5 ms·

With Amazon layoff blood running in the gutters today, I'm sure their PR people shook the tree to get something nice to drop onto the interwebitudes.

by vandyswa 11mo ago

ge96 11mo ago
some of you... may die...
ncr100 11mo ago
14,000 corporate jobs, laid off, today.
- palmotea 11mo ago
  > 14,000 corporate jobs, laid off, today. Hey, cut them some slack. They're barely getting by: they only made $18 billion in profit last quarter. They gotta cut some dead weight to stay solvent.
  - speff 11mo ago
    I'm not sure I understand this viewpoint. Just because a company made a big profit doesn't mean it has to keep positions it decides is unneeded. This isn't the first time I've seen this type of attitude and I'm genuinely curious about the alternative. Once you make above $X in profit, you're obligated to keep employees who aren't necessarily doing the work you want done?
    - jackdoe 11mo ago
      or you wait for the inspector's call.
    - bdangubic 11mo ago
      14k is massive layoff, even for a company as large as amazon. it isn’t about the “employees who aren’t necessarily doing the work you want done” for sure (all the while they are off-shoring by the more thousands while “america first”-run government is bailing out argentine :)
      - speff 11mo ago
        That's 4% of corporate employees going by Reuter's 350k corp employee count[0]. Sounds well within the trimming-the-fat numbers. The rest of your comment alludes to an obligation towards improving the domestic economy. That can be done through regulation, but then there's a balancing act between under/over regulation. Too much and you end up in an EU situation that hinders small tech business growth. So we come back to my previous statement/question. Above what profit amount should a company be obligated to keep (in their eyes) unproductive workers? [0]: https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/amazon-targets-many-30000-corporate-job-cuts-sources-say-2025-10-27/ https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/amazon-target...
        malfist 11mo ago
        Except amazon trims the fat every year
        bdangubic 11mo ago
        they are not “unproductive” :) to answer your question - company should have a right to fire 99% of the people if they want at any point in time and there should be no regulation of any kind against that ever. what america should do is add $250k per year per employee tax for any employee hired outside of the US.
        speff 11mo ago
        No arguments from me there
    - whatever1 11mo ago
      Hi, people are not widgets. They take huge personal, family and financial risks to move for a job. When you are getting rid en-masse people, you are ruining local communities. There is a real societal cost. It also sucks for businesses, because hiring & onboarding is so freaking hard and expensive. Not to mention that once the company has established a reputation of a revolving door, then nobody gives a shit about it. They will exploit it for the short term and let it die. Layoffs should the absolute last resort for a company due to the disruption they cause. If the market dynamics do not naturally lead to this, then regulation should shape the field.
      - speff 11mo ago
        I absolutely agree with your assessment that it should be the last resort option due to the societal cost of a large number of people losing their job. On top of the risks you mention, there's also the mental hit that often accompanies layoffs not just for the folks who were fired, but the increased feeling of paranoia from the people who are left. But can it not be the case the this /was/ the company's last resort? There's another option of moving people around and retraining them to do another function. What if that was considered and then rejected because there weren't enough departments growing to warrant that? Rhetorically, if they don't have the ability/opportunity to re-assign people, then what?
        jwilber 11mo ago
        I understand your argument but it just seems like you’re purposely being contrarian. Here’s why what you wrote seems needlessly contrarian: Amazon just posted an $18B quarter, so there is no pressing financial pressure. Okay, so you suggest this may be a last resort in lieu of retraining, but we’re talking about 14k jobs across many teams (I know of at least 40 affected), levels, and job families. The idea of needing to cross train is obviously not the culprit at that scale; An SDE laid off from one team can easily perform the same tasks on many others internally. This also completely ignores how Amazon works internally, with managers required to rank employees for pip, and, for events just like this one, URA, regardless of whether or not they deem them to be competent or not. Of course, Amazon has also been documented to use automated processes for pip/layoffs, and the idea that layoffs involved any ounce of consideration as a last resort is so unbelievable it feels almost inflammatory. The notion that criticizing one of history’s most profitable companies laying off thousands (at the height of their profits) is the same thing as stating, “every company beyond profit X should never do layoffs” is a blatant misrepresentation and ignores any context.
