
Amazon laying off corporate employees in rare cutback - stratelogical
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-laying-off-corporate-employees-in-rare-cutback/
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amznthroway
The hiring freeze has already been horrendous. We're told to keep hitting all
our goals even if we lose people and can't hire to backfill. Now we're just
straight up losing people to layoffs? Keeping the lights on alone is barely
possible with the resources we have.

It would be one thing if we were in dire straights as a company. Imho, this is
just short-sighted nonsense so some senior leader can hit an arbitrary goal
and get a bonus.

I wonder if Alexa or AWS are hiring.

~~~
KallDrexx
That's funny if they've had a hiring freeze since last week I got contacted by
an Amazon recruiter wanting me to move to Seattle

~~~
davidw
Got one today too. Put on a Gore tex coat and stood under the shower, on cold,
for a half an hour, and decided that Seattle is probably not to my liking
outside of, say, late July.

~~~
mabbo
Eight months of the year it's drizzle every day. But the other four months,
well they almost make up for it. I spent a couple of really great summers in
Seattle.

Plus, no snow unless you want it- then you drive to the mountains.

~~~
halbritt
The first time I visited Seattle was the middle of July. The weather was warm
and sunny. I recall going swimming in Lake Washington. Everyone was really,
really happy and joyful, to the extent that I wondered if I had been lied to
all my life about Seattle.

I guess SAD is a thing. Is there an anti-SAD?

~~~
dorfsmay
Light therapy:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder#Ma...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder#Management)

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tyingq
A layoff of any kind or scale is interesting for AMZN, given that they have so
much diversity of teams, jobs, skills, products, etc. It's interesting that
they couldn't repurpose a few hundred people, even given their infamous up or
out mentality. Sounds like they are knowingly giving up good people since the
current culture fires anyone that doesn't produce already. Willingly giving up
good people doesn't seem like a healthy signal.

Edit: Encountered this at a company acquired by private equity right before
the 2008 bubble. They did 3 straight stack-rank/fire-the-bottom rounds. Was
clear in the second round we were letting go of really good talent to the
competition solely for some executive's bonus tied to short term numbers. And,
it did bite them later.

~~~
KKKKkkkk1
It's a super healthy signal.

Let's say hypothetically that Amazon started a VR project and hired a team of
100 PhDs whose expertise is VR to work on that project. After 2 years, the
company realized that it's not working out and shut that project down.

Because of the bad optics of layoffs (especially of such highly skilled
engineers), the engineers were reassigned to various positions that require
expertise in computer graphics. Bear in mind that these 100 engineers have
niche skills and most of them feel that VR is their life's calling; they're
not interested in generic computer graphics. They are overpaid, underemployed,
and miserable.

The best of them leave after a month of two; the remainder trudges on for a
year until they also leave or get pushed out. The outcome is that Amazon has
wasted shareholder money and got themselves a bad rep with those engineers
(and their friends). A straight layoff would have worked much better, but
unfortunately most companies don't have the balls for it.

~~~
watwut
> Bear in mind that these 100 engineers have niche skills and most of them
> feel that VR is their life's calling; they're not interested in generic
> computer graphics. They are overpaid, underemployed, and miserable.

Except that you just made all that up. It is a huge major if. Especially that
part about calling and the part about them having only niche skills.

Guess what those "best ones who leave" will do? You guessed right, they will
do not VR.

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lev99
Seattle Times likes to give Amazon bad press. Seattle has enough other tech
companies to absorb a few hundred jobs. Companies routinely end up over-hiring
or having redundant positions. It appears that they are laying off less than
10% of their Seattle staff, while they are still expanding the amount of
office space they occupy in Seattle.

This seems like no big deal for Seattle and Amazon.

~~~
myroon5
"less than 10% of their Seattle staff"

even less than 1%

~~~
lev99
The problem is "a few hundred" is an undefined number.

400 would be about 1%, which would be fairly reported as a few hundred. My
ceiling number is very high, but I would believe more than 1% are let go.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Does amazon really employ 40,000 people in its corporate headquarters?
Microsoft does, but it has a much much bigger campus.

~~~
mrep
Yes according to [0]. Just look at their campus map [1]. It is massive and
some of those buildings are dozens of stories tall.

[0]:
[https://www.amazon.com/p/feature/4kc8ovgnyf996yn](https://www.amazon.com/p/feature/4kc8ovgnyf996yn)

[1]: [https://static.seattletimes.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/09/7...](https://static.seattletimes.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/09/7ef8dbd0-9436-11e7-b343-b7c75282038d-960x960.jpg)

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everdev
I've always wondered how companies like Amazon and Apple with piles of cash
justify not giving raises or passing laying off people. I understand that you
want to be smart with your money but if I'm on the business end of this
decision it probably hurts more than getting laid off from a company that's
struggling and has no other options.

~~~
jobu
Laying off people is just a tool to get rid of low performers and cut costs.
From the article:

 _" A manager in one unit making cuts said his team was briefed that Bezos and
the Amazon brass wanted to put more pressure on managers to weed out lower
performers and enforce spending discipline after the rapid growth of recent
years."_

Layoffs seem kinda shitty, but it's usually better than firing with cause. The
worker will still qualify for unemployment benefits, and the employer doesn't
have to go through the time and expense of a PIP (Performance Improvement
Plan).

~~~
lsc
From watching friends, for higher end jobs? you are almost never terminated
'with cause' \- I don't know even one programmer who got fired from a fully
paid programming job (I mean, a job paying six figures, not a "shadow IT"
gig.) who has gotten fired in a way they couldn't collect unemployment
insurance, even after a PIP.

