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Tag: Andy Jassy

  • Amazon Laying Off 9,000 More, With AWS Hard-Hit

    Amazon Laying Off 9,000 More, With AWS Hard-Hit

    Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has announced the company plans to lay off an additional 9,000 employees, particularly in AWS, PXT, Advertising, and Twitch.

    Amazon has already laid off 18,000 employees, between reported decisions made in November and an expansion of those plans in January. CEO Andy Jassy has announced that the company plans to expand the scope of its layoffs once more, this time letting an additional 9,000 employees go:

    As we’ve just concluded the second phase of our operating plan (“OP2”) this past week, I’m writing to share that we intend to eliminate about 9,000 more positions in the next few weeks—mostly in AWS, PXT, Advertising, and Twitch. This was a difficult decision, but one that we think is best for the company long term.

    Jassy says a big part of the decision-making process involved looking at what mattered to the company’s customers and how best to meet those needs:

    As our internal businesses evaluated what customers most care about, they made re-prioritization decisions that sometimes led to role reductions, sometimes led to moving people from one initiative to another, and sometimes led to new openings where we don’t have the right skills match from our existing team members.

    It’s interesting that AWS is one of the teams being targeted with this round of layoffs, but Jassy emphasized his faith in the cloud division’s future:

    I remain very optimistic about the future and the myriad of opportunities we have, both in our largest businesses, Stores and AWS, and our newer customer experiences and businesses in which we’re investing.

  • Amazon Reports First Unprofitable Year in Almost a Decade

    Amazon Reports First Unprofitable Year in Almost a Decade

    Amazon delivered its quarterly report and it was bad news as the company turned in its first unprofitable year in almost a decade.

    Amazon reported net sales for 2022 of $514.0 billion, an increase of 9% year-over-year. The company’s AWS cloud business came in at $80.1 billion for the year, an increase of 29%.

    Despite the increased sales, the company posted a net loss of $2.7 billion for the year, or $0.27 per share, its first since 2014. While a $2.7 billion loss is bad enough on its own, it’s even worse when compared to the $33.4 billion net income the company posted in 2021.

    Much of the company’s loss can be attributed to its investment in electric vehicle maker Rivian.

    2022 net loss includes a pre-tax valuation loss of $12.7 billion included in non-operating income (expense) from the common stock investment in Rivian Automotive, Inc., compared to a pre-tax valuation gain of $11.8 billion from the investment in 2021.

    “Our relentless focus on providing the broadest selection, exceptional value, and fast delivery drove customer demand in our Stores business during the fourth quarter that exceeded our expectations—and we’re appreciative of all our customers who turned to Amazon this past holiday season,” said Andy Jassy, Amazon CEO.

    Jassy also was optimistic about the future, especially given the cost-cutting measures the company has already taken.

    “We’re also encouraged by the continued progress we’re making in reducing our cost to serve in the operations part of our Stores business,” Jassy continued. “In the short term, we face an uncertain economy, but we remain quite optimistic about the long-term opportunities for Amazon. The vast majority of total market segment share in both Global Retail and IT still reside in physical stores and on-premises datacenters; and as this equation steadily flips, we believe our leading customer experiences in these areas along with the results of our continued hard work and invention to improve every day, will lead to significant growth in the coming years. When you also factor in our investments and innovation in several other broad customer experiences (e.g. streaming entertainment, customer-first healthcare, broadband satellite connectivity for more communities globally), there’s additional reason to feel optimistic about what the future holds.”

  • Amazon Wants Employees In-Office Three Days a Week

    Amazon Wants Employees In-Office Three Days a Week

    Amazon has informed employees that they must return to the office three days a week, reversing a previous remote work policy.

    In October 2021, Amazon’s leadership decided to leave it up to individual teams to dictate whether members would need to be in-office or could work remotely. At the time, executives acknowledged that no one-size-fits-all approach would work effectively. The company appears to be reversing course, with CEO Andy Jassy telling employees in an email they must work from the office at least three days a week.

