Amazon cuts 16k jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#561

Post by virtue3 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:09 PM UTC

socalgal2 wrote: post #512

bgirard wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revenue per corporate employee are both ~1.5m/corp employee. I think it really comes down to how the company is managed and culture.

Nintendo Japan pays its engineers ~$62k a year https://www.portal.e2r.jp/fixurl/nintendo_career_job/id/4/2?... Amazon starts at 3x that and goes up https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries

Some additional context to explain the numbers:

Game industry in general pays like shit - japanese software engineering pays even worse, so double negative modifiers on salaries in this comparison.

source: worked in games, worked at japanese tech company with us division.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#562

Post by learingsci » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:09 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #309

darth_avocado wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the HN reaction to layoffs almost always is about blaming H1B, here’s a few more things the headline misses: 1. Cuts were global 2. Cuts in US also include H1B employees 3. 16000 roles are corporate roles, not just tech related, H1B program is not generally utilized for those roles 4. Expansion in India is not just tech. Amazon is a big retailer in India. Understandably if you’re seeing revenue growth in India,…

Shouldn't we all want H1B rather than offshoring? That keeps the facilities here, the local employment options here, the growth here, the tax base here... We should want more smart people moving to this country. More business creation, more capital, more labor, more output. Immigration is total economic growth for America, non zero-sum. Offshoring is not only economic loss, but second order loss: we lose the capacity…

GDP matters very little when I’m homeless.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#563

Post by HDThoreaun » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:10 PM UTC

nielsbot wrote: post #172

I like to think about this story from years ago when Nintendo wasn't doing so well and there was talk of layoffs "Nintendo CEO’s refusal to layoff staff goes viral following industry-wide cuts" https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/nintendo-ceos-refusal-t... I realize these companies aren't identical, but interesting to compare approaches. I also expect Amazon hires and fires more easily instead of growing more slowly…

Nintendo stock is up 7.5x since 1998, compare that to amazon which is up like 200x. Nintendo shareholders would be pissed about its performance if they were american, cant say how Japanese feel about it given cultural differences.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#564

Post by chasd00 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:10 PM UTC

chankstein38 wrote: post #295

miltonlost wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ai is definitely able to sling out more and more lines of code, yes. Whether those LOC are productive...?

Tomorrow's Calc app will have 30mil lines of code and 1000 npm dependencies!

and 2+2 will output 4 almost all the time.. just like a human would.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#565

Post by ProllyInfamous » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:10 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #212

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From March 16, 2020 (Covid scare reality / market-drop), the marketcaps of Top 10,000 traded companies has doubled (from low $70 Trillion USD to low $140 T) But bullion has done even better (particularly past month). So — extrapolating — I'd recon the USD is inflating away its problems (mostly: itself).

> But bullion has done even better (particularly past month). No wonder, people are fed up with the US administration and its constant firehose of bullshit. But there are no viable contenders to the US Dollar as reserve asset - the Eurozone is too fractured, China is under currency controls, Germany on its own outclasses India, and Japan's economy is headed for some serious BS once it follows their population age gra…

I think not physically holding your bullion is equivalent to not your keys, not your crypto.

I do small amounts of both.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#566

Post by Shocka1 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:11 PM UTC

socalgal2 wrote: post #507

shartshooter wrote: post #144

This summer I went camping and at the campground next to me was a middle manager at Amazon. I’ve been out of the workforce for about a year, so I asked him how much of an impact AI was having in his role. He told me that he had worked to develop a tool that would replace effectively all of the middle management function that he was responsible for: gathering information from folks below him, distilling it down and re…

I'm super sympathetic that losing your job sucks. I lost mine once. At the same time, what's the alternative? Progress happens. We no longer have liveries for holding horses nor horse shoe makers (not at the level we used to). We no longer have telephone operators. Making up jobs to keep people employed isn't a viable solution to me. Supporting them in some way (re-training, UBI, service work, ...) seems like the onl…

IMO, this is one of the better takes in this thread. I'm a big fan of Hazlitt's book Economics in One Lesson, which gives a very condensed version of some economic ideas - one of them being automation, with really good examples in the past of labor saving machines like the printing press being created. When I first read it a decade ago I didn't think my profession might be like the printing press, but it's definitely in the crosshairs now.

If I lost my software engineering job tomorrow and was unable to find work within a few months, I have a repurposing plan ready to go. Yes it would be terrible for me economically and I'm sure there would be some sad days, but sometimes bad things happen and we have to make the best of them and move on.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#567

Post by toraway » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:11 PM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #422

volkk wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i just don't feel like enumerating all of the common patterns ai slop produces. again, if you don't see this as obvious, i can tell you're clearly not using this stuff often enough (which might be a good thing)

The thing is, these stylistic patterns existed before AI, and weren’t completely atypical. Maybe you’re using LLMs so much that you’re over-associating them with AI now. Or maybe the author is using LLMs so much that he’s unconsciously adopted some of the patterns in his own writing.

Well he literally confirms it was from ChatGPT in a later reply, so there's that.

And his original draft is conspicuously missing the telltale "it's not X -- it's Y" and overall breathless dramatic flair that people like the poster you're replying to (correctly) picked up on.

https://xcancel.com/PlumbNick/status/2016590894485385347#m

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#568

Post by learingsci » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:11 PM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #402

echelon wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't we all want H1B rather than offshoring? That keeps the facilities here, the local employment options here, the growth here, the tax base here... We should want more smart people moving to this country. More business creation, more capital, more labor, more output. Immigration is total economic growth for America, non zero-sum. Offshoring is not only economic loss, but second order loss: we lose the capacity…

> Shouldn't we all want H1B rather than offshoring? That's my opinion. However there are issues with who's sucking the tit. If you bring in a bunch of people from outside instead of hiring locals that's not a win for the locals. On the other hand whats the difference for someone in San Francisco if Apple hires a guy from India vs New Jersey? Not much. And H1B visa's can be low grade indentured servitude.

Guy in San Francisco can move to NJ easier than Mumbai.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#569

Post by max_ » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:12 PM UTC

KittenInABox wrote: post #556

mkw5053 wrote: post #553

I'm currently hiring engineering roles in SF for my startup. I am in the middle of closing my $1.5M pre-seed this week so I don't have job descriptions posted yet. But, here's a short pitch: AI agents are about to orchestrate trillions in commerce, but today they shop on thin data: product specs, studio photos, and text reviews. Agents need evidence, not marketing. Today, the most influential product evidence lives o…

There's no DM capacity on HN.

Your likely talking to an AI agent

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#570

Post by ProllyInfamous » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:13 PM UTC

batshit_beaver wrote: post #214

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From March 16, 2020 (Covid scare reality / market-drop), the marketcaps of Top 10,000 traded companies has doubled (from low $70 Trillion USD to low $140 T) But bullion has done even better (particularly past month). So — extrapolating — I'd recon the USD is inflating away its problems (mostly: itself).

What's interesting is that the strength of US dollar vs other currencies is barely budging in the meantime. Seems like everyone else is inflating away their problems too, so it all evens out in the end (unless you're poor with no assets, in any country).

Swiss franc is strongest of fiats — but still fiat.

Many historians of many generations contend that debased currencies fail first slowly, then fast.

Watching gold has been eye-opening to all living generations. Just a few months ago my lawyer didn't believe me when I told him "gold just broke four thousand dollars!" [day of this post gold hit ATH of $5400]