    - catlifeonmars 11mo ago
      They’re people, not disposable objects. The alternative would be to distribute the cost of the layoffs evenly across the employer and the employees. Right now employees pay a disproportionate portion of the cost.
      - speff 11mo ago
        The cost you're referring to is fairly abstract - I'm not sure how it can be implemented for the employer. The cost to the laid-off employee is a loss of income, mental trauma, potential loss of residence. What would your ideal solution for the employer be here? Loss of money? Layoffs normally have severance packages that are paid out to the employee - this can be seen as the company taking a monetary hit - though not proportional like you said. But what's the alternative here? 5x/10x'ing the severance package? I feel like that would make the job market even rougher as companies would be even more conservative with who and how much they hire. Mental trauma? I mentioned it in another comment, but the employees after a layoff normally do have an increased fear of future layoffs which impact morale which would result in lower productivity. Loss of residence / food? I'm coming up blank here.
        catlifeonmars 11mo ago
        Yeah I’m not sure there’s an obvious/ideal answer. I do think there’s value in disincentivizing churn though. What we’ve been seeing lately is rapid hiring followed by rapid firing. I bet there’s some inflection point where the job market would actually benefit from less churn even if it comes at the cost of higher unemployment in the short term.
        taurath 11mo ago
        > What would your ideal solution for the employer be here? Have business make responsibility more than ruthless sociopathy to grow, like any other era of business
    - pvelagal 11mo ago
      A company's fiduciary duty is towards shareholders, which forces a mindset where Employees fiduciary duty should be towards themselves. People will Unionize or create laws where companies's fiduciary duty should be towards both employees and shareholders. Well, this is all until Elon's Robots will change everything :)
      - taurath 11mo ago
        People won't unionize because they don't actually have very much power nowadays compared to corps. People who unionized in the 40s, 50s and 60s could afford a home on an hourly wage. In the labor market its pretty much serfdom, unless you come from money. Look at rents vs incomes for goodness sake
  - Ekaros 11mo ago
    Also think positively. They were in global level over paid anyways. I am happy if I can save a few more cents per item on amazon because of this.
alephnerd 11mo ago
The Amazon culture that exists today is nowhere comparable to the culture that existed 5-7 years ago. A lot of the Amazonians who had a "mission first" mindset at the mid- and upper-level rungs of engineering and product management all ended up become leadership or executive management at other companies, or founding their own companies. That said, it is important to highlight the mindset that did help Amazon during it's golden era.
- harshalizee 11mo ago
  5-7 years isn't that long ago and it was just as terrible back then. Yeah, the same "leaders" now have infected other tech companies with their culture and are actively ruining the industry.
  - alephnerd 11mo ago
    > 5-7 years isn't that long ago It is from a career perspective - at least at AWS, a large portion of high calibre Engineering and Product Leadership left during that time period and the backfills for those roles just plain sucked. > same "leaders" now have infected other tech companies with their culture and are actively ruining the industry In what way? Demanding that people who are being paid $200k-400k TC need to execute and show that they can execute is something which needed to be done in the tech industry.
    - some_guy_nobel 11mo ago
      > In what way? Demanding that people who are being paid $200k-400k TC need to execute and show that they can execute is something which needed to be done in the tech industry. Where does this come from? Maybe if you're drinking whatever (toxic) koolaid Amazon gave you, but Amazon has a lower profit-per-employee than Docusign: https://www.trueup.io/revenue-per-employee https://www.trueup.io/revenue-per-employee Not exactly the steward of execution you think it is.
      - iseletsk 11mo ago