    Jassy highlighted a number of lessons learned over the nearly three years of the pandemic:

    • It’s easier to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture when we’re in the office together most of the time and surrounded by our colleagues. It’s especially true for new people (and we’ve hired a lot of people in the pandemic); but it’s also true for people of all tenures at Amazon.
    • Collaborating and inventing is easier and more effective when we’re in person. The energy and riffing on one another’s ideas happen more freely.
    • Learning from one another is easier in-person. Being able to walk a few feet to somebody’s space and ask them how to do something or how they’ve handled a particular situation is much easier than Chiming or Slacking them.
    • Teams tend to be better connected to one another when they see each other in person more frequently.

    After discussing in more detail each of the above four factors, Jassy revealed the conclusion these observations led to:

    These are just a few examples, but they’re important ones with respect to our overriding priority to deliver for customers and the business. And ultimately, they’ve led us to conclude that we should go back to being in the office together the majority of the time (at least three days per week). We made this decision at a s-team meeting earlier this week, and for a number of reasons (including the adjustments I know will be required for some of our employees), I wanted to share with you as early as I could even though we haven’t worked out all the execution details yet.

    While acknowledging that there are some roles on both ends of the spectrum that will be exceptions to the rule, Jassy says these “will be a small minority.” For everyone else, these changes will go into effect May 1.

  • Amazon Will ‘Go Big’ With Its Grocery Store Ambitions

    Amazon Will ‘Go Big’ With Its Grocery Store Ambitions

    Amazon is eyeing the grocery store market, with plans to “go big” on brick-and-mortar stores.

    Amazon already has some physical grocery stores, but the company is a relatively small player in the market. In an interview with The Financial Times, via Engadget, CEO Andy Jassy made clear his intention to change the status quo.

    “We’re just still in the early stages,” Jassy told FT. “We’re hopeful that in 2023, we have a format that we want to go big on, on the physical side. We have a history of doing a lot of experimentation and doing it quickly. And then, when we find something that we like, doubling down on it, which is what we intend to do.”

    There’s no doubt that Amazon has the ingredients to make a success of physical grocery stores. There are few companies that can match it in product availability and logistics, not to mention the buying power the company would have to negotiate low prices.

    If Amazon is able to deliver on Jassy’s statement, it would also open up another arena of competition between the company and Walmart.

  • Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Pivots Away From Bezos’ Number One Priority

    Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Pivots Away From Bezos’ Number One Priority

    Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is already making his mark on the company, including by focusing less on Jeff Bezos’ top priority.

    Jeff Bezos founded and led Amazon from a tiny startup to one of the biggest, most valuable companies in the world. Throughout that journey, his top priority was always the customer. In fact, according to Forbes’ Bill Murphy, Jr., in the 23 shareholder letters Bezos wrote, the word “customer” appears 443 times, more than any other keyword he normally talked about. In contrast, “Amazon” only appears 340 times.

    There’s no doubt that Bezos’ almost obsessive focus on the customer is much of the reason Amazon has been the success it has. Whatever other missteps the company has taken along its journey, whatever other issues it may have, Amazon became the behemoth it is by delivering what the customer wants at a price they want it.

    Interestingly, at the company’s most recent quarterly call, Jassy appeared to be shifting focus away from the customer somewhat. As Murphy writes, Jassy outlined his priorities as follows:

    1. “[P]robably the No. 1 priority that I spen[d] time with the team on is reducing our cost to serve in our operations network …”
    2. “The second thing, priority-wise, I would talk about is just speed. We believe they’re continuing to get products to customers faster, makes customers happier, and they also converted a higher rate when they can see promises of deliveries that are faster …”
    3. “I think pricing being sharp is always important. But particularly in this type of uncertain economy, where customers are very conscious about how much they’re spending … we’ll continue to work really hard on being sharp on pricing … “
    4. “And then just the customer experience improvements that we’re working all the time … we will continue to work very hard on those customer experiences, and we have a lot more planned …”

    Putting aside that Jassy has four priorities — which Murphy argues is broad enough to count as not having any real priorities — Jassy lists the “customer experience” as the fourth and last priority.

