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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

#241

Post by johnnyanmac »

elicksaur wrote: post #164

Topic seems like a bait for your typical HN user. If you dislike managers generally, why would you think Amazon is firing them for all the reasons you personally dislike them as a class? What is Amazon’s actual motive here?

It's a pretty weak smokescreen. People thinking this is about "efficiency" should go work for DOGE. This has been happening for years now so the facade is long gone.

The reasons are as usual. Anticipating economic headwinds and how to make number go up despite that,s174 (sp?) changing how you amortize R&D, early attempts to incorporate AI into workflows, etc. Companies at the moment are not at all concerned with lean development nor streamlining workflows.

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

#242

Post by rsynnott »

Macha wrote: post #178
rsynnott wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European TVs generally used SCART cables (a sort of 1970s analog HDMI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCART ), from the 1980s until HDMI took over. It was, indeed, fairly common for a TV or VCR or games console to have _only_ SCART. Odd standard; it had both composite and RGB lines, but also control lines, so, like HDMI-CEC, you could set it up so that your VCR couldn’t quite control your TV. It also supported daisy-c…

In Ireland (and I guess the UK), we'd have a lot of TVs with both. Usually they'd have multiple SCART connectors, but only a single RCA connector. It was common for stuff like games consoles to ship with a RCA to SCART adapter. I will say in terms of physical connectors, by the later years it was quite common to have poor connectivity with SCART - stiff cables leaving the connector at an angle that would gradually le…

> Usually they'd have multiple SCART connectors, but only a single RCA connector

I'm in Ireland as well, but I remember that as a high-end TV thing, mostly, though it did get more common towards the end of the analog connector era, especially for flatscreen TVs. Your generic 21" CRT TV usually just had a single SCART connector and a tuner connector, tho.

I suspect that the reason RCA (especially _component_ RCA) became more common in the flat-screen/early HD era was largely that, while SCART supported component output, the UX tended to be really bad, and there was no way for the TV to signal support to the attached device. So, virtually all set top boxes and DVD players could output RGB component via SCART, but this was never turned on by default, and the user wasn't necessarily aware of it.

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

#243

Post by steveBK123 »

kamaal wrote: post #227
ketzo wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>>you'd think the universal experience is 1% good, 9% benign, 90% actively seeking the downfall of civilization It might not be a grand conspiracy or might not come from meticulous planning, but what happens is they just work for self preservation. Its no secret that people who work on a thing are bound to know things about them better than some body who just approves leaves, or makes abstract decisions. You will get…

Right and there's asymmetry between what a good & bad manager can do.

A good manager can motivate people, but in absence of interesting projects or budget to pay people, they can still lose talent.

A bad manager can make even interesting work and good compensation intolerable and lead to a revolving door of B players as no one with better options wants to stick around.

The through line for me of genuinely bad managers is guys (always guys) who are emotionally unstable and/or have anger management issues. Whether it was being put on as an effect to get a result, or they genuinely had no control, it doesn't matter.

Shouting at people, berating people in public, praising in private while criticizing in team meetings, going on tirades over petty stuff (formatting of internal non-user facing documentation), etc.

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

#244

Post by steveBK123 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #234
ketzo wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's just negativity bias. We're hardwired to remember our wounds and avoid getting them again. And apparently we're hardwired to engage with those more than praising the great ones. For some harder numbers though: it seems to also follow the pareto principle : https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/11/13/most-amer... 20% of "fair/poor" management ruining the 80% of good. (though this is from 2023. A lot has ch…

For a lot of people, the difference between a good manager and a benign manager is smaller than the difference from benign to bad.

If you are working for an emotionally unstable shouter, the negativity seeps into your work and quality of life. I've seen bad managers make adult men cry (rarely for any good reason) and still last 2-3 years.

If you work for a good manager, you learn a little more stuff, maybe.

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

#245

Post by CharlieDigital »

bb88 wrote: post #223
CharlieDigital wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how many smart people here think this is just a trivial problem that they can solve for big tech if big tech would only listen. This is a fundamental human organization problem that many countless organizations of people have failed to perform optimally since people have started organizing into groups.

Listen to yourself. That's what management is supposed to do: manage people -- including other managers. You can't both accept and deny responsibility in the same breath. If you truly believe that, then this is cognitive dissonance in it's highest form.

There's what you imagine and what you can see with your own eyes in reality.

