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Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

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Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#421

Post by andirk »

hjgjhyuhy wrote: post #394
zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never understood the people who make no effort to better themselves - they work in technology, everything has a 3-5 year engineering life, they should always be preparing for the next thing. People often can’t control what technologies their employer uses, but if they have solid fundamentals and I can tell they have tried to learn things on their own, more often then not I’ll give them a chance, and it usually w…

Some people have a family, or otherwise time consuming personal lives, which does limit the ability to learn new things outside of work. I wouldn’t really blame them for not ”bettering themselves” if they don’t get to do that on paid company time.

I have never had an engineering (or really any!) job where learning on company time was absent. A lot of people like to grow and a lot of people don't. And a lot of the latter realize their waning usefulness and how they're one algorithm update away from being obsolete so they put time and effort in to masking that.

I enjoy being the dumbest person in the room. Others find it threatening.

And for those who are so busy outside of work that they can't grow inside of work, I feel for them because that sounds like an exhausting life.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#422

Post by capableweb »

killingtime74 wrote: post #418
CoastalCoder wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may have a stale understanding of the laws regarding drones in the U.S. But my understanding is they can basically hover around / over your property without your consent. That's very different from vans driving on public roads and (when I've ordered something) parking in my driveway.

I mean planes and satellites also flyover your house without your consent. Do you think you own all the airspace from your house to the edge of the atmosphere? I don’t work at Amazon, just curious about your reasoning.

Somehow, I'm guessing the altitude makes a bit of a difference. A drone over your house might be visible and even hearable, while a satellite barely is.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#423

Post by capableweb »

bombolo wrote: post #401
Olreich wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are brilliant devs at Amazon. There are poor devs at Amazon. The quality of the dev has very little bearing on promotion and hiring from what I can tell. Story telling and document writing appear to be the only things that are graded on a scale, everything else is pass/fail.

I worked with a very mediocre former amaxon developer who felt like he was god's gift because he had worked there. Avoid if possible.

This is my experience with most people coming from FAANG in general. Started using it as a signal for people to avoid hiring instead of as a good signal.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#424

Post by d4rkp4ttern »

I have one word to partially explain this: Costco

Or to elaborate: Recession => price sensitivity => costco

Until a few months ago my first impulse was to just order everything from Amazon. Now instead my first impulse is to see if it’s available at Costco, and if it is, it’s likely to be at a significantly lower unit cost.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#425

Post by snake_doc »

roncesvalles wrote: post #371
snake_doc wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesterday Jan 3, Amazon borrowed another $8B at 0.75% plus SOFR (which is basically Fed Funds rate at ~4.3%) through a short term credit facility. Also, Amazon has ~$69B in long term lease liabilities. That’s about ~3x the combined long term lease liabilities of Walmart and Costco (~$20B combined). Walmart and Costco are the world’s #1 and #3 retailer, Amazon being #2. From the beginning when Jassy took the job, the…

>Also, Amazon has ~$69B in long term lease liabilities. That’s about ~3x the combined long term lease liabilities of Walmart and Costco (~$20B combined). Walmart and Costco are the world’s #1 and #3 retailer, Amazon being #2. Long term lease liabilities are next to meaningless for any kind of analysis because it's the sum of rent due at any point after the next 12 months. Could be at the 13th month. Could be at the 1…

Instead of your speculation, let me be the expert to explain your speculation is wrong.

1. ASC 842 states that lease liabilities should be measured by lease terms that are non-cancellable. In this case, these are Amazon’s non-cancellable leases.

2. The average lease term remaining is ~9-11 years for Amazon.

3. Lease liabilities are present value calculations, ie. They are not as you suggested 50 years x $1M/yr. They represent the present value of the discounted cash flows. The discount rates are disclosed.

Leases notes from latest Amazon 10-Q: https://www.bamsec.com/filing/101872422000023/1?cik=1018724&...

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#426

Post by ferdowsi »

quasarj wrote: post #258
ferdowsi wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you go from 9 to working age without getting residency in the US or another country?

First experience with the US immigration process, eh?

No, my parents were immigrants and I have multiple relatives who came to the United States as children and gained residency.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#427

Post by mensetmanusman »

slantedview wrote: post #254
dkrich wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s unusual about this cycle though is that it’s the fear of a recession due to fed policy that is causing companies to cut back. In past cycles fed policy caused a recession nobody predicted and companies suddenly found their earnings in the toilet and made enormous cuts in head count, R&D spending, etc. Something about this cycle and these cuts feels I dunno, manufacturered or something. Like are 7k high paying…

> Something about this cycle and these cuts feels I dunno, manufactured or something. It's absolutely manufactured to the extent that the Fed is intentionally trying to slow demand (aka: cause a recession) in order to stop inflation. The problem is, a large portion of inflation (some indicators are half) is simple price gouging, which Fed measures won't impact, and another large portion is simple ongoing supply chain…

Price gouging is another word for a supply shock due to far fewer workers and a strong subsidized demand.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#428

Post by tomrod »

anonreeeeplor wrote: post #153
VincentEvans wrote: post #36

Here’s a thought that has been percolating in my mind for a bit since these “market adjustments” began a month or two back. Somehow at some point, in what perhaps could be blamed on the ever-hated mass produced MBAs - companies got really comfortable with the “it’s not personal, it’s just good business” of letting go of their employees for a slightest reason, or sometimes for no reason at all - just to make it look t…

I believe that there is a power swing about to happen where talented individuals may get a lot more powerful and influential in relation to institutions and corporations. I liken it to how MANPADS allow individual soldiers to overpower tanks for far cheaper, flipping the script on 100 years of war. It hasn’t fully come to pass yet but corporations hire way too many “credential dead weight.” In my career I have often…

Having been on both sides of the table, credentials are shortcuts for expected minimum knowledge base for technical understanding.

One should likely never use credentialing to substitute or proxy as a marker for creativity or capacity. Credentials only show a snapshot of knowledgebase at a specific point in time.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#429

Post by ryan93 »

lmm wrote: post #303
ryan93 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> you can literally start a company with the coworkers you would have unionized with and created security for yourself and them. I can, but we'd still be taking on a bunch of risk - we'd have to put the capital into the company, as owners we would no longer be eligible for unemployment insurance if the company did fold, we have the possibility of one of us kicking another out so internal politics suddenly matters - w…

At the cost of upside to OTHER people.

Re: Amazon to Lay Off over 17,000 Workers, More Than First Planned

#430

Post by illiac786 »

capitalsigma wrote: post #388
rob74 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even think "pain to keep employees" is the right word here - Amazon for instance is still highly profitable, it's just that the profits went down a bit (which is to be expected if the economy is worse). But they're still laying off people just to make the bottom line look even better...

Believe it or not, Amazon is not a charity. I don't know why you expect them to hold on to employees who are evidently a loss to their bottom line.

The correct wording is “Amazon will do anything they deem necessary to make their shareholders happy, no matter if it’s profitable or not.”

I am convinced they have zero data indicating firing these people will be profitable on the long run, only that short term it is, and that’s all that shareholders are interested in.

I’m a big fan of any measure making stock exchange less volatile, like some form of tax on every transaction, to slow down the machine, make short term investments (speculation) less rewarding. This may help in reducing the appetite of shareholders for such short sighted measures.

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