this generation cannot see that, I hope younger folks or our kids will make this country a better place to live and work.

Sorry to break it to you, but a shortage of software engineers is what brought all these perks in the first place, not unions.

The five day work week has entered the chat.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#210

Post by dfxm12 »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #180
dfxm12 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data probably suggests they should lay off a bunch of people & that this might be best way for them to do so, in terms of not legally needing to offer severance, legal issues, PR, stock prices, etc.

I have read this reasoning from time to time, but how does it make sense? Wouldn't most of the high performers who don't want to go back to the office, just quit and get a better job, while low performing individuals would stick as long as possible since they could keep slacking as long as they go to the office three days a week?

The premise here is that they're holding off a layoff, or at least minimizing the layoff. A benefit of not doing a proper layoff: when you tell people you're just enforcing a new policy, you can make exceptions.

So, if this doesn't reduce the workforce enough, a proper layoff will soon follow. We saw Google enforce "return to the office" in April 2022 followed up by layoffs in January 2023. Microsoft had similar timings WRT to return to the office and layoffs as well.

And again, the premise here is about layoffs, letting a large number of people go. Amazon can fire individual slackers if they want to without playing these games.

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