New York
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Amazon chief government Andy Jassy’s clarification for why the corporate is cutting 14,000 employees? Not cash. Not even AI, however “culture.”
The layoff announcement this week was “not really financially driven, and it’s not even really AI driven, not right now. It’s culture,” Jassy mentioned in response to an analyst query on the corporate’s earnings name Thursday. Amazon’s quarterly gross sales grew 13% year-on-year to $180 billion.
Jassy explained that as Amazon added headcount, areas and contours of enterprise lately, “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.”
Amazon’s headcount peaked at greater than 1.6 million in 2021; it ended final 12 months with round 1.5 million workers, based on SEC filings.
“It can lead to slowing you down as a leadership team,” he mentioned. “We are committed to operating like the world’s largest startup, and … that means removing layers.”
Although Amazon mentioned this week that the layoffs had been extra about staying “nimble” in anticipation of future AI efficiencies, the layoffs have nonetheless spurred fears about expertise changing human employees. Amazon (AMZN) shares climbed 13% after-hours following the earnings report.