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Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division

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

#381

Post by tinyhouse »

JCM9 wrote: post #365
tinyhouse wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, Andy led AWS to what it is today. Second, Amazon had a problem before Andy took over. Way too many managers and incompetent people in very senior levels. The fact that he's doing something about it is a good thing for Amazon. You don't become a CEO of a behemoth such as Amazon and expect to show impact within 6 months. It takes years. In terms of AI, they did invest in Anthropic early on and are a significant…

1. Lots of cracks showing in AWS before he took the big job, lack of focus, bloat of too many services with too few users 2. He then hired Adam to take over AWS which didn’t work out well 3. Good to see he’s cleaning things up, but we’re past the “clean things up” phase for a CEO. He’s been in role for a while now. That should have been the first few years of his tenure. 4. Anthropic was a good investment, but Amazon…

That's fair. I actually didn't realize it's been already 4+ years since he took over as CEO. I do think that we haven't heard the last word of Amazon Anthropic's partnership. Microsoft is already deep in OpenAI, and Google, while also a major stakeholder in Anthropic, directly competes with Gemini (API, code, etc). Amazon has foundation models but not really in the game, so this partnership is likely to continue. Both sides need it (Amazon for staying in the AI game and Anthropic for the resources and cash)

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

#382

Post by FranzFerdiNaN »

andsoitis wrote: post #177
phoe-krk wrote: post #4

These aren't "job losses", these are "firings". They aren't unfortunate accidents of external origin that happened to them, they are conscious internal decisions to let people go.

> These aren't "job losses", these are "firings". While both terms mean someone no longer has a job, they differ in cause and implication. Firing is when employer terminates someone for cause, i.e. employee did something wrong or didn't meet expectations. Job loss is a broader term, simply means the person no longer has a job, for any reason, but typically layoffs, downsizing, restructuring, plant closure, or being f…

> Firing is when employer terminates someone for cause,

People are fired for a cause, namely Amazon needs more profit for its shareholders.

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

#383

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

ericmay wrote: post #144
martin-t wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Behavior is shaped by incentives. Countries used to be overwhelmingly autocratic - often ruled by hereditary dictators called kings. People realized unchecked power will always lead to abuse and overthrew them. Companies are overwhelmingly autocratic (cooperatives being exceedingly rare to the point most people don't know about their existence) - often rules by hereditary dictators called owners. But you can't legall…

The US kind of does in that at least in spirit if the government violates the constitution we have this 2nd Amendment and plenty of moral precedent from the founders. It’s in the Declaration of Independence too which, in my view, is just the first page of the Constitution. The 0th Amendment if you will. Related to your second point about autocracy - I mean the good thing is you can, today, go start a company with the…

I always find this so funny. “Citizens have guns so they can overthrow a government that has tanks, helicopters, nuclear weapons, bunker busting bombs, etc”

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

#384

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

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

The only publicly traded companies that are involved in what could be considered circular dealings in enough volume to affect their stock price are Nvidia and Oracle.

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

#385

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

xyst wrote: post #326

What’s the severance package at Amazon like? Standard 3 mo w/ insurance during that period? Do they accelerate vesting schedule? Any AMZN drones care to chime in?

1 month for each year and partial year worked. They don’t accelerate vesting schedule.

Former AWS drone. Fortunately I never had to work in an office.

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

#386

Post by ventedmouse »

nilkn wrote: post #266
Covenant0028 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that when an organization descends into a cycle of repetitive downsizings, it inevitably leads to people focusing more on protecting their jobs than on business value. By the process of natural selection, the people who survive such rounds of firings are the ones with the political skills to survive them. Some of those guys will be star performers, but most will simply be politicians. Over time, this pro…

My company’s been through layoffs/reorgs every 3–6 months for three years. One thing is true: performance management happens faster. Many chronic low performers were laid off, and a few “too many cooks” problems were resolved. Those benefits are real and genuine. But it’s a mistake to assume the remainder is automatically high‑performer‑only. Three patterns I’ve seen: 1) People with options leave first. If you can fi…

Your comment made wonder if there is an social / economic phenomenon tied to your characterization. I'd be really curious if there is any academic work done on further elucidating it.

Edit: Did some research with ChatGPT and found the following papers if anyone else is interested in the above concepts.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9537742/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235279297_The_survi...

https://backend.production.deepblue-documents.lib.umich.edu/...

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10025906/

https://strategy.sjsu.edu/www.stable/pdf/Staw%2C%20B%2C%20L%...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0312896220970609

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

#387

Post by pjc50 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #307
pjc50 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we may be hitting an issue in translation between English and American; in British English "fired" implies "for cause", while a "blameless" process of headcount reduction is known as "redundancy". "Job losses" is a perfectly reasonable neutral phrase here. Indeed, under UK law and job contracts you generally cannot just chuck someone out of their job without either notice or cause or, for large companies, a s…

> in British English "fired" implies "for cause", while a "blameless" process of headcount reduction is known as "redundancy" OK. I was fired for no stated cause in a process that didn't involve headcount reduction, or the firing of anyone except me specifically. (The unstated cause seems to have been that I had been offered a perk by the manager who hired me that the new manager didn't want to honor after the origin…

"Breach of contract"? "Sacked" would probably work colloquially.

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

#388

Post by strict9 »

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…

>It basically needs to replace its present Balmer with a Satya.

You had me all the wya until this line.

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

#389

Post by nradov »

kristov wrote: post #260
getpokedagain wrote: post #178

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. 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…

Oh I agree with you. I don't live in the US, but in a country that has a very high progressive tax rate. I am taxed about 50% of my income currently. But I gladly pay it because I like to live in a safe country with strong government programs and a great healthcare system. It is also very difficult to fire an employee here. Companies generally have to pay people to leave, and this can be a year salary upwards. But I…

Spare us your sympathy. When it's harder to terminate employees then employers are more reluctant to hire in the first place, leading to higher unemployment rates and overall slower economic growth. As a US based employee who has been laid off before (multiple times) I prefer our approach.

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

#390

Post by ericmay »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #383
ericmay wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US kind of does in that at least in spirit if the government violates the constitution we have this 2nd Amendment and plenty of moral precedent from the founders. It’s in the Declaration of Independence too which, in my view, is just the first page of the Constitution. The 0th Amendment if you will. Related to your second point about autocracy - I mean the good thing is you can, today, go start a company with the…

I always find this so funny. “Citizens have guns so they can overthrow a government that has tanks, helicopters, nuclear weapons, bunker busting bombs, etc”

Ok so the US military is going to drop a nuclear weapon on Dallas or Buffalo to stop insurgents? Why even bother writing something like that when you know it’s stupid?

Obviously governments have superior firepower and can and have quashed rebellions. But rebellions have been successful as well. Taking away arms from the people makes rebellion in the case of tyranny that much harder.

I don’t think it’s unfair to question whether such rights are worthwhile or not, but I do think it’s unfair to suggest that since the government has helicopters you can’t have a rebellion. They sure didn’t need any tanks or helicopters when the MAGA goons tried to hang Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi.

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