With Amazon layoff blood running in the gutters today, I'm sure their PR people shook the tree to get something nice to drop onto the interwebitudes.

ge96 11mo ago

some of you... may die...

ncr100 11mo ago

14,000 corporate jobs, laid off, today.

palmotea 11mo ago
> 14,000 corporate jobs, laid off, today. Hey, cut them some slack. They're barely getting by: they only made $18 billion in profit last quarter. They gotta cut some dead weight to stay solvent.
- speff 11mo ago
  I'm not sure I understand this viewpoint. Just because a company made a big profit doesn't mean it has to keep positions it decides is unneeded. This isn't the first time I've seen this type of attitude and I'm genuinely curious about the alternative. Once you make above $X in profit, you're obligated to keep employees who aren't necessarily doing the work you want done?
  - jackdoe 11mo ago
    or you wait for the inspector's call.
  - bdangubic 11mo ago
    14k is massive layoff, even for a company as large as amazon. it isn’t about the “employees who aren’t necessarily doing the work you want done” for sure (all the while they are off-shoring by the more thousands while “america first”-run government is bailing out argentine :)
    - speff 11mo ago
      That's 4% of corporate employees going by Reuter's 350k corp employee count[0]. Sounds well within the trimming-the-fat numbers. The rest of your comment alludes to an obligation towards improving the domestic economy. That can be done through regulation, but then there's a balancing act between under/over regulation. Too much and you end up in an EU situation that hinders small tech business growth. So we come back to my previous statement/question. Above what profit amount should a company be obligated to keep (in their eyes) unproductive workers? [0]: https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/amazon-targets-many-30000-corporate-job-cuts-sources-say-2025-10-27/ https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/amazon-target...
      - malfist 11mo ago
        Except amazon trims the fat every year
      - bdangubic 11mo ago
        they are not “unproductive” :) to answer your question - company should have a right to fire 99% of the people if they want at any point in time and there should be no regulation of any kind against that ever. what america should do is add $250k per year per employee tax for any employee hired outside of the US.
        speff 11mo ago
        No arguments from me there
  - whatever1 11mo ago
    Hi, people are not widgets. They take huge personal, family and financial risks to move for a job. When you are getting rid en-masse people, you are ruining local communities. There is a real societal cost. It also sucks for businesses, because hiring & onboarding is so freaking hard and expensive. Not to mention that once the company has established a reputation of a revolving door, then nobody gives a shit about it. They will exploit it for the short term and let it die. Layoffs should the absolute last resort for a company due to the disruption they cause. If the market dynamics do not naturally lead to this, then regulation should shape the field.
    - speff 11mo ago
      I absolutely agree with your assessment that it should be the last resort option due to the societal cost of a large number of people losing their job. On top of the risks you mention, there's also the mental hit that often accompanies layoffs not just for the folks who were fired, but the increased feeling of paranoia from the people who are left. But can it not be the case the this /was/ the company's last resort? There's another option of moving people around and retraining them to do another function. What if that was considered and then rejected because there weren't enough departments growing to warrant that? Rhetorically, if they don't have the ability/opportunity to re-assign people, then what?
      - jwilber 11mo ago
        I understand your argument but it just seems like you’re purposely being contrarian. Here’s why what you wrote seems needlessly contrarian: Amazon just posted an $18B quarter, so there is no pressing financial pressure. Okay, so you suggest this may be a last resort in lieu of retraining, but we’re talking about 14k jobs across many teams (I know of at least 40 affected), levels, and job families. The idea of needing to cross train is obviously not the culprit at that scale; An SDE laid off from one team can easily perform the same tasks on many others internally. This also completely ignores how Amazon works internally, with managers required to rank employees for pip, and, for events just like this one, URA, regardless of whether or not they deem them to be competent or not. Of course, Amazon has also been documented to use automated processes for pip/layoffs, and the idea that layoffs involved any ounce of consideration as a last resort is so unbelievable it feels almost inflammatory. The notion that criticizing one of history’s most profitable companies laying off thousands (at the height of their profits) is the same thing as stating, “every company beyond profit X should never do layoffs” is a blatant misrepresentation and ignores any context.
  - catlifeonmars 11mo ago
    They’re people, not disposable objects. The alternative would be to distribute the cost of the layoffs evenly across the employer and the employees. Right now employees pay a disproportionate portion of the cost.
    - speff 11mo ago
      The cost you're referring to is fairly abstract - I'm not sure how it can be implemented for the employer. The cost to the laid-off employee is a loss of income, mental trauma, potential loss of residence. What would your ideal solution for the employer be here? Loss of money? Layoffs normally have severance packages that are paid out to the employee - this can be seen as the company taking a monetary hit - though not proportional like you said. But what's the alternative here? 5x/10x'ing the severance package? I feel like that would make the job market even rougher as companies would be even more conservative with who and how much they hire. Mental trauma? I mentioned it in another comment, but the employees after a layoff normally do have an increased fear of future layoffs which impact morale which would result in lower productivity. Loss of residence / food? I'm coming up blank here.
      - catlifeonmars 11mo ago
        Yeah I’m not sure there’s an obvious/ideal answer. I do think there’s value in disincentivizing churn though. What we’ve been seeing lately is rapid hiring followed by rapid firing. I bet there’s some inflection point where the job market would actually benefit from less churn even if it comes at the cost of higher unemployment in the short term.
      - taurath 11mo ago
        > What would your ideal solution for the employer be here? Have business make responsibility more than ruthless sociopathy to grow, like any other era of business
  - pvelagal 11mo ago
    A company's fiduciary duty is towards shareholders, which forces a mindset where Employees fiduciary duty should be towards themselves. People will Unionize or create laws where companies's fiduciary duty should be towards both employees and shareholders. Well, this is all until Elon's Robots will change everything :)
    - taurath 11mo ago
      People won't unionize because they don't actually have very much power nowadays compared to corps. People who unionized in the 40s, 50s and 60s could afford a home on an hourly wage. In the labor market its pretty much serfdom, unless you come from money. Look at rents vs incomes for goodness sake
- Ekaros 11mo ago
  Also think positively. They were in global level over paid anyways. I am happy if I can save a few more cents per item on amazon because of this.

alephnerd 11mo ago

The Amazon culture that exists today is nowhere comparable to the culture that existed 5-7 years ago. A lot of the Amazonians who had a "mission first" mindset at the mid- and upper-level rungs of engineering and product management all ended up become leadership or executive management at other companies, or founding their own companies. That said, it is important to highlight the mindset that did help Amazon during it's golden era.

harshalizee 11mo ago
5-7 years isn't that long ago and it was just as terrible back then. Yeah, the same "leaders" now have infected other tech companies with their culture and are actively ruining the industry.
- alephnerd 11mo ago
  > 5-7 years isn't that long ago It is from a career perspective - at least at AWS, a large portion of high calibre Engineering and Product Leadership left during that time period and the backfills for those roles just plain sucked. > same "leaders" now have infected other tech companies with their culture and are actively ruining the industry In what way? Demanding that people who are being paid $200k-400k TC need to execute and show that they can execute is something which needed to be done in the tech industry.
  - some_guy_nobel 11mo ago
    > In what way? Demanding that people who are being paid $200k-400k TC need to execute and show that they can execute is something which needed to be done in the tech industry. Where does this come from? Maybe if you're drinking whatever (toxic) koolaid Amazon gave you, but Amazon has a lower profit-per-employee than Docusign: https://www.trueup.io/revenue-per-employee https://www.trueup.io/revenue-per-employee Not exactly the steward of execution you think it is.
    - iseletsk 11mo ago