    It is true that Jassy mentions ‘making customers happier’ in his second priority, but that’s not the focus of Number Two. The focus is having faster logistics…which will result in the customers being happier.

    While Jassy is clearly concerned with happy customers, it appears he does not have the same focus on that metric as Bezos did. Whether this works for Amazon, or undermines what has made the company great, remains to be seen.

  • Amazon’s Layoff Plans Grow to 18,000

    Amazon’s Layoff Plans Grow to 18,000

    Amazon layoff plans have grown to nearly twice their original scope, with the company now planning on laying off 18,000 workers.

    Reports surfaced in November that Amazon was planning to lay off as many as 10,000 employees. Like many in the tech industry, the company was looking for ways to weather the economic downturn.

    Fast-forward two months, and CEO Andy Jassy has written a blog post notifying employees of the company’s intention to lay off 18,000 workers, not 10,000. Jassy says recent reviews revealed the need to lay off more individuals than was previously planned.

    “Today, I wanted to share the outcome of these further reviews, which is the difficult decision to eliminate additional roles,” Jassy writes. “Between the reductions we made in November and the ones we’re sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles. Several teams are impacted; however, the majority of role eliminations are in our Amazon Stores and PXT organizations.”

    Jassy says he initially planned to publicly reveal the increased scope of the layoffs only after the individuals impacted were notified. However, news of the layoffs was leaked, with The Wall Street Journal breaking the story, causing Jassy to publicly acknowledge the plans.

    “We typically wait to communicate about these outcomes until we can speak with the people who are directly impacted,” “However, because one of our teammates leaked this information externally, we decided it was better to share this news earlier so you can hear the details directly from me. We intend on communicating with impacted employees (or where applicable in Europe, with employee representative bodies) starting on January 18.”

    Amazon’s layoffs are sure to raise concerns over the state of the economy, as the company is engaging in mass layoffs during what is normally its businesses season.

  • Amazon’s Next Move Could Be a Sports Streaming App

    Amazon’s Next Move Could Be a Sports Streaming App

    Amazon is considering a sports streaming app as the company continues its focus on its Amazon Prime video service.

    Amazon Prime is one of the leading streaming services in the US, recently passing Netflix for the top spot. According to The Information, CEO Andy Jassy is determined to build on the service’s success and leverage the numerous sports deals the company has already secured.

    According to the report, while no decision has been made, the company sees a standalone sports streaming app as a viable way to expand its presence in the market.

    Amazon has discussed doing a stand-alone app for watching sports content, people briefed on the conversations told The Information. The move comes as CEO Andy Jassy doubles down on the company’s streaming ambitions.

    Interestingly, Jassy views Prime as a key area that could see increased spending, despite the company looking for ways to cut costs:

    Amazon could be thinking about new ways to squeeze revenue out of the billions of dollars in deals it has inked to stream live sports events, which so far it has mostly included in the standard Prime membership. Jassy recently highlighted streaming rights for live sports in particular as a place he’ll likely keep spending even as Amazon steps up its efforts to cut costs in other areas of its business.

  • Amazon Freezes Corporate Hiring

    Amazon Freezes Corporate Hiring

    Amazon is cracking down on hiring even more, freezing all “incremental” corporate hiring, according to a new report.

    Amazon has been struggling with the economic headwinds facing the tech industry, as well as the world. The company recently froze hiring for its advertising unit, despite it being one of the fastest growing divisions within the company.

    Amazon has now frozen corporate hiring and plans to keep the freeze in place for some time.

    “With the economy in an uncertain place and in light of how many people we have hired in the last few years, Andy and S-team decided this week to pause on new incremental hires in our corporate workforce,” wrote Beth Galetti, senior vice-president of People Experience and Technology at Amazon, in a company blog post.

    “We had already done so in a few of our businesses in recent weeks and have added our other businesses to this approach,” Galetti continues. “We anticipate keeping this pause in place for the next few months, and will continue to monitor what we’re seeing in the economy and the business to adjust as we think makes sense.”

