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Amazon says it didn't cut people because of money. But because of 'culture'
- Pwntastic 11mo agoYes, the current executive culture of mass layoffs.
- ceejayoz 11mo agoThe culture is "I want another yacht".
- actsasbuffoon 11mo agoAKA the culture of “Why is AWS down again?”
- ben_w 11mo agoIt still was when these people were hired. What has changed isn't the greed, but what is done to service it.
- technothrasher 11mo agoTo be fair, I would like another yacht too. Especially considering my first yacht is really better described as a kayak.
- quantummagic 11mo agoI would like another kayak too. Especially considering my first kayak is better described as a shower cap.
- IT4MD 11mo ago[dead]
- toephu2 11mo agoTo be fair, there is no public information indicating that Andy Jassy has his own yacht.
- cosmicgadget 11mo agoMaybe he is a private train or airship guy. I can respect that.
- ponector 11mo agoCannot understand why ultra rich people not building luxury zeppelins instead of extra yacht.
- licebmi__at__ 11mo agoIt's harder to see the peasants faces as you laugh at them from a zeppelin.
- gdiamos 11mo agopip culture
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- supportengineer 11mo agoDid you mean uv pip install culture
- ta9000 11mo agoDoes Amazon really need to pip faster?
- GiorgioG 11mo agoBest decision I ever made was repeatedly ignoring emails from Amazon recruiters while they were allowing remote work around the pandemic. Fuck that place.
- Izikiel43 11mo agoYeah, Amazon is in my list of “won’t work there” places. Too many horror stories.
- seg_lol 11mo agoThen their information campaign is working. They need bodies for the grinder, not free thinkers with agency and autonomy. Much like the obvious spam scam messages with glaring typos, Amazon signals to the market that driven corporate cogs that will shiv someone to get ahead need only apply.
- jrauser 11mo agoOne of the better decisions I ever made was not ignoring emails from folks recruiting for Amazon in 2003. It was a different place back then, and truly like "the world's largest startup." The other thing that was different back then was that the people I worked with were all so blindingly smart. I'm pretty smart, but in 2003 I often felt like the dumbest person in the room[1]. In 2025 that feeling was rare, and not simply because I had 20 years more wisdom. I left Amazon for the third and last time a couple months ago and have no regrets. If you're still there and reading this, Amazon still has a lot going for it as a place to work. But it's not the electric place I recall from 20 years ago. I'm not sure if there is any company that can match both the startup-like freedom of action with massive scale of early 2000s Amazon. [1] In case it isn't obvious: this is a desirable condition because it means you get to learn something.
- eitally 11mo agoI think it's reasonable to s/amazon/google in this post -- it's equally true there.
- 650REDHAIR 11mo agoCulture of importing cheaper labor that they can manipulate. The H1B program is broken and ripe for abuse.
- palmotea 11mo ago> Culture of importing cheaper labor that they can manipulate. > The H1B program is broken and ripe for abuse. Offshoring is a much bigger problem. These abusive companies can "save" way more money by exporting the job than importing a worker to fill it, and pandemic-era changes have accelerated that.
- supportengineer 11mo agoI'm starting to think offshoring is better for America. Because house prices are unaffordable. Should a simple house really be $2 million ?
- lotsofpulp 11mo agoDepends on its location and how many dual earner high income households want to buy it. There is no reason a specific lot should not be worth an arbitrary $x.
- supportengineer 11mo agoIs such gross inequality really good for America?
- dragonwriter 11mo agoYou think offshoring current domestic high wage labor so that the US is exclusively split between low wage labor and ultracapitalists will reduce gross inequality?
- palmotea 11mo ago> I'm starting to think offshoring is better for America. Because house prices are unaffordable. Should a simple house really be $2 million ? Do you really think it would be better for the rest of America to become like Detroit? Too few have jobs, so housing craters? The solution to housing affordability is to build more housing (or relocate jobs to where housing is more affordable), it's not to make the common people poor.
