DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says he doesn't focus on the company's stock price
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said he doesn't pay much attention to the company's stock price, even after the shares lost half their value in 2022 amid fears of a recession and a bad year for tech stocks across the board. "I don't spend a lot of my time focused on the stock price," Jassy said Thursday in an interview with CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin on "Squawk Box." Jassy said he prefers to look at the stock's performance over the long term, rather than focusing on a snapshot in time. In 2021, when Jassy took over from founder Jeff Bezos, he was awarded a pay package worth roughly $212 million, of which a significant portion was comprised of Amazon stock. Amazon said in a proxy filing Thursday it did not grant Jassy any new stock in 2022.

☆ Amazon's pricey 'Lord of the Rings' show saw only 37% of viewers complete the series, a new report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( Lakshmi Varanasi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

"The Rings of Power" series reportedly only had a 37% percent completion rate, according to a report from The Hollywood Reporter published Monday — meaning that far less than half of its viewers finished the series. THR noted that the figure was confirmed by unnamed sources, but didn't offer more details. THR noted that Amazon held information more closely than usual on the "The Rings of Power" series. Nevertheless, THR noted that Amazon Studios Chief Jen Salke deems the series a success. That's not to say Amazon Studios hasn't had hits, which include shows like "Transparent," "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," and "Fleabag," THR noted.

☆ Amazon's devices head ditched the Echo in his living room for a smart TV
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Amazon said Wednesday it has sold more than 200 million Fire TV devices globally, up from 150 million last January. "I don't have an Echo in there anymore, I just use my TV," Limp said. Limp, as you'd expect, rejects the idea that an Alexa-powered Fire TV will cannibalize the company's Echo devices. A portion of the layoffs, which are expected to total 27,000 employees, landed in Limp's organization, which oversees the development of products such as Alexa, Echo smart speakers and Kindle e-readers. WATCH: Amazon TV is next step for company to move into internet of things

☆ Amazon to close eight Go convenience stores in cost-cutting move
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The company will shut two Go stores in New York City, two locations in Seattle, and four stores in San Francisco. The stores will close on April 1, and Amazon said it will work to help affected employees secure other roles at the company. "In this case, we've decided to close a small number of Amazon Go stores in Seattle, New York City, and San Francisco. We remain committed to the Amazon Go format, operate more than 20 Amazon Go stores across the U.S., and will continue to learn which locations and features resonate most with customers as we keep evolving our Amazon Go stores." Amazon executives previously confirmed the company would close some Fresh supermarkets and Go stores following its fourth-quarter earnings results.

☆ Amazon's drone delivery unit hit with layoffs just as 10-year-old project finally launches
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +12 min

Two employees said Carbon, who replaced Prime Air co-founder Gur Kimchi, was hired to turn Prime Air into a real business with a sensible budget. Sources with knowledge of Prime Air said cuts in the drone delivery business were expected considering the division's many struggles. Monica Williams, a College Station resident, poses with a Prime Air drone at a community event in July. College Station residents also expressed concern about the prospect of drones harming the deer, foxes and birds that are native to the area. "As we continue to expand, we will update you when drone delivery is available for your household."

☆ Leaked Amazon screenshots show employees scrambling to identify teams affected by layoffs. Here's a list of more than 35 groups getting cuts.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

In an internal Slack channel, Amazon staff shared team names and job levels to add clarity to the process. As Amazon began the largest layoffs in company history on Wednesday, an internal Slack channel blew up with employees sharing details about the job cuts. The layoffs-related Slack channel has over 37,000 members. "It's been moving so fast, I can't keep up with scrolling," another person told Insider about the Slack channel. Many employees in the Slack channel expressed shock and surprise.