  • Amazon’s Fourth-Quarter Guidance Disappoints

    Amazon’s Fourth-Quarter Guidance Disappoints

    Amazon’s third-quarter results met expectations, but its fourth-quarter guidance disappointed Wall Street.

    Amazon reported $127.1 billion in net sales for the quarter, a 15% increase over the year-ago quarter. The company’s net income came in at $2.9 billion, or $0.28 per diluted share. While this was a decrease from the year-ago quarter, it still beat expectations.

    Despite the results, the stock took a hit on weak fourth-quarter guidance. While analysts were expecting estimates of $155 billion, the company’s guidance came in at $140 to $148 billion.

    CEO Andy Jassy emphasized the company’s focus on lowering costs and improved Prime Member deals.

    “In the past four months, employees across our consumer businesses have worked relentlessly to put together compelling Prime Member Deal Events with our eighth annual Prime Day and the brand new Prime Early Access Sale in early October. The customer response to both events was quite positive, and it’s clear that particularly during these uncertain economic times, customers appreciate Amazon’s continued focus on value and convenience,” said Jassy. “We’re also encouraged by the steady progress we’re making on lowering costs in our stores fulfillment network, and have a set of initiatives that we’re methodically working through that we believe will yield a stronger cost structure for the business moving forward. There is obviously a lot happening in the macroeconomic environment, and we’ll balance our investments to be more streamlined without compromising our key long-term, strategic bets. What won’t change is our maniacal focus on the customer experience, and we feel confident that we’re ready to deliver a great experience for customers this holiday shopping season.”

    Despite Jassy’s optimism, Amazon’s stock dropped almost 20% following the report.

    According to GeekWire, CFO Brian Olsavsky warned there may be more bad news to come.

    “We are preparing for what could be a slower growth period.”

  • AWS CEO: Transition to the Cloud Is Still in the Early Stages

    AWS CEO: Transition to the Cloud Is Still in the Early Stages

    AWS CEO Adam Selipsky is bullish on the cloud computing transition, telling CNBC’s Jim Cramer that “most of it’s still yet to come.”

    Selipsky succeeded Andy Jassy as AWS CEO when the latter replaced Jeff Bezos as CEO of parent company Amazon. AWS is currently the market leader in cloud computing, but Selipsky believes there is still plenty of room for growth in the market.

    “It’s possible that AWS could become the largest business at Amazon. Now, Amazon has other large and great businesses, and so it could take a while for us to get there,” Selipsky said in an interview on CNBC’s “Mad Money.”

    “Essentially, IT is going to move to the cloud. And it’s going to take a while. You’ve seen maybe only, call it 10% of IT today move. So it’s still day 1. It’s still early. … Most of it’s still yet to come,” he added.

    Selipsky’s comments echo those of his boss when he was still CEO of AWS.

    “It’s still really early days,” said Andy Jassy, speaking about the cloud in 2019. “Sometimes we remind ourselves that even though it’s a $30 billion revenue run rate business growing 45 percent year-over-year, it’s the early stages of enterprise and public sector adoption in the US. Outside the US they’re 12 to 36 months behind depending on the country and industry.”

    Amazon recently turned in its first quarterly loss since 2015. Meanwhile, AWS was a bright spot for the company, continuing to grow 36.5% year-over-year. Like many cloud providers, AWS greatly benefited from the pandemic-fueled drive to transition to the cloud.

    If Selipsky is right, AWS’ best days are yet to come.

  • Amazon Turns to Robots to Address Warehouse Safety

    Amazon Turns to Robots to Address Warehouse Safety

    Amazon is doubling down on robots in an effort to improve its warehouse safety, unveiling fully autonomous models.

    Amazon is sometimes criticized for having higher warehouse injury rates than the industry average. In 2021, its injury rates among warehouse workers went up some 20%. CEO Andy Jassy, while saying its injury rates are “misunderstood,” nonetheless emphasized the company’s commitment to improving safety. Two big steps in that direction are its Proteus and Cardinal warehouse robots.

