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☆ Some Flexport insiders say layoffs and an influx of former Amazon leaders are wrecking morale. Others say the change is needed.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Emma Cosgrove | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

And like every other logistics company, it just saw the biggest boom in freight volume in a century, followed by a steep drop. They like to speak louder than the other people in the room," said one laid-off employee who described Flexport feedback pre-Clark as conversational. The company needs to adapt," another laid-off employee said, adding that the introduction of precise metrics for measuring success was needed. I can say generally, the company's shift to profitability came at the cost of employee satisfaction, but I think that's pretty typical," said another laid-off employee. "Now it seems like it's about how much money Flexport can make," said one laid-off employee.

☆ Amazon Advertising talent is being poached for C-suite roles at other firms. Meet 9 former execs who jumped to companies like LoopMe and Walmart.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Lauren Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A number of Amazon ad execs have taken top tier jobs at giants like Walmart and hot startups like LoopMe. They're bringing deep experience at Amazon Advertising building businesses from scratch to their new roles. In recent years, Samba TV, Cooler Screens, Walmart, and Netflix have all hired former Amazon Advertising staffers to crucial, revenue-driving roles centered around advertising. He said Amazon's ad execs have both relationships with advertisers, retail expertise, and operational experience in standing up an ad business from scratch. Insider identified nine former Amazon ad execs who have moved into C-suite roles.

☆ Amazon's internal Slack channel blows up after employees are told to return to office. Now they're creating a petition to fight back.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Within hours of Friday's announcement, over 5,000 Amazon employees joined the new Slack channel, called "Remote Advocacy," according to screenshots seen by Insider. The channel was created "to advocate for remote work at Amazon" and seeks "data, anecdotes, articles about the benefits of remote work," it said. 'Absolute chaos'Several Amazon employees in the Slack channel expressed frustration, confusion, and anger. An impromptu survey within the Slack channel showed almost 80% of respondents saying they'll look for another job because of this change. In the Slack channel, employees are putting together a petition to push back against the return-to-office mandate.

☆ Amazon warns employees not to share confidential information with ChatGPT after seeing cases where its answer 'closely matches existing material' from inside the company
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

An Amazon lawyer warned employees about sharing confidential company information with ChatGPT. Others wondered if they were even allowed to use the AI tool for work. She warned employees not to provide ChatGPT with "any Amazon confidential information (including Amazon code you are working on)," according to a screenshot of the message seen by Insider. Overall, Amazon employees in the Slack channel were excited about the potential of ChatGPT, and wondered if Amazon was working on a competing product. For Amazon employees, data privacy seems to be the least of their concerns.

☆ Read the memos Amazon execs sent to employees about job cuts
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

Employees were notified of the cuts in emails sent by Doug Herrington, the company's worldwide retail chief, and human resources head Beth Galetti, CNBC confirmed. Amazon's human resources and stores divisions are likely to be among the organizations most severely impacted by the job cuts. Notification emails will be sent out to impacted employees shortly, and we expect all notifications in the U.S., Canada and Costa Rica to be completed by end of the day today. Although other companies might have balked at the short-term economics, we prioritized investing for customers and employees during these unprecedented times. Conversations with impacted employees took place around the world today, and this morning, Pacific Time, notification messages were sent to all impacted employees in the U.S., Canada, and Costa Rica.

☆ Read the emails Amazon's HR and retail bosses sent to employees as its largest layoff in company history starts
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Amazon's HR and retail bosses sent out the following emails to employees on Wednesday. In response, Amazon's HR boss Beth Galetti and most senior retail executive Doug Herrington sent out the following emails to their respective teams. I understand how difficult this news is for our entire team, especially for those employees who are directly impacted. Notification emails will be sent out to impacted employees shortly, and we expect all notifications in the U.S., Canada and Costa Rica to be completed by end of the day today. Although other companies might have balked at the short-term economics, we prioritized investing for customers and employees during these unprecedented times.

☆ Amazon is quietly streamlining its hiring process by dropping its 'Bar Raiser' program for some interviews. Employees worry it's lowering the quality of candidates getting jobs at the company.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

By abandoning the bar raiser for some mostly entry-level positions, Amazon shortened the hiring process and was able to hire more aggressively. In January 2021, for example, a group of bar raisers complained about the small number of bar raisers relative to the total employee base, and the lack of engagement from many of them. Current Bar raisers are overworked and disengagedOthers expressed concerns about overwhelmed or disengaged bar raisers causing a potential drop in talent at Amazon. One person in the 2021 email thread said "Amazon's hiring bar was at stake" if the bar raisers failed to live up to company standards. Amazon's HR chief Beth Galetti said Amazon's hiring bar "keeps getting higher and higher" and that "keeps all of us growing and evolving every day."

