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Comment by jnaina | Hacker News Reader

As an AWS shareholder, I applaud this.

The org suffers from several systemic issues: entrenched tenured employees coasting on accumulated RSUs who resist change, middle management engaged in territorial conflicts/fiefdom turf wars that prioritize their own self-preservation over company goals, numerous underperforming hires made to meet diversity targets rather than capability needs, and leaders whose primary competencies lie in mastering the silly cliched "Amazon speak" (Amazon LP this and LP that, quoting Bezos as opening lines, day ones, etc) and the usual de rigueur rituals such as churning out obligatory, meaningless six-pagers, instead of driving genuine innovation or results.

AWS is fast becoming a parody of itself and needs a reset. The recent outage is a harbinger of things to come, if things continue as is.

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Jassy is going about this the wrong way. In practice, reducing the number of line managers meant that engineers are having to do the managerial work themselves.

So they're writing even more six-pagers to satisfy the other managers which they're no longer shielded from having to interact with directly.

How does one become an AWS shareholder but not a rest-of-Amazon shareholder?

Amazon as a retailer has far worse problems than AWS.

On the contrary, I feel the opposite. Layoffs are a cheap way to goose your stock price, not much unlike buybacks. I exit positions in companies in either case, as it shows they have no immediate plans for growth.

I don't disagree with the rest. But you can effect a lot of change without mass layoffs...

If Andy Jassy is also part of the 30K to be let go, AMZN will be up 50 points in no time

you must have a pretty short list of companies you can continue to hold. something like 90% of S&P500 does stock buybacks. if you also include layoffs that's going to reach close to every single company.

No, as it's not permanent. Going from no buybacks to buybacks for example can be a bad sign to me. Companies who have been doing them for years perhaps less so. Same with layoffs. It's not like a boycott list, it's more of a near term indicator for me.

As another AWS shareholder, I can agree with most of your points however this one requires citation (emphasis mine)

> numerous underperforming hires _made to meet diversity targets rather than capability needs_

Even if we suppose all those things are true (not a given), I would not expect these layoffs to meaningfully change them.

And the way we will break through this problem is to fire a shitload of people such that everybody is frightened for their continued employment such that they focus on looking the part and fight for the most valuable turf so that they aren't likely to be on the chopping block next time.

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