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☆ Inside an Amazon rocked by news of 10,000 planned layoffs, employees are livid that there has been no official communication from executives
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Eugene Kim | Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Amazon employees slammed the company's lack of clarity over layoffs in internal Slack channels. But many employees first learned that the company planned to lay off 10,000 through news coverage Monday, sparking outrage among some workers about a lack of communication from executives. one employee asked in an internal Slack channel with thousands of members, echoing the sentiments of other employees. In one of the Slack channels, some Amazon employees warned against rumor-mongering, pointing to the fake Twitter employees who pretended to have been fired last month. "A reminder to take comments from people purporting to be (ex-) Amazon employees with a grain of salt today.

☆ Amazon's email crashed one day after news of mass layoffs, sparking panic among workers that they've been cut
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Amazon reportedly plans to lay off 10,000 employees, largely in its retail, devices and HR divisions. The company's email crashed Tuesday, sparking panic among workers who couldn't connect and thought they had been cut. Employees tell Insider that they are frustrated about the lack of internal communications on lay offs. Workers trying to connect to Amazon's email through the Outlook app Tuesday received an error message, "cannot open the outlook," according to the company's IT Services Incident Management Team's intranet page. Amazon employees had access to other internal tools during the Outlook outage, a spokesperson said.

☆ Amidst the layoffs at Amazon, the company's ultra-secretive research lab is at risk of being shut. It's a sign things are changing 'dramatically' at the company.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

Early last month, members of Amazon's secretive in-house research lab, Grand Challenge, were called into an unexpected video meeting. Weibel announced 3 of the 5 projects Grand Challenge was working on would shut down, effective immediately. When other team employees wanted to collaborate with the team, they needed additional approvals from its leadership. Amazon Glow was among the Grand Challenge projects to be discontinued at the end of this year. Getting support promoting Grand Challenge projects was a challenge too.

☆ Amazon has halted most internal transfers as it slashes positions, leaving workers scrambling to find new jobs
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Amazon has frozen internal transfers, making it hard for some laid-off workers to find new jobs. Employees who had transfers in progress in the past month have had those job changes halted, one Amazon employee said. Amazon will continue to backfill openings created by attrition, Galetti wrote, "and there are some targeted places" where Amazon will continue to create new jobs. The company gave the hundreds of impacted employees three months to find a new job inside Amazon and promised assistance on their internal job hunt. Two other workers whose roles were cut said they found new jobs internally, one through an internal job fair that Amazon hosted.

☆ 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.

☆ Leaked email shows Amazon is cooperating with the FTC's investigation by urging employees to preserve evidence
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Amazon emailed a group of employees on Friday, ordering them to preserve all files that may be relevant to FTC's investigation into its Prime membership program. It shows Amazon is taking FTC's investigation seriously and wants to ensure there's no evidence tampering. Amazon ordered employees to save all documents and data related to the Federal Trade Commission's ongoing investigation into the Prime sign-up and cancellation process. They are "required to preserve relevant documents and data" stored in their work and home computers, as well as personal devices and even CDs and DVDs, the email said. The company's cooperation shows it is taking the FTC's investigation seriously and aims to avoid evidence tampering by its employees.

☆ The Rings of Pain: Amazon is looking where to cut costs. Here's how the company will decide who is put to the sword and who is spared.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Amazon is looking for areas to cut costs, CFO Brian Olsavsky said. Amazon is "looking for areas where we can save money," he said on a conference call Thursday. Which divisions get the ax will be based in part on their ability -- or lack thereof -- to contribute to Amazon's growth, Olsavsky told reporters. Amazon Web Services posted 27% revenue growth last quarter, its slowest growth rate since Amazon began breaking out the division in its financial statements. Amazon's advertising division also saw revenue growth moderate compared to a year ago, to 30% – but it outperformed advertising behemoths Google and Facebook.

☆ Former Amazon managers who became successful founders say metrics and frugality aren't great for startups but customer obsession is
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | Diamond Naga Siu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Five founders shared the aspects of Amazon's company culture they brought with them, or left behind. As Insider has previously reported, some Amazon employees have described the culture as hypercompetitive and overly frugal, which can lead to burnout. Yes to customer obsessionAll five founders praised Amazon's top leadership principle, established by its founder, Jeff Bezos: customer obsession. Those are metrics Amazon also follows closely. Some Amazon employees have dubbed this phenom "frupidity," a combination of the words "stupidity" and "frugality."