☆ Amazon workers press company on climate change response after Pakistan floods
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Eli M. Rosenberg | Eli Rosenberg Is An Investigative Tech Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

The employees say the aid is a way for Amazon to take greater responsibility for its role in producing the greenhouse emissions that cause climate change. Scientists have said the flooding that killed more than 1,700 people and displaced millions in Pakistan was much more likely to occur because of climate change. And it is attracting some Amazon workers not previously involved in workplace activism. One letter received 8,700 signatures from Amazon employees. “It definitely had an effect on people,” said Eliza Pan, a former program manager at the company who left in 2019 to go work on climate change issues, but is still involved with Amazon Employees for Climate Justice.

☆ Amazon's layoff meltdown: Inside a week of turmoil when thousands lost their jobs.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

"I just don't know how to tell this news to my kids," one employee wrote. "At some point we have to stop calling them leadership," another employee wrote. In a memo to employees, Amazon's devices chief, Dave Limp, pinned the layoffs on an adverse economic climate. A new breaking point for corporate employeesIndeed, some Amazon employees had already reached a breaking point. On Discord, a small group of Amazon employees began broaching a taboo topic: Unionizing.

☆ Amazon is gutting its voice-assistant Alexa. Once founder Jeff Bezos's pet project it's now the primary target of historic layoffs.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Amazon's Alexa and the devices team at large is now the prime target of the biggest layoffs in the company's history, according to press reports and an internal email seen by Insider. Instead, Amazon wanted shoppers to buy more things through Echo devices by placing orders through the voice-assistant. Reports of Alexa mistakenly sending voice recordings to the wrong person or Amazon employees secretly listening to private conversations stoked fear of privacy concerns. But even so, its financial contribution often fell short of expectations, more than half a dozen employees told Insider. Employees told Insider the product is Bezos's latest pet project.

☆ 5 former Amazon managers tell us what they loved about the company — and what they were glad to leave behind
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Diamond Naga Siu | Katie Malone | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Many other leaders do the same, the former Amazon leader said. the current Microsoft employee said. For instance, Microsoft gets the whole company together to do activities and donate to causes they like, which Amazon doesn't do, the current Microsoft employee said. Malte Mueller/Getty ImagesDrive for excellence, with burnoutBeyond teaching its own leadership tenets, Amazon isn't big on manager training, one of the current Google employees said. Without proper institutional support, constantly operating at such a high level can lead Amazon employees to burnout, a former Amazon leader who now works at Google said.

☆ Amazon lays off some devices employees: Read the memo from hardware chief Dave Limp
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Amazon is laying off some employees in its devices and services unit, hardware chief Dave Limp wrote in a memo to workers on Wednesday. The e-retailer is consolidating some teams and programs in its devices and services unit after "a deep set of reviews" of the business, Limp wrote. "It pains me to have to deliver this news as we know we will lose talented Amazonians from the Devices & Services org as a result." The job cuts are part of broader layoffs hitting Amazon as it stares down a worsening economic outlook. While the cuts may total 10,000 people, there is no specific target for total job cuts, the person said.

☆ Read the memo Amazon's Alexa and devices chief Dave Limp sent to notify his division of layoffs: 'I know this news is tough to digest'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Amazon employees have complained of a communications vacuum from leadership. Devices chief Dave Limp emailed his division Wednesday morning to notify them of the layoffs. As colleagues were called into meetings and notified they were being laid off, some Amazon employees complained that a communication vacuum from leadership was adding to the sense of anxiety pervading the company. Wednesday morning, Dave Limp, Amazon's senior vice president for devices and services, which houses Alexa, emailed employees to explain the rationale behind the cuts. Thank you for the support and empathy that I know our team will show each other during this time.

☆ Amazon unveiled a new warehouse robot that can identify and pick 65% of the items it sells. 'This will take my job,' one warehouse worker said.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The robot's capabilities have sparked fears among some Amazon workers that Sparrow could leave them without work. Sparrow "will take my job," one Amazon warehouse worker said, after reading Amazon's description of the robot. "Everyone knows that Amazon wants to replace human labor with robots," said Ryan Brown, an Amazon worker and the president of the union Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity & Empowerment. One of Amazon's robot arms is installed at Brown's facility, he said, but "interestingly enough, the robot that we have is always down." "These robots collapse," agreed Brett Daniels, an Amazon worker and Amazon Labor Union organizer.

