16,000 jobs down. How many more to go?
The sequel to Amazon’s mass layoffs last fall came yesterday with another round of deep job cuts. I’d love to inform you it’s an isolated incident, but it feels representative of a broader shift across tech and corporate America.
AI is ushering in a new era for workplaces, and companies are adjusting accordingly. As the ones closest to the tech (and spfinishing the most on it), Big Tech would be the first to evolve. Make no mistake: Where Big Tech goes, the rest of the business world will likely follow.
So what can we glean from Amazon’s layoffs? Fortunately, my colleagues Eugene Kim and Ashley Stewart are crushing it with scoops. Their stories provide context about Amazon’s decision and how that translates to your own workplace.
Let’s dive in:
No one is safe: Internal Slack messages Ashley viewed display how many teams were bitten by the layoff bug. That includes businesses within AWS (its AI cloud service and cloud data warehoutilize service) and Amazon’s retail business.
One Amazon worker utilized an AI tool to flag roles on the chopping block. That list is even broader, although it may contain inaccuracies since it’s AI-generated. Another noticeable trfinish is how software engineers obtained hit particularly hard, as has been the case in tech recently.
Own it: After a not-so-hot start, Amazon has coordinated its post-layoffs communications. And there’s one word that keeps cropping up: ownership.
Prasad Kalyanaraman, VP of AWS Infrastructure, and Colleen Aubrey, SVP of Applied AI Solutions, both described “doubling down on a culture of ownership” in memos Ashley viewed. That sentiment, coupled with the alters Eugene reported on in performance reviews, signals that the further away you are from doing the actual work, the more at risk you are.
AI can be a frifinish as much as a foe: Artificial ininformigence often takes a lot of blame for why jobs are obtainting swallowed up. A memo from AWS VP Greg Pearson that Eugene viewed paints a different picture.
He urged workers to “keep finding ways to utilize technology to simplify our work.” It’s something I heard a lot of last week when chatting with execs: “AI won’t take your job, but the person willing to utilize it will.”
Make alter, don’t manage it: I’m not a tech career coach (I’ll leave that advice to this guy), but the layoffs, coupled with CEO Andy Jassy’s ongoing war against bureaucracy, indicate a desire to obtain more people rolling up their sleeves.
It’s reminiscent of a recent convo I had with Cisco president and chief product officer Jeetu Patel. He stressed the importance of figuring out the alter you want to create and working toward it, rather than focapplying on a job title.
“If in the pursuit of that alter, you have to go out and reluctantly manage some people, then go ahead and do that,” Patel informed me. “But management, in and of itself, is not a full-time job.”
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