- Insanity 11mo agoCulture is driven down so… guess they need to start looking there. :)
- hbosch 11mo ago"Culture" is whatever your directs are putting into their Connections every morning :)
- jihadjihad 11mo ago> Jassy explained that as Amazon added headcount, locations and lines of business in recent years, “you end up with a lot more people than what you had before, and you end up with a lot more layers … sometimes without realizing it, you can weaken the ownership of the people that you have who are doing the actual work.” "And here's something else, Bob. I have eight different bosses right now." "I beg your pardon?" "Eight bosses." "Eight?" "Eight, Bob."
- standardUser 11mo ago> you end up with a lot more people That's a funny way to describe deliberately wasting thousands of work hours screening, interviewing and hiring people they didn't need. It seems like those making these staffing decisions should be the first to go, yet that never seems to be the case.
- warkdarrior 11mo agoCorrect. CEO's layoff explanation indicates two things. First, the people who made the hiring decision back then were wrong, since they seemingly hired a lot of people for unneeded roles. Second, the people in charge now lack the vision or ideas on how to put 14,000 already-trained employees to good use on new projects, new products, etc.
- episteme 11mo agoYou can do the right thing and still need to reverse the decision. If all the signals in the world suggest you will be able to support more initiatives in future then you should hire. If in the near future the economy changes dramatically and you can't support those hires, you need to let them go.
- standardUser 11mo agoYou describe the problem flawlessly. "If all the signals in the world suggest you will be able to support more initiatives... ... then you spend millions hiring and onboarding tens of thousands of people over many months, only to fire those people within a number of years. THIS is why management is paid the big bucks.
- amyjess 11mo ago> “We are committed to operating like the world’s largest startup, and … that means removing layers.” I learned a long time ago that behaving like a startup is not a good thing, and I've specifically oriented my career towards working at companies that don't even want to pretend to imitate startup culture. I'm very happy in enterprise-land.
- josefritzishere 11mo agoI have worked at both and... well they're just very different. It's mostly trade offs. What specifically for y'all?
- somanyphotons 11mo agoWhat are the aspects that you're looking for from enterprise-land
- thih9 11mo agoSane workload, work hours and vacation days for a start. It’s 2025 and I still see “unlimited PTO” in many places.
- lotsofpulp 11mo agoThat comes with high profit margin and moat (for your specific labor, not just the business's moat). If you don't have leverage, you won't get those things regardless of enterprise or small business.
- rvz 11mo agoOne of the worst lies since "AGI". Even most here on HN who are in the business of replacing humans with AI would agree that Amazon knows they are lying. Must be close to a rats den working at Amazon's offices with over 200K+ employees in corporate to then look at them and then lay them off and say it's for "culture". There's no reason for them to tell the truth, given its immensively profitable to keep lying with no costs at all. If you decide to join Amazon after this, make sure you get a brain scan first.
- ncr100 11mo agoSeriously. Amazon spent a ton of money on AI. It hasn't paid off, yet And Amazon needs to stay profitable over some time-bound interval. So, layoff expensive human resources ... continue investing in AI, fingers crossed that it pays off, and the market is happy. Profit.
- kazinator 11mo ago[flagged]
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 11mo agoA fish rots from the head down
- an0malous 11mo agoHierarchical structures are so odd, you would think the higher levels optimize for intelligence and empathy but in practice it optimizes for sociopathy and maybe public speaking skills
- treetalker 11mo agoGervais Principle
- arethuza 11mo agoThe problem with reading that is that it is, I find, almost impossible to stop classifying people into sociopath, clueless or losers....
- seg_lol 11mo ago80% of the time, we all fit into one or more of those categories don't we? The problem is we move between those categories constantly.
- WorldMaker 11mo agoWhich is where that article series eventually goes, getting fractal on the categories and their inter-relationships and how people move between the categories constantly. That's also about where the article series starts to maybe get too self-serious and hard to read, though.