☆ Kindle’s 15-year anniversary is a reminder simplicity is king
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-20 | by ( Samantha Murphy Kelly | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

It’s like holding nothing but the words.”Amazon (AMZN) launched the original Kindle on November 19 2007, pushing the publishing industry to further embrace digital books and also kickstarting the e-commerce giant’s hardware efforts. Amazon can keep Kindle prices relatively low because the business model is all about selling books, not selling hardware, McQueen said. Likewise, the original Kindle had access to 90,000 books in the Kindle Store compared to 13 million books now in the Kindle Store. Amazon’s current lineup of hardware devices includes the Fire tablet, the Firestick media streaming gadget and the Echo smart speaker. “The more interesting question is will Kindle be broadly considered retro tech like vinyl record players or arcade cabinets of today?”

☆ 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.

☆ Googlers are making memes to deal with the looming threat of job cuts
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Matt Weinberger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Meanwhile, former Yahoo CEO and one-time Google exec Marissa Mayer is sounding the alarm bell that the web itself could be degrading in quality. Google employees meme past the graveyard. Elon Musk fired as many as two dozen Twitter employees this week who had criticized his leadership style. Now, Twitter employees are deleting internal Slack messages they fear Musk won't like, so as to avoid his wrath. A Twitter exec went so far as to warn employees to use Slack "wisely."

☆ Amazon executives overseeing Alexa, hardware group depart the company
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Gregg Zehr, president of Amazon's hardware research and development group, known as Lab126, has retired, the company confirmed to CNBC. Tom Taylor, senior vice president of Amazon Alexa and a member of CEO Andy Jassy's elite S-Team, is also retiring, Amazon said. In July, public policy chief Jay Carney left to join Airbnb, and 23-year Amazon veteran Dave Clark resigned as retail chief a month later. Two prominent Black leaders — operations executive Dave Bozeman and Alicia Boler-Davis, senior vice president of global customer fulfillment — also announced their departures in June. The average tenure for vice presidents is about 10 years, and for senior vice presidents it is "much longer," the spokesperson said.

☆ Amazon shutters 'ORCA' robotics team and 'Explore' travel venture in its latest sign of a hyper-focus on frugality
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Amazon is shuttering a virtual travel division and a warehouse robotics team, Insider has learned. Amazon is scrapping another warehouse robotics team, ORCA, amid a larger reduction in robotics personnel. It's not clear how many people worked on the ORCA team. In addition, the company is ending Amazon Explore, a virtual travel experiences platform launched amid pandemic lockdowns in late 2020. In an all-hands meeting this week, Amazon executives instructed employees to tighten their belts.

☆ The FTC rejected Amazon's request to quash subpoenas ordering founder Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy to testify in a Prime investigation
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The FTC declined Amazon's request to quash or limit subpoenas served to its executives over the agency's investigation into the Prime sign-up and cancellation process. The Federal Trade Commission has ruled against Amazon's request to quash or limit subpoenas served to top Amazon executives including founder Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy over the agency's investigation into the Prime sign-up process. In a previous filing, Amazon disclosed that some of its top executives, including founder Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy, were subpoenaed as part of the probe. Amazon has cooperated with the FTC throughout the investigation and already produced tens of thousands of pages of documents. The filing broadly cites Insider's story from March that first reported about Amazon's internal deliberations over the Prime sign-up and cancellation process.

☆ Amazon loses PillPack founders four years after acquisition of pharmacy startup
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-19 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

With Amazon Pharmacy, Prime customers in the United States can get their prescription medications shipped to their home for free. Two Amazon executives who played a formative role in the retail giant's push into health care are departing. After the acquisition, Parker and Cohen helped steer the launch of Amazon Pharmacy, the company's online pharmacy for delivering prescription medications in the U.S. Amazon has accelerated its push into health care in recent years, though not all of its efforts have been successful. The pharmacy business struggled to gain traction, and Amazon recently announced it would shutter its telehealth service Amazon Care after finding it wasn't a "complete enough offering" for customers.

☆ 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.

Search resuls for: "Amazon executives"

14 mentions found