Amazon, with its billions and hoards of smart people, still ended up in a situation where they find themselves in excess of 14,000 employees.

It means that there's no simple formula and perhaps once in a while, orgs just need to clear the slate and see where the pain points are and build up once again.

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

#246

Post by Macha »

rsynnott wrote: post #242
Macha wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Ireland (and I guess the UK), we'd have a lot of TVs with both. Usually they'd have multiple SCART connectors, but only a single RCA connector. It was common for stuff like games consoles to ship with a RCA to SCART adapter. I will say in terms of physical connectors, by the later years it was quite common to have poor connectivity with SCART - stiff cables leaving the connector at an angle that would gradually le…

> Usually they'd have multiple SCART connectors, but only a single RCA connector I'm in Ireland as well, but I remember that as a high-end TV thing, mostly, though it did get more common towards the end of the analog connector era, especially for flatscreen TVs. Your generic 21" CRT TV usually just had a single SCART connector and a tuner connector, tho. I suspect that the reason RCA (especially _component_ RCA) beca…

Two SCART was pretty common, for e.g. a VHS player and a sky box. We definitely had switcher boxes we needed to use to connect game consoles, (or dvd players when they became a thing) up though.

I think some VHS players also had some form of pass through/switching capability of their own? It's been a while.

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

#247

Post by bookaway »

sgarland wrote: post #162
Aurornis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most egregious office politics I've ever experienced came from the company that had a pathological aversion to managers. They aimed for minimizing managerial positions to an extreme. The result was that a lot of ICs were playing hardball politics with nobody to keep them in check. Really opened my eyes to the reality of office politics.

Those people are also dead weight. I despise the fact that I have to play politics at work. Work should be based on results, period. Spending time politicking is not producing results; at best, it’s eventually producing via cajoling what could have been accomplished in 1/4 the time if you’d been left alone and trusted.

>Work should be based on results

The people who play politics also have their work judged by results. Getting yourself promoted to head a project that prints money for the company with little cost doesn't necessarily cause the project to stop printing money.

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

#248

Post by sgarland »

bookaway wrote: post #247
sgarland wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those people are also dead weight. I despise the fact that I have to play politics at work. Work should be based on results, period. Spending time politicking is not producing results; at best, it’s eventually producing via cajoling what could have been accomplished in 1/4 the time if you’d been left alone and trusted.

>Work should be based on results The people who play politics also have their work judged by results. Getting yourself promoted to head a project that prints money for the company with little cost doesn't necessarily cause the project to stop printing money.

If you’re buddies with higher-ups, they absolutely can and will look upon your projects with a softer eye. There’s a limit, of course, and that heavily depends on the company culture, but it’s unreasonable to expect favoritism to not factor in at all.

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

#249

Post by rsynnott »

Macha wrote: post #246
rsynnott wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Usually they'd have multiple SCART connectors, but only a single RCA connector I'm in Ireland as well, but I remember that as a high-end TV thing, mostly, though it did get more common towards the end of the analog connector era, especially for flatscreen TVs. Your generic 21" CRT TV usually just had a single SCART connector and a tuner connector, tho. I suspect that the reason RCA (especially _component_ RCA) beca…

Two SCART was pretty common, for e.g. a VHS player and a sky box. We definitely had switcher boxes we needed to use to connect game consoles, (or dvd players when they became a thing) up though. I think some VHS players also had some form of pass through/switching capability of their own? It's been a while.

Yeah, most VCRs, except for really cheap ones, had the pass through ability. You could theoretically chain an arbitrary number of devices, though at the best of times controlling any of this was virtually impossible.

You’d normally want your sky/cablelink box connected through your vcr, so that you could record off the box, not connected separately to the tv.

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

#250

Post by ryandvm »

bb88 wrote: post #24

I'm going to make the observation that politics in a company is caused by management. The more "politics" you have at a company, the more you pay in a "political tax". Effort which should benefit the company is delayed or made harder as employees have to bob and weave to get through the politics. I do believe if you want real culture change in a company, the best way to do it is to show managers the door, because tha…

You want to solve this problem? Then promote from below. We all understand that representative democracy is the best organizational form and then we turn around and run ALL our corporations as dictatorships.

It's not a mystery why - the providers of capital want complete control of the business decisions. But let's at least not be surprised when, like all dictatorships, the organization inevitably implodes.

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