- Nicook 11mo agohello fellow sociopath
- Fomite 11mo agoUsing "culture fit" to justify mass layoffs is, in fairness, probably a sign of a company's culture. Just not in the way they intended.
- sleight42 11mo agoIndeed. It seems like splitting hairs. It says that their upper level management made a lot of bad calls about headcount growth. And, as always, it's the people below the decision makers who pay the price.
- googlywoogly 11mo agoAmazon went from an innovative tech company with an efficient culture where builders could build and ship great products, and where promotions where based on merit, to a completely toxic bureaucratuc hellhole, where all decision making has been hijacked by sociopathic parasites who have learned to game the system for their own benefit. - most leadership, including technical, is now filled with compete imposters who have very little understanding of tech or market. - product and strategy decisions are not based on data anymore. Any 'data' is now extremely cherry-picked - it's standard practice to just completely hide/exclude any negative indicators/metrics. - promotions are no longer merit-based. They are based exclusively on your ability to social engineer your managers/leadership, and your ability to manufacture metrics that sound good (to imposters who can't rationally inspect/critique them) - there is zero real innovation happening at Amazon now - good engineers are leaving in droves and being replaced by 3rd party external consultants
- _DeadFred_ 11mo agoI knew some early on Amazon execs. There was crazy backstabbing of each other at the top from very early on.
- palmotea 11mo ago> Amazon says it didn’t cut 14,000 people because of money. It cut them because of ‘culture’ So they're saying Amazon has culture of being assholes to others? I guess at least they're honest about it, and their admission comports with other accounts about how they do business.
- jmclnx 11mo agoSo, union busting then :)
- somelamer567 11mo agoSure, the culture of "Jeff wants another yacht"
- toephu2 11mo agoJeff isn't running Amazon anymore, it's Andy Jassy, who doesn't own a yacht.
- cosmicgadget 11mo agoChairman of the board probably can afford another yacht with amzn up 10% today. He probably even talks about things with Jassy.
- neilv 11mo agoHello, highly experienced engineer prospective hire. Tell me about a time when some memorized interview behavioral question, in STAR format. Now do this coding screening despite all your experience. Now tell me you want to be an engineer in a startup, and not in huge company of metrics-gaming and routine stack ranking cullings.
- Podrod 11mo agoThe culture of money
- podgietaru 11mo agoI was at Amazon during the last period of Layoffs. The culture was abysmal. Not because of layers, Andy, but because you decided to do all your announcements in secret on A to Z. Cowardice.
- owl_vision 11mo agoHow does a company define or at least describe company culture and displays it up front? I am genuinely curious, and not trying to start any sort of flame wars.
- neuroelectron 11mo agoCan I get a translation like I don't care about political correctness?
- davidw 11mo agoThe culture of Whoville having too many presents and joy this holiday season.
- agentultra 11mo agoThis seems like more smoke and mirrors. I’ve heard some speculation that this is about cutting capex in salaries so they can afford a big purchase from Nvidia. I guess we’ll see in the coming months.
- renewiltord 11mo agoSalaries are operating expenses not capital expenses.
- gorbachev 11mo agoThey say as if this is a good thing. The tone deafness is pretty staggering.
- legitster 11mo agoFrom Jassy's blog post in September: >It’s created artifacts that we’d like to change (e.g., pre-meetings for the pre-meetings for the decision meetings, a longer line of managers feeling like they need to review a topic before it moves forward, owners of initiatives feeling less like they should make recommendations because the decision will be made elsewhere, etc.) [...] So, we’re asking each s-team organization to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by the end of Q1 2025. Having fewer managers will remove layers and flatten organizations more than they are today. Amazon is a meatgrinder on its workforce, but I will give credit where it's due - I think thinning out management is a noble goal and endeavor. If it's true that these layoffs don't impact as many IC roles, it's probably worth calling that out. (It's just awful convenient that the timing of this is also when everyone is staring down a rough economy)
- whatshisface 11mo agoIf the problem is that lower-downs are carrying out extensive planning for meetings where higher-ups are present, the culture issue might not be with the people who are adapting...
