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Amazon cuts 16k jobs

reuters.com

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Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#621

Post by volkk »

toraway wrote: post #573
volkk wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think the much higher probability isn't that this guy wrote literally like an LLM before LLMs came out, but rather that he just used an LLM to write all of it. You can see even more of these examples directly on his campaign site.

And despite the downvotes, you were correct. https://xcancel.com/PlumbNick/status/2016590894485385347#m

thank you. even without this tweet, i was willing to die on this hill. certainly feels nice to place these obnoxious HN know-it-alls into their place.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#622

Post by kburman »

locusofself wrote: post #525
kburman wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize it’s easy to pattern-match this news to 'hiring in India vs. firing in US' given the current climate, but having worked at Amazon India for 4 years, I can tell you the cuts happen there too. Amazon has a history of annual restructuring that hits every region. It isn't necessarily a direct relocation strategy so much as their standard operational churn. The 'efficiency' cuts are happening globally, India inc…

Sure, but at some point in the past, "Amazon India" was not a thing. Nor was "Microsoft India" and so forth. Surely you can understand what it feels like to be an American tech worker in a super high cost of living area, looking at reduction in headcount and continual offshoring of jobs as time goes by. I live in Seattle area, work at one of these big companies, I work with people in India almost every day and have b…

I get the fear, but look at it from the investor's perspective. The US market is tapped out, Amazon is already everywhere it can be.

Amazon isn't expanding in India out of love for the country or a desire to see it grow. They are doing it because Wall Street demands infinite growth every single year. Amazon India went from zero to a market leader in a decade not because of charity, but because that is where the new money is.

To keep the valuation climbing (which sustains everyone's RSUs), they have to capture these emerging markets. If they don't, the stock stagnates, and the compensation model for US tech workers falls apart.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#623

Post by risyachka »

mrtksn wrote: post #472
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…

TBH the last 20-30 years was exactly like that but computers were eliminating other peoples jobs for really good profits for the investors and really good salaries for the workers doing the elimination. Before that people were eliminating blue colar workers with highly productive machines and industrial robots. I don't see how eliminating your co-workers is any different. Software ate the world and now AI will eat th…

>> AI will eat the "software professionals"

you mean AI will eat everyone, because if software professionals will be automated - all other white collar jobs will be too via software.

And then all resources will be poured in hardware and blue collar jobs will be automated too, at least those that have more value.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#624

Post by geodel »

locusofself wrote: post #525
kburman wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize it’s easy to pattern-match this news to 'hiring in India vs. firing in US' given the current climate, but having worked at Amazon India for 4 years, I can tell you the cuts happen there too. Amazon has a history of annual restructuring that hits every region. It isn't necessarily a direct relocation strategy so much as their standard operational churn. The 'efficiency' cuts are happening globally, India inc…

Sure, but at some point in the past, "Amazon India" was not a thing. Nor was "Microsoft India" and so forth. Surely you can understand what it feels like to be an American tech worker in a super high cost of living area, looking at reduction in headcount and continual offshoring of jobs as time goes by. I live in Seattle area, work at one of these big companies, I work with people in India almost every day and have b…

True. This is Globalism at work. If these companies were not selling goods and services globally then they wouldn't have to deal with setting up offices, staff, pressure from local politicians to hire locals around the world.

Companies hiring more in cheap labor countries is quite obvious for long time. In case of Amazon I feel most of the stuff that was cutting edge 2 decades back is now low value work where cost is the only edge.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#625

Post by caminante »

lovich wrote: post #583
caminante wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Okay, so you're admitting that they're inflationary but choose to rattle off a list of random stuff that somehow, magically, offsets the increased costs from tariffs. Haha! I haven't seen someone try to dismiss counterarguments as "magic." I should've said that more when I got answers wrong on my tests in high school. > So.. you were agreeing with my point then? If not "magic," then the objector "actually agrees" w…

You’re arguing that tariffs aren’t inflationary by bringing up other events affecting the economy, which I agree with ‘hypeatei needs explaining, but even assuming those do offset the tariffs you’re still incorrect. Tariffs definitionally are inflationary.

