For those of you in the business who missed 2000-2002 and/or to a lesser extent 2008, you have no idea what is coming. Good luck.
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Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
131–140 of 298 posts
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
> at this point no one in my technical circle has proprietary "smart" home automation devices anymore What are they using now, if you don't mind me asking?
Home Assistant almost goes without saying at this point.
Does it? I walk in tech circles, and actively work for a startup, and I don't think a single person in my circle of friends/coworkers has a Home Assistant setup, and _most_ have either an Alexa or a Google Assistant of some form.
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just don't see the path to profitability for Alexa. Like, sure, it's neat, but how does it make any money? Do they sell the devices at a profit? Does usage of the devices lead to increased sales on Amazon.com? Are those sales that wouldn't have taken place on the app/website otherwise?
> Does usage of the devices lead to increased sales on Amazon.com? Are those sales that wouldn't have taken place on the app/website otherwise? That seems reasonable. Customers can order directly through the device ("Alexa, order some toilet paper"), that's low friction and lets Amazon rank options to their benefit. Plus regularly using Alexa keeps Amazon primed (no pun intended) in the customer's mind so next time t…
> lets Amazon rank options to their benefit
This might get them in trouble eventually.
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a big difference between reducing the number of hourly workers (warehouse, drivers) and cutting 10,000 corporate jobs.
Amazon has something like 100k corporate employees, and their URA targets force managers to PIP approximately 6% of the corporate employees every year, so going from 6% to 10% isn’t exactly a massive change.
Employees who are PIP'd are replaced, though. The positions themselves still exist. This is cutting 10k positions if I'm interpreting correctly, so it's really going from 0% to 4%. It may also impact entire teams or business lines.
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Does usage of the devices lead to increased sales on Amazon.com? Are those sales that wouldn't have taken place on the app/website otherwise? That seems reasonable. Customers can order directly through the device ("Alexa, order some toilet paper"), that's low friction and lets Amazon rank options to their benefit. Plus regularly using Alexa keeps Amazon primed (no pun intended) in the customer's mind so next time t…
> at this point no one in my technical circle has proprietary "smart" home automation devices anymore What are they using now, if you don't mind me asking?
Probably nothing.
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#136Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#137Amazon lists employees at 1.6M employees worldwide. ( https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/number... ) Even if they have 1% churn each month, that's about 16,000 turnover a month. Laying off 10,000 is not news until we find out where the cuts are happening.
This is specifically tech and corporate employees, which is a much smaller pool than the 1.6M you're quoting.
Disclaimer: I work for Amazon (but also haven't stated any opinions)
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon doesn’t release info about the Alexa category in their earnings, so any reporting can only rely on whatever figure has been leaked.
That seems like reporting on Meta's 2022 losses in virtual reality in late 2026, which would seem absurd, even if that's the best/only information they have at that time. (At some point, you have to admit "we don't have any relevant information" rather than report on "the least irrelevant information we can find".)
The story does note how old the figure is, so readers can take it with a grain of salt as appropriate.
You could think of reporting on selective leaks like this as kind of a needling for Amazon to release more up-to-date info.
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just don't see the path to profitability for Alexa. Like, sure, it's neat, but how does it make any money? Do they sell the devices at a profit? Does usage of the devices lead to increased sales on Amazon.com? Are those sales that wouldn't have taken place on the app/website otherwise?
It's an ads vector Eventually people will say "Alexa buy my groceries" Alexa will buy from the highest bidder
The only kind of people I imagine would be okay with a 3rd party blind shopping for them would be those who haven't seen the inside of a store in years because they have help that does all of their shopping and domestic work already.
Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees
#140This is so completely normal in these industries that it is a non-headline.
Companies that have so much cash they can employ 100K+ developers on top of goodness knows how many designers, PMs, POs etc. of course they hire and fire. They can afford to offer above-average conditions when the markets need it and everyone goes flocking there only to be surprised when their job is taken away at the next point the shareholders are bothered about ROI.
If you want to ride the unicorns and take the risk, that's fine, but there are plenty of people around the world who have far fewer choices with their work and are paid far less so I don't feel too bad that someone's Christmas might be not as expected.
If you want job security, get a job somewhere that isn't trying to earn their next billion, where you can make a difference, where you are appreciated and where work/life balance means something. I expect you would feel much better :-)