- SilverElfin 11mo ago> Amazon is a meatgrinder on its workforce, but I will give credit where it's due - I think thinning out management is a noble goal and endeavor. If it's true that these layoffs don't impact as many IC roles, it's probably worth calling that out. Their filings show that it is still mostly ICs. If you’re doing a cut of 15% of the company (or whatever the number is), that has to include a large number of ICs.
- busymom0 11mo agoOriginal link to Jassy's blog post in September: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/ceo-andy-jassy-latest-update-on-amazon-return-to-office-manager-team-ratio https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/ceo-andy-jassy...
- qujine 11mo ago> Because of 'culture' Nah, it's to instill fear. Otherwise, why would you layoff people that are high performers due to 'culture'? That's just idiotic.
- honestduane 11mo agoThere's been a lot of debate around Amazon's hiring practices, particularly given the conflicting data and statements from the company. A core issue seems to be that Amazon has alienated a significant portion of its domestic engineering talent pool. Many experienced engineers have left, and others seem unwilling to return, even when offered higher-level roles. I personally was an L7 engineer and turned down a boomerang offer. In response, Amazon appears to be increasingly turning to H-1B workers - especially from countries where the company’s reputation hasn't soured as much. Example: https://h1bgrader.com/h1b-sponsors/amazon-dot-com-services-llc-x237343nkg/lca https://h1bgrader.com/h1b-sponsors/amazon-dot-com-services-l... While these engineers may be less experienced, they're often more willing to accept lower compensation, due in part to discrepancies in wage data reported by the Department of Labor. For example, the BLS wage data, which sets a $115k cap for certain wage codes, has led to a misalignment in what’s considered a "fair wage" enabling companies like Amazon to pay these workers below actual market rates. This reliance on overseas talent seems to be more than just a cost-saving measure; it also reflects Amazon's ongoing struggle with high turnover among its U.S. engineering staff. The company’s well-documented high attrition rates, as highlighted in reports like this one from Forbes - https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2022/10/24/amazon-responds-to-release-of-leaked-documents-showing-150-annual-employee-turnover/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2022/10/24/amazon-r... - shed light on the challenges Amazon faces in retaining domestic engineers. The LinkedIn data also supports this trend. Candidly, it seems that Amazon has burned too many bridges with U.S.-based engineers, forcing the company to increasingly rely on a less experienced labor pool from abroad in order to maintain its operations, despite being an American based, publicly traded company.
- rybosworld 11mo agoAndy Jassy seems incredibly disconnected from reality. Reminds me of Marc Benioff in a lot of ways.
- jjk166 11mo ago"The beatings will continue until morale improves"
- _DeadFred_ 11mo agoEven in Reagan's yuppie cocaine fueled 1980s America, layouts around the holidays were considered a very bad, and only done when a company was desperate. It was a guaranteed social scarlet letter for executives. In post 2010 'tech bro' America, management does it just for the LOLs. This isn't normal, even for capitalist America. The average tech CEO today is a much greater villian daily than the nationally reviled 'corporate raiders' of that time were a couple of times a year. I don't know WTF happened to this country.
- alsetmusic 11mo agoSure. They have a culture of making more money at any cost. See the many reports of treating their workforce poorly. Their people are expendable. The statement is accurate, just not in the way they want us to interpret it.
- kawfey 11mo agoI don't know how it couldn't be more obvious the only option they had in order to satiate Wall Street is to buy more GPUs for their wildly overbooked AWS demand induced by AI, and the only way to do that was by cutting fixed costs, aka salaries.
- jonway 11mo agoHey, I’m not a lawyer and also probably pissing in the wind here, but isn’t firing like 14k people for not financial reasons a giant ass wrongful termination suit?
- lightbendover 11mo ago[dead]