For low end jobs, retail and the like? it's pretty common to be fired 'with
cause.' even for small things that I do twice a week, like being late or
something.

I suspect that it's because employers only pay unemployment insurance on the
first $7K or so of wages they pay an employee in a year, so while an increase
in their unemployment insurance rate matters if they are paying retail rates,
it really doesn't if they are paying programmer rates.

The funny thing is that I don't think any of my programmer friends would fight
it either way; it's not worth the effort. But friends working retail? yeah,
sometimes it makes sense to fight it... and their employer actually gets up in
court, and argues why this person they paid almost nothing and then fired
shouldn't get what amounts to a pittance.

The whole thing seems kind of unfair and messed up.

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knowflux
Acc to article, seems like it’s happening in established businesses like
Retail. Maybe those old businesses are due for some consolidation?

In last earnings release, Bezos said he’s doubling down on Alexa, which I
presume includes increased hiring.

~~~
gargarplex
Voice search is already huge and I imagine it may be even bigger. I see Amazon
as a threat to Google in this area.

~~~
sah2ed
> Amazon as a threat to Google in this area.

LOL. That is like saying Apple (iPhones) are a threat to Google (Android) when
it was Apple that first brought touch-based smartphones to market.

You probably meant: "Google is a threat to Amazon in this area" because Amazon
invented and still dominates the smart speaker category.

In other words, Google didn't know a market existed for such devices until
Amazon created a market for them.

~~~
Grazester
Amazon might have been the first to launch a dedicated device that can do
voice search but Google was doing it(on Android) before such a device was
launched by amazon.

~~~
sah2ed
Right, but were their efforts successful? That's the main difference here,
bringing a new product to market _successfully_.

Long before voice assistants/search became a thing with smart phones there was
Google 411 ... which no one remembers.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOOG-411](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOOG-411)

~~~
ArchReaper
Yes, they had been successful with voice search long before Alexa ever came
out, and continue to do it well. Google is THE search giant, you'd have to be
acting intentionally obtuse to not understand his point.

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radiorental
Could this be in any way related to the roll out of HQ2? Using that expansion
to trim perceived dead-wood?

If so, this might be the first of a few re-orgs.

~~~
zitterbewegung
It seems like the point of HQ2 is to appease the current administration for
tax cuts, allow for them to cut back on the fact they overexpanded their
teams, get even more tax breaks from the local government where they expand,
and get a bunch new fresh talent that can be worked to death.

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Negative1
At first I assumed this was a stack ranking type "cutting the dead weight
loose" move but doesn't appear to be so. The article cites "too much staff for
the work" but that seems strange; Amazon has never been bereft of ambition
("Think Big"). What would be the real strategic impetus for slashing hundreds
of positions? How does this jibe with leadership principles like "Hire and
Develop the Best" and "Insist on the Highest Standards"?

~~~
gorbot
Another leadership principle is frugality. No idea who or why people were
fired, but could be to save $. I know that amazon in general is trying to get
more frugal / profitable

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Animats
So why do they want a second corporate headquarters?

~~~
walrus01
They have very nearly exhausted the pool of strong technical talent that can
be recruited locally within the seattle area, who are not already gainfully
employed at some other tech company. Also because building new office campus
space in Seattle is becoming a bottleneck. Amazon is spread out through a
bunch of temporarily leased buildings until the new towers are finished. Also
they have sort of exhausted the number of people who are willing to relocate
to Seattle.

~~~
leggomylibro
Also, a lot of the people who were willing to relocate to Seattle are
reluctant to stay after years of worsening ostracization and seething
resentment.

~~~
seibelj
For me personally, I cannot ever relocate to Seattle because of the weather. I
live in Boston, which has its own issues, but at least it's often sunny during
the winter and I can get out for a walk most days.

I have a lot of family around Seattle and have visited frequently. One year I
visited in May and it rained nonstop, oscillating between a soft drizzle to a
torrential downpour, for 10 straight days! Too depressing for me.

~~~
walrus01
I encourage everyone in the Seattle area to constantly remind everyone of how
much it rains. Hopefully it will slightly cut down on the number of
Californians moving to the PNW.

~~~
eonw
i live on the other side of the mountains, its usually nice an sunny over here
for most of winter, but much colder. We also have much hotter summers and
forest fires in the late summer, but hey, no grey gloom.

~~~
walrus01
this is funny because a solid ten weeks last summer was a grey gloom caused by
forest fires, at least as viewed in kittitas and yakima counties.

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moonka
I wonder what type of positions are being targeted in these layoffs? They
mentioned which groups but not whom.

~~~
Overtonwindow
Also worth noting that the article doesn't say anything about re-hiring, or
transferring. Just laid off. I wonder why..

~~~
galkk
it does

“As part of our annual planning process, we are making head count adjustments
across the company — small reductions in a couple of places and aggressive
hiring in many others,” a spokesman said. “For affected employees, we work to
find roles in the areas where we are hiring.”

disc: Amazon employee

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perseusprime11
They may be falling into the short term trap of wall street. With all the
praise on Jeff Bezos recently, he will have to do anything to not take a step
back and keep up with wall street’s expectations.

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zebraflask
Well, the whole thing with Amazon is "frugality." That's a frugal thing to do.

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kirillzubovsky
lol. Amazon employs almost half-million people, and still, a layoff of a
couple hundred make it to the news.