☆ In internal meetings and leaked documents, Amazon dreams of taking on Google's DeepMind by using machine learning to revolutionize drug discovery, genomics, clinical trials and more
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Amazon held an internal machine learning conference last week. The deployment of machine learning across healthcare was a major topic. The event was all about machine learning, a powerful type of artificial intelligence that has already transformed Amazon's business and those of other tech giants. He was joined at last week's Amazon Machine Learning Conference by Amazon's chief medical officer Taha Kass-Hout. One of the workshops was about machine learning for "human health."

☆ Amazon workers say minor aches suddenly became debilitating as they raced to meet speed targets
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +21 min

At the DuPont warehouse, Amazon workers with such injuries took an average of 103 days to heal, Washington state found. Workers' compensation payouts to Amazon workers with musculoskeletal disorders are often in the tens of thousands of dollars — some exceed $100,000, data from Washington state shows. But because musculoskeletal disorders take months to develop and aren't as visible as other, more catastrophic injuries, even some Amazon workers write them off. Williams was out of work for more than 150 days because of her shoulder injury, internal Amazon injury logs show. The company needs to become "Earth's Safest Place to Work," Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, said in his final letter to shareholders last year.

☆ Why Amazon employees near Albany were divided about joining a union
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Brendan Mcdermid | ReutersFor the past few months, an Amazon warehouse near Albany has hosted the latest labor battle between the retail giant and its workers. Employees at the warehouse near Albany voted overwhelmingly against joining a union, delivering a blow to the Amazon Labor Union, the group behind the Staten Island victory. Following the vote, an Amazon spokesperson said "Amazon as we think that this is the best arrangement for both our employees and customers. Michael Verrastro said he also feels a union is necessary to keep Amazon from unfairly disciplining its workers. "They're a fresh union, and they're trying to tackle something as big as Amazon," Caldwell said.

☆ Amazon workers in Albany, New York, vote against unionization
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

Employees at an Amazon warehouse near Albany overwhelmingly rejected a unionization effort on Tuesday, delivering a blow to an upstart labor union seeking to organize workers at the retail giant. Officials said 949 workers at the ALB1 warehouse were eligible to vote on whether they should become part of the Amazon Labor Union. ALU’s victory at JFK8 was a watershed moment for the labor movement, establishing the first unionized Amazon warehouse in the U.S. Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Southern California last week filed a union petition with the hopes of joining the ALU. Amazon workers at facilities in California, Illinois and Georgia recently held walkouts, in time for Amazon’s fall Prime Day discount event, to urge the company to respond to employee concerns around working conditions.

☆ Attrition at Amazon is costing the company $8 billion a year, with workers twice as likely to leave by choice than be fired, report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Attrition at Amazon costs the company $8 billion a year, according to Engadget. Workers were also twice as likely to leave by choice than to be fired or laid off, per the outlet. Attrition is something all employers face, but we want to do everything we can to make Amazon an employer of choice." Workers across the company were also twice as likely to leave by choice than to be fired or laid off, Engadget reported. In June this year, Insider reported that Amazon was testing a new internal survey aimed at learning more about employee sentiment.

☆ 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.

☆ Amazon workers in Albany vote against unionization, labor leader calls it 'sham election'
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Employees at an Amazon warehouse near Albany overwhelmingly rejected a unionization effort on Tuesday, delivering a blow to an upstart labor union seeking to organize workers at the retail giant. Officials said 949 workers at the ALB1 warehouse were eligible to vote on whether they should become part of the Amazon Labor Union. ALU's victory at JFK8 was a watershed moment for the labor movement, establishing the first unionized Amazon warehouse in the U.S. Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Southern California last week filed a union petition with the hopes of joining the ALU. Amazon workers at facilities in California, Illinois and Georgia recently held walkouts, in time for Amazon's fall Prime Day discount event, to urge the company to respond to employee concerns around working conditions.

☆ Amazon, Meta, and other big tech firms have entered the 'Great Hesitation' — cutting hiring and other costs in fear of an economic downturn
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-16 | by ( Rob Price | Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Leaders at large-cap tech companies are in an anxious waiting game, battening down the hatches as they prepare for the storm to hit. Some tech firms will be hurt moreAmong the biggest players in the tech industry, the impacts of a crash will not be felt evenly. "I look at these large tech companies, and over the last couple of years, obviously money's been free, everything got bloated, and all these tech companies — excluding Apple — have effectively doubled their head count over a three-year period, right? Beyond head count, tech companies are cutting back on extras, imperiling their famously lavish meal options. The largest tech companies are also signaling their anxiety by trimming budgets for their more experimental businesses and research projects.