    Amazon’s robotics efforts have their roots in Kiva, a robotics company Amazon acquired a decade ago. While some speculated Amazon was looking to replace people, it has developed Kiva’s tech to assist human workers and make their workplace safer, as the company outlines in a blog post.

    Proteus is the company’s first fully autonomous robot. Integrating an autonomous robot in a warehouse with human workers presents safety challenges of its own, but Amazon believes they’ve cracked the code.

    Proteus autonomously moves through our facilities using advanced safety, perception, and navigation technology developed by Amazon. The robot was built to be automatically directed to perform its work and move around employees—meaning it has no need to be confined to restricted areas. It can operate in a manner that augments simple, safe interaction between technology and people—opening up a broader range of possible uses to help our employees—such as the lifting and movement of GoCarts, the non-automated, wheeled transports used to move packages through our facilities.

    Similarly, the company’s Cardinal robot is designed to handle the twisting and lifting that goes along with finding and retrieving a single package from a pile of packages.

    Enter Cardinal, the robotic workcell that uses advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision to nimbly and quickly select one package out of a pile of packages, lift it, read the label, and precisely place it in a GoCart to send the package on the next step of its journey. Cardinal reduces the risk of employee injuries by handling tasks that require lifting and turning of large or heavy packages or complicated packing in a confined space.

    After becoming CEO, Andy Jassy looked for a “silver bullet” that would improve warehouse safety in one fell swoop, ultimately realizing there was no single thing to magically address the issues.

    “But, we still have a ways to go, and we’ll approach it like we do other customer experiences—we’ll keep learning, inventing, and iterating until we have more transformational results,” he said. “We won’t be satisfied until we do.”

  • Amazon CEO Andy Jassy: ‘We’re Passionate About Improving Safety’

    Amazon CEO Andy Jassy: ‘We’re Passionate About Improving Safety’

    Andy Jassy has written his first letter to shareholders since becoming Amazon CEO, and he emphasized the company’s focus on worker safety.

    Amazon has been criticized for having a higher rate of workplace injuries in its warehouses than competitors, with its injury rate going up 20% in 2021. Despite the increase, Jassy says its injury rates are “misunderstood,” an the company is committed to improving safety even more.

    Our injury rates are sometimes misunderstood. We have operations jobs that fit both the “warehousing” and “courier and delivery” categories. In the last U.S. public numbers, our recordable incident rates were a little higher than the average of our warehousing peers (6.4 vs. 5.5), and a little lower than the average of our courier and delivery peers (7.6 vs. 9.1). This makes us about average relative to peers, but we don’t seek to be average.

    Jassy says that he focused on looking for a “silver bullet” to improve worker safety when he first became CEO, ultimately not finding it. He did, however, help implement a number of additional measures aimed at tackling the problem one step at a time.

    We have a variety of programs in flight (e.g. rotational programs that help employees avoid spending too much time doing the same repetitive motions, wearables that prompt employees when they’re moving in a dangerous way, improved shoes to provide better toe protection, training programs on body mechanics, wellness, and safety practices). But, we still have a ways to go, and we’ll approach it like we do other customer experiences—we’ll keep learning, inventing, and iterating until we have more transformational results. We won’t be satisfied until we do.

    Jassy has already developed a reputation as a hands-on CEO, personally intervening to help customers receive resolution to issues they’re having. His approach to improving worker safety appears to be another example of his leadership style.

  • Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Using Complaint Emails to Improve Service

    Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Using Complaint Emails to Improve Service

    Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is taking a hands-on approach, using complaint emails to improve the company’s response and better learn the business.

    AWS head Andy Jassy succeeded Jeff Bezos when the Amazon founder stepped down in July 2021. While Jassy was obviously very experienced and capable, running the entire company involves far more than just running its cloud division. Evidently, according to Business Insider, Jassy is using complaint emails to better understand the inner workings of the company he now runs, and improve its customer service in the process.

