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Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

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Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#201

Post by rsynnott »

bsimpson wrote: post #190
rsynnott wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In both cases, this is due to government regulation, not first-mover disadvantage. TVs showed up at about the same time in Europe and the US (first working TV was in the UK, and first regular TV station was in the US, but you’re talking about a year or so’s difference). SCART became a thing because the French government required companies to support it from 1980 on; previously European TVs generally used DIN. As for…

Tap to pay felt like it took off in the US as a reaction to the germ hysteria of the pandemic. Swiping a card was arguably more convenient than getting out and unlocking your phone. There wasn't much demand for it here when it was popular in e.g. Singapore. The amount of time people spend holding (rather than pocketing) their phones is also probably higher than it was in the 2010s, so the cost of digging it out of yo…

So in Europe for a long time, tap to pay was normally via _card_, not phone. I don’t think there was a common phone-based EMVish standard before Apple and Google Pay came out (there were a few weird stored value things), but tap-able EMV cards showed up around 2007 (again, there were various local and national proprietary stored value cards before that, but in most cases they never really caught on).

Another factor may be that American card terminals were traditionally quite slow, or at least vendors rarely prioritised speed (I have no idea _why_ this was the case, but it definitely seems to have been the case). Tap to pay really works best if the auth can happen within a second or so.

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#202

Post by ldjkfkdsjnv »

wkat4242 wrote: post #17
viccis wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, the worst of them are lodged in there tighter than trichinella larvae.

Yeah because the good ones already left the shitshow to get a job somewhere better. Because they can.

You realize alot of these managers are making seven figures? The "good ones" arent leaving. They are clinging to that money

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#203

Post by steveBK123 »

ketzo wrote: post #107
steveBK123 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely unique experience for you probably. I think career wise in 20 years I'd break down my experience as - 25% benign, 25% malign, 50% good. This is across 6+ companies, 15-20 managers.

The way people on HN sometimes talk about "management," you'd think the universal experience is 1% good, 9% benign, 90% actively seeking the downfall of civilization Managers seem like a good example of the "toupee problem" -- the ones you notice, and really remember, are the bad ones; the best, you might never see at all.

I don't think the good ones go unnoticed.

You remember what you learned from good managers, and you remember how bad managers made you feel. Benign ones could be replaced by an LLM.

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#204

Post by amrocha »

wnolens wrote: post #106
basisword wrote: post #97

I don't understand the shit 'managers' get on here. I've been in this industry for 15+ years and with one or two rare exceptions every manager has been great. They respect my time, when I need something they're incredibly helpful, and they care about my career development. IMO the culling over managers over the past few years is really a way to make sure you don't have someone you can discuss career development, prom…

Unique experience. I've had mostly useless managers in my 15y career, downright toxic ones in my 3y AWS stint.

You chose to work in a toxic company, of course you had toxic managers.

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#207

Post by ldjkfkdsjnv »

davidrupp wrote: post #125

SDE, just passed ten years at Amazon; opinions my own, obvs. The three best managers I've worked with in my career have all been at Amazon (you know who you are). Also the three worst (ditto). And the respective bars were pretty [high | low] coming in. Just like everywhere else I've been, it comes down to the individual. Amazon, as far as I can tell, have never tried to homogenize management. Your team delivers? You'…

People wildly underestimate how good some of the people at Amazon are. Tenured Amazon employees that have moved up the ranks over 10+ years are astounding in their ability to execute on projects.

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#208

Post by ldjkfkdsjnv »

ryandrake wrote: post #129
steveBK123 wrote: post #104

Interesting that the math tells us AMZN average manager compensation is $250k? Seems.. low?

$250K is low: Kind of a "Peak HN" comment :). I was actually going to say it seems kind of high. This looks like it's globally, not just in high COL areas, and across all levels of management, not just Directors and VPs. Kind of surprising the average is that high. Then again, this is HN, where they say the "average" tech worker in the world makes $400K and drives a Ferrari.

bottom barrel tech manager at amazon makes 400k

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#209

Post by qmmmur »

naijaboiler wrote: post #144
Myrmornis wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience has generally been that a group of intelligent adults are capable of both planning and steering the course of their development efforts as well as carrying out those development efforts. It's not unprecedented, or a particularly radical thesis: in university research labs, as a PhD student, post-doc, or professor, you manage yourself (PhD students meeting with their advisor once every few weeks). Sure,…

imagine comparing management at a small research lab to a multi-national corporation. Such unfounded hubris.

If you view the university as one large company pushing research forward on many fronts then it is about the same

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#210

Post by jamesfinlayson »

steveBK123 wrote: post #103
basisword wrote: post #97

I don't understand the shit 'managers' get on here. I've been in this industry for 15+ years and with one or two rare exceptions every manager has been great. They respect my time, when I need something they're incredibly helpful, and they care about my career development. IMO the culling over managers over the past few years is really a way to make sure you don't have someone you can discuss career development, prom…

Genuinely unique experience for you probably. I think career wise in 20 years I'd break down my experience as - 25% benign, 25% malign, 50% good. This is across 6+ companies, 15-20 managers.

My career hasn't been as long but it's been 50% good 50% bad roughly - of the bad ones, one was a sycophant to a narcissistic product owner but didn't directly cause me any trouble, while the other two were promoted developers who tried to force their will on developers while also playing political games to try and preserve themselves.
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