☆ Brazil's presidential election may determine the fate of the Amazon rainforest — and the entire planet's climate
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-29 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | Paola Rosa-Aquino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

An aerial photo shows virgin Amazon jungle in Mato Grosso State, Brazil, on May 18, 2005. An aerial view of logs cut from Amazon rainforest near of the road BR-319 highway in city of Realidade, Amazonas state, Brazil, on August 22, 2019. Ueslei Marcelino/ReutersBolsonaro promises to increase deforestation in the Amazon, while Lula promises to slow it. But it's also the most consequential election on the planet," Christian Poirier, program director at the advocacy group Amazon Watch, told Insider. A miner works in an illegal gold mine at an environmental preservation area in the Amazon rainforest, in Itaituba, Para state, Brazil on September 3, 2021.

☆ Rise of the 'Jeff Bots': Former Amazon leaders have infiltrated the tech industry and that's not always a good thing, leadership coaches warn
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Rachel Durose | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

A Jeff Bot leader that joins a company and immediately implements Amazon's ways could be doing more harm than good. Former Amazon employees have called the company's culture a "penny-pinching, empathy-lacking corporate behemoth," Insider previously reported. "For organizations that want to adopt an Amazon culture, I would caution them to be careful what you ask for," he said. An infrastructure to support innovationIt's not impossible for startups to successfully copy Amazon's leadership style and principles. This lack of infrastructure was one reason Amazon's leadership style seemed to fall flat at the rapid-delivery company Gopuff, Insider previously reported.

☆ I worked at Amazon for 20 years before moving to a startup and learned firsthand which parts of Amazon don't work at other companies
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( David Glick | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Injecting Amazon DNA into a startup by hiring Amazon alumni is a common tactic, an alum says. Reports say that more than 50 vice presidents and even more directors have left Amazon for startups in the past couple of years. Many bring Amazon leadership methods to their new companies. The key lesson: Just because something worked at Amazon doesn't mean it will work at your startup. The key is to understand which Amazon mechanisms to introduce and when; no matter what, they must match the needs of your new company's unique culture.

☆ Google employees who used to work at Amazon complain to each other just how 'frugal' their former employer was: No second monitors, no MacBooks, and splitting one bagel between two people at office me
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-15 | by ( Britney Nguyen | Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Over two dozen former Amazon employees at Google started an internal email thread about Amazon. In one email, an employee who left Amazon in 2020 said his team only got one computer monitor. Amazon employees having to ask for higher quality work devices became an example of the term "frupidity," which is spreading throughout Amazon's offices. To get a second monitor, Amazon employees would hire summer interns who would get a monitor, then take them after the intern left. The email thread is followed by over 2,000 people, and is meant to connect former Amazonians who are now Googlers.

☆ A bunch of Googlers who used to work at Amazon are internally sharing horror stories about their former employer's 'frupid' and aggressive culture
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-14 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Googlers who used to work at Amazon are sharing how much they hated being at the e-commerce giant. Amazon is a very kill-or-be-killed environment," one of the people on the email thread told Insider. By default, product managers received subpar Windows laptops and weren't eligible for Apple devices, this person wrote. "Pretty frupid to save $200 on something that could increase the productivity of an engineer you were paying six figures to," this person wrote. "I tend to like everything about Amazon culture better than Google except one thing: how the employees are treated ;)," another person wrote.

☆ $15 billion delivery startup Gopuff tried to rip out a page from Amazon's playbook by poaching its managers. Insiders say a newfound metrics obsession 'destroyed' its operations.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-06 | by ( Tom Dotan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Gopuff warehouse managers knew times had changed the moment their corporate bosses started needling them about employee bathroom breaks. These kinds of questions have become a regular occurrence, according to seven current and former Gopuff employees. Insider talked to a dozen current and former Gopuff employees at both corporate and regional levels. At that meeting, he said he wanted to level up the talent of the company's warehouse managers, two former employees said. Another former Gopuff manager said the company's Amazon hires seemed to take little interest in learning how Gopuff had been doing things previously.

☆ After 28 years, 'Day 2' finally arrives at Amazon
▼ + stars: | 2022-08-24 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Amazon is known for "Day 1" culture, maintaining a nimble mindset found on a startup's first day. This is a big challenge facing Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who replaced founder Jeff Bezos last year. On May 26, Amazon retail CEO Dave Clark held a fireside chat with employees at an internal event called Fishbowl. But 28 years on, Day 2 has finally arrived, according to more than a dozen current and former Amazon employees who cited problems including a stodgy engineering culture, extra management layers, and rising red tape. "Historically Amazon was one of the best places for builders, but now when people want to build, they leave Amazon," this person said.

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