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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

#461

Post by rendang »

pruetj wrote: post #277
blenderob wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 f…

I'm curious what are the shortcomings you find with SageMaker?

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

#462

Post by reassess_blind »

nradov wrote: post #393
reassess_blind wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, owning the business will almost always be a better financial deal than working for the business.

Which business? The majority of businesses fail and never turn a profit. A success like Amazon is the exception, not the rule.

The business the person I was responding to was referring to?

I’m aware of the difficulties of running a business. I’d still always prefer to own the business rather than work within it despite that risk, which is why I do.

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

#463

Post by stackskipton »

bluGill wrote: post #425
stackskipton wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, don’t resign instead of getting terminated. The reason they offer that is gets them off the hook for unemployment and makes any lawsuit harder. It’s 100% upside to company. No one is going to know you got fired, if they call the company, it’s just dates and title, probably say in good standing. It’s in old company best interest for you to get a new job because jobless people start talking to lawyers when they get…

> makes any lawsuit harder. It’s 100% upside to company. That is why they do it. However you still should accept the offer unless you are going to sue them which most are not. Just find a new job and move on. Try to do better. > No one is going to know you got fired, if they call the company, it’s just dates and title, probably say in good standing. The good standing is not something you want to risk. They have the a…

Companies rarely answer "Eligible for rehire" or "Departed in Good Standing" because that's lawsuit bait, at least in the United States. Companies don't answer questions about your employment because companies have gotten sued and lost unless they have clear evidence.

Worrying about company asking "Good standing" is like when Elementary Teacher talking about your permanent record. It does not exist.

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

#464

Post by stackskipton »

taeric wrote: post #346
tayo42 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your talking about employment verification, no they don't say why. Just confirm dates of employment. If you get fired you can lie about it. No one can find out.

I confess this surprises me. I didn't think they had to give specific details, but I thought they had to at least confirm whose decision it was for the termination.

Companies don't have to answer any questions about your employment, they are just nice about it.

Whose decision could reveal something about employee and if employee thinks it's bullshit, that's defamation lawsuit possibility. I even know companies who bosses talk good about people they have fired because having ex-employee stew is not good. Get them a new job and move on.

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

#465

Post by mewpmewp2 »

throw0101c wrote: post #85
portaouflop wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the same language used when taking about “car accidents” They aren’t accidents, it’s an inherent part of how we designed cars and roads and we decided as society that we are ok with thousands of people killed by cars.

> It’s the same language used when taking about “car accidents” See perhaps the book There Are no Accidents by Jessie Singer: > We hear it all the time: “Sorry, it was just an accident.” And we’ve been deeply conditioned to just accept that explanation and move on. But as Jessie Singer argues convincingly: There are no such things as accidents. The vast majority of mishaps are not random but predictable and preventab…

Michigan.gov website references Merriam-Webster dictionary definition "an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance".

Then it says no one is at fault, but the definition specifically included carelessness and ignorance which does imply fault.

> Calling a crash an “accident” suggests no one is at fault. In reality, crashes result from preventable actions like distraction, inattention, or risky driving.

But all of these go under carelessness / ignorance.

And there is always a party that's at fault traffic accidents.

Normal dialogue:

Bob: I got into a traffic accident.

Alice: Who was at fault?

Bob: ...

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

#466

Post by edanm »

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, i.e. employee did something wrong or didn't meet expectations.

AFAIK you are using the term "for cause" incorrectly. Firing "for cause" is usually more serious than simply firing for poor performance or similar. It's usually for something like breach of contract, for getting in legal trouble, for theft, wilful misconduct, etc. It also usually results in losing severance, options, etc.

Simple firing for poor performance is not firing "for cause".

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

#467

Post by sysashi »

Apparently they let go some (or all?) of the AGS (amazon game studios) and putting New World (mmorpg game) on maintenance mode. This game currently has around 30-40k concurrent players on steam and probably as much or more on consoles. I feel bad for people got fired and gamers (myself included). I really like that game

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

#469

Post by potro »

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?

Short term - higher stock evaluation. Long term - depends on what value AI bubble will be able to deliver. But it's not like Amazon is sitting out of this game, they do invest into their AI (Nova models), with little return to show for it.

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

#470

Post by JustExAWS »

sgt101 wrote: post #458
JustExAWS wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Microsoft couldn’t compete with Google in search, how could Amazon? Even if the search were better, how do you get people to switch to it if Google is the default everywhere? Besides Alexa was losing billions when it was backed by the relatively cheap to run Amazon Lex pattern matching service. It would have lost more being backed by an LLM and it actually got worse from all indications.

How much of the search market will Agents or Chatbots take? Google clearly believe : a chunk. People switched to GPT and Claude... Amazon risk becoming logistics and datacenters, what's wrong with that you ask? Well, it's not where the money is. The money is in the website and the application layer.

And how much of this switch do you think will happen as long as Google is the default search engine for every major browser and every major smartphone outside of China?

Even if “agents” aren’t overhyped, why would someone switch to Amazon instead of just using Google’s offerings?

Google has reported record revenues even after the advent of LLMs and have integrated AI overviews and a separate chat tab.

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