Originally published at: Big layoffs coming to Amazon too | Boing Boing
…
2 Likes
10k workers should fit into that somewhere right?
16 Likes
The cuts would be the largest in the company’s history and would primarily impact Amazon’s devices organization, retail division and human resources, according to the report.
The retail division – that means real pain. I look forward to the puzzled reporting in the corporate media in January, stroking their chins about why Amazon’s service deteriorated during the 2022 holiday season. What could it have been?
Jassy is in a bind. If business operations were the only consideration I’m sure he’d have waited until January to axe all these employees. But he has to juice the Q4 numbers now to please Wall Street, and ultimately that’s more important to any public company than it’s actual mission.
10 Likes
5 Likes
There’s a scene in The 5th Element where Zorg is told that the economy is too hot and he’s been asked to fire 500k workers. He tells his assistant to fire one million, if for no other reason than to illustrate to the viewer just how bad this bad guy is.
I can’t help but wonder if the Bezos, Zucks, et al of the world would look at that scene and feel something (or anything really), but I don’t suspect they would.
12 Likes
The BoingBoing summary claims Microsoft laid off 13%. I’ve read that Meta (Facebook) and Redfin each laid off 13%. I hadn’t heard about Microsoft. My search results say Microsoft laid off less than 1%.
It would be really cool if online news articles would be fact-checked, proofread, or even sanity checked before being posted.
1 Like
Where’s the fun in that?
6 Likes
Well, now you know where all those subscription dollars go.
21 Likes
Every time some billionaire pledges to give away his fortune, I want this video to be required viewing. The reporting from mainstream journalists on this brand of philanthropy is garbage, and amounts to a reading of a press release from said billionaire. These jackholes aren’t giving away shit. They’re putting their fortune in trust to dodge taxes. Why There's No Such Thing as a Good Billionaire - YouTube
12 Likes
12 Likes
Don’t forget - AMZ is still massively profitable, Q1 and Q2 '22 were an anomaly - as was the bonkers 2021 results. Layoffs are the laziest, cruelest way to “flirt” with the stock market.
10 Likes
Sure, but they’re also traditional, so… 
9 Likes
Huh, I wonder what did cause that drop?
A friend up here in Portland worked for Amazon Alexa and was laid off a year ago, told me on this one that the big cuts are coming in Alexa and other areas like that. There were something like 6000 developers working on the Alexa app front end and back end alone up there. From what it sounds like, many of these people were working on highly complex Alexa tools and skills for the company, and nobody seems to do more with their Alexa than ask it to play the weather, play a spotify playlist, or play the NPR station. Nobody’s using it for more complicated features, so why have 6000+ people doing complex , complicated AI work that nobody even has tried to use.
4 Likes
They also follow the conservative playbook of creating problems, making existing problems worse, and leaving a mess for others to clean up. If the problems ever get solved despite their fuckery, they also want to claim credit. 
8 Likes
“Alexa, lay off 10,000”.
8 Likes
I work for a large, profitable entertainment company that just had a big drop in its stock price because the quarterly report showed a drop in revenue from the expected $21.24B down to <gasp!> just $20.15B. The specific division of the company that I work for reported an all-time record revenue, up 34% for the quarter, but no matter. Hiring freezes and layoffs have already been announced to appease Wall Street.
3 Likes
“Laying on ten Furbies, Akimbo.”
3 Likes
I’m sorry, Jeff. I can’t do that. It would be more cost-effective to remove you…
6 Likes
If the user mails us their receipt we will offer a full refund.
9 Likes