    A recent email from Visa tech chief Rajat Taneja, reporting suspicious activity on his Amazon account, is a case in point. Taneja emailed Jassy directly, who then sent it to his “escalations” team in an effort to resolve it quickly.

    “Can we help him asap?” Jassy wrote, emphasizing who the email came from and the close relationship between Visa and Amazon. “Could you pls email when resolved (hopefully today)? Thx!”

    Evidently, this behavior is not uncommon for the new CEO, with him reviewing a slew of customer support emails on a regular basis and getting personally involved.

    Jassy’s approach highlights lessons all CEOs can learn.

    • Jassy doesn’t consider responding to a customer’s email as something beneath him. Instead, he looks at it as an opportunity to better understand his business and improve customer relations.
    • Jassy is setting the tone for the rest of the company, and especially his customer support personnel.
    • By personally getting involved in the support process, Jassy is able to use what would otherwise be a negative experience as an opportunity to build closer relationships with strategic partners.

    Overall, Jassy is providing a case study in good leadership.

  • Verizon and Amazon Partner to Deliver Satellite Internet to Rural Areas

    Verizon and Amazon Partner to Deliver Satellite Internet to Rural Areas

    Verizon and Amazon have announced a partnership to use the latter’s Project Kuiper satellites to deliver internet access to underserved communities.

    Many companies and organizations are working to address the US “digital divide,” the difference in available internet access for rural vs urban areas. Verizon has been rolling out its Home Internet solution, which uses the company’s wireless service to provide internet access.

    In its latest move, Verizon is turning to Amazon’s Project Kuiper to help extend its existing network and serve as the backend for its efforts. Project Kuiper will deliver broadband internet via a constellation of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. The company received FCC clearance in July 2020 to launch as many as 3,236 satellites. The approval was conditioned on the company launching at least half that number by July 2026. To date, however, not a single satellite has been launched.

    Despite that, it appears Verizon has confidence in Project Kuiper.

    “Project Kuiper offers flexibility and unique capabilities for a LEO satellite system, and we’re excited about the prospect of adding a complementary connectivity layer to our existing partnership with Amazon,” Verizon Chairman and CEO Hans Vestberg said. “We know the future will be built on our leading 5G network, designed for mobility, fixed wireless access and real-time cloud compute. More importantly, we believe that the power of this technology must be accessible for all. Today’s announcement will help us explore ways to bridge that divide and accelerate the benefits and innovation of wireless connectivity, helping benefit our customers on both a global and local scale.”

    “There are billions of people without reliable broadband access, and no single company will close the digital divide on its own,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said. “Verizon is a leader in wireless technology and infrastructure, and we’re proud to be working together to explore bringing fast, reliable broadband to the customers and communities who need it most. We look forward to partnering with companies and organizations around the world who share this commitment.”

    Verizon is already struggling to play catchup to T-Mobile’s 5G network. It remains to be seen if hitching its rural endeavors to a company that has yet to deliver will pay off.

  • Microsoft and Amazon Come to an Agreement Over Charlie Bell

    Microsoft and Amazon Come to an Agreement Over Charlie Bell

    Microsoft and Amazon have come to an agreement over Charlie Bell, paving the way for the former Amazon exec to begin his duties at Microsoft.

    Charlie Bell surprised the industry when he announced he was taking a job at Microsoft. Bell was considered a leading candidate to replace Andy Jassy as AWS CEO when Jassy replaced Jeff Bezos. Despite being with Amazon for 23 years, Bell left the company, only to join Microsoft just two weeks later.

    Initially it looked like there was question about when Bell would be able to start in his new role as lead of the newly formed Security, Compliance, Identity, and Management team, especially since Amazon is notoriously aggressive about holding employees to non-compete agreements.

    According to The Seattle Times, the two companies have come to an arrangement that will allow Bell to move forward, after establishing terms regarding the limits of his new role.

    “After constructive discussions with Amazon, Charlie Bell started his new role on Oct. 11, focused on advancing cybersecurity capabilities that will benefit the tech sector and the broader economy,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.

