Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#271

Post by siggen » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 9:15 PM UTC

dangrossman wrote: post #249

thoughtpeddler wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not good practice to connect your security systems to your voice assistant, especially door locks. Maybe this isn't the case in your home, but in smaller apartments it's certainly possible for a malicious actor to say "Hey {voice_assistant}, unlock front door", and they gain access. It's the modern day "open sesame".

They thought of that many years ago, before adding lock support to Alexa. You can lock the door with a simple command, but unlocking or opening requires a pin code. Nobody can get into my house by shouting through the windows.

Can you say your PIN? And if so, can a recording of you or a simulation of you saying it be played?

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#272

Post by oblio » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 9:25 PM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #263

patentatt wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the unemployment that those workers receive is an externality. Now, the nature of UI does mean that it should wash out in the end, but in the near term laying off thousands of people simultaneously potentially puts a strain on the system.

No, unemployment costs is not a externality from the company. It is a public cost resulting from the layoff. Externality has a specific meaning. It is a cost of production passed on to the customer or third party. Not everything that has a consequence is an externality.

By your own logic, the government is a third party. Because the government aka the tax payer covers that public cost...

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#273

Post by oblio » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 9:31 PM UTC

1letterunixname wrote: post #179

From people who work high-up in AWS, I heard this doesn't generally affect them.

Them as in higher-ups or did they mean it won't affect their low level workers?

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#274

Post by iLoveOncall » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 9:36 PM UTC

firstSpeaker wrote: post #198

joshuamarksmith wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

What is the ballpark of corporate employees count?

Hard to tell but probably around 300K.

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#275

Post by elforce002 » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 9:44 PM UTC

Amazon really is something else. Loyalty is really expensive and there'll come a day when they will learn that the hard way. I know these layoffs are because of the uncertainty of the economy but they already have bad rep with things like "hire to fire" candidates, etc...

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#276

Post by s1artibartfast » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 9:46 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #272

s1artibartfast wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, unemployment costs is not a externality from the company. It is a public cost resulting from the layoff. Externality has a specific meaning. It is a cost of production passed on to the customer or third party. Not everything that has a consequence is an externality.

By your own logic, the government is a third party. Because the government aka the tax payer covers that public cost...

Let's say I'm a good neighbor and I take your trash to the curb. I decide to stop, you now have to take out your own trash or pay someone. That change brings a real cost to you, but it is not my externality.

If I put my trash in your bin, that would be an externality.

Not employing someone is neutral.

Laid off workers and the state are not harmed by the company that stops sending paychecks.

To think otherwise leads to absurd conclusions.

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#277

Post by jjtheblunt » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 9:46 PM UTC

nojito wrote: post #199

jjtheblunt wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people want things like Apple CarPlay - a big touchscreen - not voice commands I don't know the answer, but i wonder why you say that's what people want, since the high end BMW and Audi and Mercedes cars etc now all have their own voice commands to _avoid_ using the touchscreen (presumably for driving). I wonder how they even get a survey that's representative.

Because customers are demanding CarPlay https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/29/apple-carplay-massive-succes...

thanks (seriously cool article)

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#278

Post by samanator » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 10:16 PM UTC

Why did this never make it to the front page of hackernews? I had to search it up to find it.

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#279

Post by P_I_Staker » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 10:23 PM UTC

zackmorris wrote: post #119

Something I've never understood about layoffs is that large corporations have nearly unlimited borrowing power. Amazon's market cap is just over $1 trillion, so it could probably borrow up to ~10x or $10 trillion against that (almost half the US GDP). Isn't that enough money to keep employees through a downturn? The flip side is that individuals have almost no borrowing power. The bottom 40% of the US population has…

Corporations don't always see attrition as a bad thing, especially amazon. When execs buy to much it's nice to be able to make some returns, especially if it's the stuff you don't really like.

Why go into debt if it's not going to benefit the company in the long term? We don't actually know how long economic downturns can be, or what kind of turmoil will be encountered. Why keep a liability.

Then you have the attitude of management itself. There has been talk for some time that companies have been going crazy with hiring, and that's certainly the case. However, many mangers and execs have gotten in the mindset that their being horribly abused, and their employees have gotten lazy and entitled.

Have you talked to a manager, or CTO in the last few years (off the record, and not as an employee/coworker). They absolutely despise the average working stiff and are relishing the opportunity to exercise their powers again.

Re: Amazon is said to plan to lay off thousands of employees

#280

Post by Godel_unicode » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 10:32 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #230

mrtranscendence wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a big user of Siri, but I've had better luck than you describe. Siri will reliably play songs and podcasts I request; read out text messages; transcribe my response to text messages; and find directions to places. This is about as much as I really want.

I find podcasts and playlists pretty frustrating generally. But then I tend to want to listen to something fairly specific as opposed to more or less whatever as background; I've never been a big radio listener. I have used it for texts but that's very uncommon and directions can be hit and miss to make changes on the fly. It's definitely better than nothing but it's a far cru from a passenger doing that sort of thin…

I have the same use case but with very different results. “hotwords play my playlist foo” works for many values of foo with both google assistant and Siri. Ditto mapping, ditto sending texts.

Do you have an uncommon accent?