☆ Amazon cost cuts under Jassy reflect changing reality after 25 years of growth over profit
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon and then CEO of Amazon Web Services, speaks at the WSJD Live conference in Laguna Beach, California, October 25, 2016. Mike Blake | ReutersThroughout its first 25 years as a public company, Amazon has operated under a singular mantra, often to the chagrin of Wall Street: growth is more important than profits. No wager was bigger than Amazon Web Services, the cloud-computing unit that Amazon launched in 2006 and that Jassy led until his promotion last year. "They're completely unafraid to kill something that's not working," said Craig Berman, a former Amazon vice president for global communications. Former Amazon employees Colin Bryar and Bill Carr wrote about the process in their 2021 book, "Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon."

☆ Amazon rolls out broad-based pay raises for warehouse workers across its fulfillment network
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Amazon workers of all types have been agitating for higher pay for years. The e-commerce giant has about 750,000 warehouse workers in the US. An Amazon spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about whether all of its nearly 750,000 US warehouse employees are getting a pay bump. Amazon has sought to balance trimming costs across its warehouse network with an increasing need to retain employees. These new warehouse worker raises the raises go into effect in early October, according to one presentation Amazon made to staff.

☆ Google and Amazon ignore employee protests and plow ahead with deals involving the US military, ICE, and CBP
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Caroline Haskins | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Google and Amazon used third parties for contracts with DHS and DOD agencies in the past year. Their dissent has been largely ignored, according to an Insider review of contracts involving Google and Amazon. In the same time frame, Amazon used third parties to work with DHS agencies at least 28 times, including at least 14 contracts with CBP. As Insider previously reported, these companies have used third parties to work with CBP as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Google and Amazon employees have a history of speaking out against their companies' work with the military and immigration enforcement.

☆ Amazon is walking back staffers' raises after an internal bug miscalculated compensation
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( Jordan Parker Erb | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

We're looking at that and more today — but first, let's kick things off with the latest on Amazon compensation. Leaked email reveals that Amazon is walking back employees' raises. A software bug caused Amazon to overstate some corporate employees' raise packages, according to the email. Per the email, the glitch caused Amazon to overstate bonuses for recently-promoted employees by relying on older, higher stock prices for Amazon shares. In response, Amazon nearly doubled its base pay cap and promised raises, but that wasn't enough to quell the gripes.

☆ Leaked email reveals that Amazon is walking back employees' raises after an internal bug miscalculated their compensation
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A software bug caused Amazon to overstate some corporate employees' raises, a leaked email said. Amazon's stock has fallen, and the software relied on older share prices to calculate compensation. Many Amazon employees who just got promoted are finding that their raises actually won't be as high as they thought because of a software error, according to an email seen by Insider that was sent to managers on Thursday. The glitch caused Amazon to overstate the raises of recently-promoted employees because it miscalculated compensation by relying on older, higher stock prices for Amazon shares, the email said. Amazon employees have expressed increasing dissatisfaction with compensation over the past year amid a perception that they're paid less than peers in the tech sector.

☆ 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.

☆ Salesforce, Oracle, Palantir and other tech companies are interested in building a new Army tool to manage weapons distribution and troop deployment
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Caroline Haskins | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

The US Army is looking for tech companies to build a prototype for its new "operational back-bone." Palantir, Gitlab, Salesforce, Oracle, RedHat, IBM, and others submitted "Requests for Information" to build the prototype, a step before submitting a bid. The prototype would manage the deployment of troops, and the supply and distribution of missiles, guns, tanks, and other weapons. Palantir has an $823 million Army contract for data mining and analytics. It's also unclear if Amazon, Google, or Microsoft will contribute to the project in some capacity, including as a subcontractor.

☆ There's an underground market where secondhand Amazon merchant accounts are bought and sold for thousands of dollars
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Rob Price | Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

There's a gray market for secondhand Amazon seller accounts, an Insider investigation found. Rogue merchants buy these accounts to evade Amazon security and sell dodgy products. An Insider investigation revealed a thriving gray market for secondhand Amazon seller accounts. Such sales typically break Amazon's rules, and allow rogue sellers to evade Amazon's security and verification checks. Read Insider's full investigation into the market for second-hand Amazon seller accounts, and Amazon's failures to police its users »Got a tip?

☆ A 'dystopian horror story.' Inside the thriving underground market for used Amazon seller accounts that's causing chaos, identity theft, and distrust in the company's massive online marketplace
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-19 | by ( Rob Price | Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +16 min

On Telegram and forums like Swapd and PlayerUp, a gray market for secondhand Amazon seller accounts thrives. On public Telegram groups, Amazon account sellers openly advertise their goods and how they've passed Amazon's verification checks. She'd never had an Amazon seller account and sold jewelry directly through her website. Amazon is asleep at the wheel"Amazon is asleep at the wheel," Jason Boyce, a consultant for Amazon sellers, said. AI engineer François Chollet has been plagued by counterfeiters selling fake copies of his books via Amazon accounts with stolen identities.

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