>You’re arguing that tariffs aren’t inflationary by bringing up other events affecting the economy

Huh? You're not reading what I said and instead are relying on accusations. It's also weird to say direct behaviors triggered by tariffs don't play into realized inflation. That's mental gymnastics.

>Tariffs definitionally are inflationary.

No. Weird thing to be confidently incorrect about. Tariffs are price increasing (colloquially "inflationary"), but not definitionally inflationary in the economic meaning. Look it up.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#626

Post by embedding-shape »

Aurornis wrote: post #519
dzonga wrote: post #375

Insightful Comment from X - https://xcancel.com/PlumbNick/status/2016500347053773198?s=2... I was an L7, I led global AI enablement. I built systems executives depended on, moved wherever the company needed me and fixed problems that had been sitting untouched because no one else could untangle them. And I was still cut. Here’s the part we’re all supposed to politely ignore: in the U.S. right now, experience isn’t an…

That person's pinned message shows that he started his campaign for Congress almost 2 months ago. He says he was laid off today. He's been Tweeting non-stop daily and appears to be working hard on his campaign. I don't think you can separate his active run for Congress from this layoff. Making an actual run for Congress is a huge time commitment and I don't see how it would be compatible with being an L7 manager at A…

> Making an actual run for Congress is a huge time commitment and I don't see how it would be compatible with being an L7 manager at Amazon.

Does that matter? If people vote for him, he'll end up in Congress, regardless of "it matching" or not. The current president is a TV celebrity who ran a bunch of failed businesses, some middle manager from Amazon could surely be in Congress then?

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#627

Post by volkk »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #280
khazhoux wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pretty sad that when people write well now, others dismiss it as AI.

It's also a pretty clear indication of AI undeniably passing the turing test in case that was in debate still. No one can really tell if what's AI generated or not anymore. We're all going by vibes and undoubtedly getting it wrong.

i don't think that's what this means. it just means to me a certain population of people are clueless and don't use these tools enough. what's _actually_ damaging/obnoxious are the ones arguing that this guy is a good writer and that this isn't AI. IMO, telling the difference can be as simple as looking for the common giveaways, or as complex as reading between the lines of the structure of sentences, the terrible adjectives, and the soullessness of it. If you have half a brain and are well read, you can _probably_ tailor these LLMs to write in a way that reads better. But, it requires people to read a lot of content and literature to understand what good writing is, and this contrived, overly convoluted soulless soup of words is certainly not an example of it.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#628

Post by achenatx »

conscion wrote: post #304
nxm wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actual effective managers do much more than "gathering information from folks below him, distilling it down and reporting that to people above him."

> Actual effective managers do much more And how many managers are effective vs. only information funnels?

the key for managers is like business owners

1) understand what success means for their area 2) assemble a team and remove roadblocks for them to achieve 1.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#629

Post by nicoburns »

rich_sasha wrote: post #407
didibus wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if you'd claim it's terrible, there's some explaining to do Here's the explaining: - Unemployment has increased. - Long-Term unemployment has increased. - Number of gig workers is at an all time high. - Layoffs have continued. - Personal household dept is at an all time high. - Polls show most people have financial anxiety and feel squeezed. - Inflation is not under control. - Buy now pay later usage is up as mu…

I'd say these are symptoms (and I'm not denying them) rather than causes. My point is that it's hard to find hard data that would say the economy is doing poorly. Even unemployment, which is your top line, seems... fine? I just don't understand where the squeeze is coming from. Either companies figured out how to do more with less people, or they started the cycle with too many people, or they don't know what they ar…

Cause wise, we probably shouldn't ignore the delayed hangover from covid. But also the longer term trends towards an economy that is extractive rather than productive, and increasingly unequal, neither of which are sustainable.

Re: Amazon cuts 16k jobs

#630

Post by achenatx »

toddmorey wrote: post #491
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…

“He should’ve been so aware that his job was going to be the first one cut, and he was responsible for building a tool to cut his own job” That tool was going to get built whether he did it or someone else did. Maybe only thing to do is buy time building it while actively looking elsewhere.

the answer is build it again and start selling it to other companies.
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