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Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

bbc.com

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Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#271

Post by JeremyNT »

blenderob wrote: post #202
JCM9 wrote: post #185

To be clear, it’s worse. Read the press release carefully: 1. 14k was the net change in “corporate headcount” which is PR puffery speak saying they’re firing a lot more but when you net out folks let go slotting into open roles elsewhere the net change today would be a 14k reduction 2. It also says that “looking ahead” “we expect to… find additional places we can remove layers, increase ownership, and realize efficie…

> there were huge misses on areas like AI Honest question. What could they have possibly gained from AI? What did they miss out on by not getting into AI?

Surely b2b "model API provider" would've been a great fit for Amazon, but others are absolutely dominating this space right now.

The silver lining for Amazon is that nobody is making a profit by actually providing that service. It's just massive valuations and VC money flowing freely instead of a sustainable business model, and Amazon plays a much longer game - they can recover even if being so far behind is a "bad look" for their current management.

It's not hard to switch between OpenAI/Anthropic/Azure/Google/whatever and Amazon can surely eventually compete well in this space.

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#272

Post by drstewart »

noir_lord wrote: post #102
lotsofpulp wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SP500 is flat this year when you account for loss of purchasing power of the US dollar: https://ycharts.com/indices/%5ESPXEUR

Factor out the AI companies doing circular dealing to juke their stock price and GDP growth was like 0.1% combine that with purchasing power loss and US economy is net negative. It's pretty clear what happens next. Over 42 million people are about to lose their SNAP payments in 4 days[1] and millions more medical care. It's gonna get bad. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g7d9j7p5qo

"Exclude data I don't like, combing it with other data that's unrelated in unknown ways, and voila: DOOM!"

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#273

Post by malfist »

kristov wrote: post #210
cool_dude85 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As an employee you don't have financial risk tied to the company Is your livelihood, housing, ability to put food on the table for your family etc. not a risk by your understanding? Or are you only willing to accept certain types of financial risk as "risk"? Here's an illustrative question: John Q. Billionaire owns shares in a passive index fund such that he practically has the same exposure to Amazon's stock price…

If your a billionaire and you invest in index funds, the risk of becoming homeless is really low, sure. The system works in such a way that the more money you have the easier it is to make more money. So if your stuck at the bottom, your really stuck. And I believe there is a huge shift of wealth going on, to a very small number of insanely rich people. And that is a very big problem.

I don't think the billionare is at risk of becoming homeless even if they invest all $10m in a single company and it goes belly up.

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#274

Post by boilerupnc »

reactordev wrote: post #9
code4life wrote: post #2

It really feels like we are in the middle of a recession.

Worse, we’ve been in one but have been pretending we aren’t. Stock goes up.

Previously discussed:

“ Without data centers, GDP growth was 0.1% in the first half of 2025”

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45512317

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#275

Post by reassess_blind »

getpokedagain wrote: post #178
kristov wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your sentiment, but the reason for the imbalance is risk. As an employee you don't have financial risk tied to the company, you get a regular paycheck. But if you are an investor you take a risk that the money you invest can one day just vanish with zero return. With Amazon obviously the risk of that is low. But for many new companies the risk is very high. Therefore the payoffs are also high, to attract…

> I agree with your sentiment, but the reason for the imbalance is risk. As an employee you don't have financial risk tied to the company, you get a regular paycheck. But if you are an investor you take a risk that the money you invest can one day just vanish with zero return. I would challenge you to change your perspective on this. The average employee is likely to be worse in the case of a failed company than an i…

Everything you said is true, but the relevant risk in the equation is objective risk, not relative risk.

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#277

Post by pruetj »

blenderob wrote: post #202
JCM9 wrote: post #185

To be clear, it’s worse. Read the press release carefully: 1. 14k was the net change in “corporate headcount” which is PR puffery speak saying they’re firing a lot more but when you net out folks let go slotting into open roles elsewhere the net change today would be a 14k reduction 2. It also says that “looking ahead” “we expect to… find additional places we can remove layers, increase ownership, and realize efficie…

> there were huge misses on areas like AI Honest question. What could they have possibly gained from AI? What did they miss out on by not getting into AI?

The only thing I can think of is if they had converted Alexa into a truly useful assistant and gotten people to sign up for a premium to it while everyone was still in awe of and having fun talking to LLMs.

Even if they executed this perfectly though, I think all it would do is increase the burn rate related to Alexa. Plus there's no moat, everyone has a phone with more capable hardware that would be a better place for this assistant to live long term.

I don't think they missed too much on the AI front. Bedrock was crap during formative LLM-solution building times, maybe that was a legitimate miss of theirs? SageMaker still is crap, another miss?

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#278

Post by [deleted] »

spoiler wrote: post #192
01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-LinkedIn version: https://ourdinnertable.wordpress.com/2025/05/06/jeff-bezos-d... > “Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by death. And that’s why it’s always Day 1.” Sharks don't look back, cause they don't have necks. Necks are for sheep

Is this one of those things that are meant to sound deep and profound by inventing terminology, but isn't? That's such a like day 2 person thing to do. (Actually don't know if I used day 2 correctly, feels a bit like trying to use skibidi ohio in a sentence)

[deleted]

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#279

Post by mikeocool »

HacklesRaised wrote: post #222
schnable wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Continually AI is used to justify layoffs that seem like simple corrections to overhiring.

I always wonder if the people responsible for the over-hiring are on the block? My personal experience suggests not.

Most boards(particularly of large publicly traded tech companies) don't hire CEOs to ensure their companies remain stable in the longterm at the expense of profits, they hire them to grow short term profits.

Boards don't see the over-hiring as a mistake. On the contrary, had CEOs not moved to grow their companies relentlessy and pursue profits in the years during/after COVID when tech was booming, their boards would have fired them. Now that times are leaner, they need to rein in spending to maintain profits -- if they dont do that, then they'll be fired.

Re: Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

#280

Post by isleyaardvark »

Sharlin wrote: post #131
rs186 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same difference as in "He died of heart attack" and "She was killed in a car crash".

Or one of my favorites, "was hit by a car". While true in the strict physical sense, that’s like reporting that someone was "shot by a gun".

"killed by an officer's duty weapon" or "died in an officer-involved shooting" are the ways police departments tend to put it.
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