  • Amazon to Allow Employees to Continue Working Remotely

    Amazon to Allow Employees to Continue Working Remotely

    Amazon has updated its guidance for employees, telling them they will be able to continue working remotely.

    Amazon has been working to adapt to the pandemic-fueled shift to remote work. Like many others, the company has changed its guidance as the pandemic has continued, exploring different possibilities for a “new normal.”

    In CEO Andy Jassy’s latest email to staff, Jassy acknowledges the company has changed direction a couple of times.

    We’ve shared a couple of updates on this topic, first thinking we’d be back in the office in September 2021, and then by January 2022, with the suggestion that we should all try to be in the office at least three days a week. This guidance prompted questions, like, “Who decides which days, does the team need to be in the same days, are there certain functions or teams that can work more effectively at home vs the office (and vice versa),” and many more. We met several times as a leadership team to discuss these questions, and generally agreed on three things.

    Ultimately, leadership decided no one knows the answers to those questions at this stage, there is no one-size-fits-all solution and the company will need to keep experimenting to find how to best navigate the current situation. As a result, Amazon is changing its focus.

    Instead of prescribing a set amount of days to be in the office, the company will leave the decision to individual teams. The main focus will be on serving customers, and making sure their needs are being met.

    Jassy said the company wants most “people close enough to their core team that they can easily travel to the office for a meeting within a day’s notice.” At the same time, Jassy said the company wants to continue supporting individuals that want to work remotely for a few weeks in a different location, voicing support for the importance of recharging from time to time.

    We want to support this flexibility and will continue to offer those corporate employees, who can work effectively away from the office, the option to work up to four weeks per year fully remote from any location within your country of employment.

    In many ways, Amazon is taking a similar stand as Microsoft, no longer placing a time limit on when things will get back to normal and adopting an approach that focuses on adapting to the current reality.

    As mentioned earlier, these are unusual times and we’re all learning together what we believe is the best way to work together to make customers’ lives easier and better every day. And with it being so early in our mission, with lots of invention and change in front of us, you can bet that we will continue to adjust as we keep learning what makes most sense for our customers and teams.

  • Microsoft and Amazon May Be Headed for a Fight Over Charlie Bell

    Microsoft and Amazon May Be Headed for a Fight Over Charlie Bell

    Microsoft scored a major victory when it poached longtime Amazon exec Charlie Bell, but the fight to use him may be just getting started.

    Charlie Bell was a 23-year veteran of Amazon and a leading candidate to replace Andy Jassy as AWS CEO when the latter replaced Jeff Bezos as Amazon’s CEO. Needless to say, Bell surprised many when he accepted employment at Microsoft, Amazon’s main cloud competitor.

    Initially, Bell was listed as reporting to executive vice president and HR head Kathleen Hogan, an odd place for a veteran cloud executive to land. As we mentioned in our coverage, the listing was likely temporary until an official announcement could be made.

    It appears Bell has now been given an official role, at least in name, leading the newly formed Security, Compliance, Identity, and Management team. He made the announcement on LinkedIn.

    I’m thrilled to join Microsoft to take on one of the greatest challenges of our time, leading a newly formed engineering organization: Security, Compliance, Identity, and Management. As digital services have become an integral part of our lives, we’re outstripping our ability to provide security and safety. It’s constantly highlighted in the headlines we see every day: fraud, theft, ransomware attacks, public exposure of private data, and even attacks against physical infrastructure. This has been weighing on my mind and the best way I can think to describe it is “digital medievalism,” where organizations and individuals each depend on the walls of their castles and the strength of their citizens against bad actors who can simply retreat to their own castle with the spoils of an attack.

    Bell also had high praise for his new employer, and its ability to help address these challenges.

    We all want a world where safety is an invariant, something that is always true, and we can constantly prove we have. We all want digital civilization. I believe Microsoft is the only company in a position to deliver this and I couldn’t be more excited to work with this talented team to make the world safer for every person and organization on the planet.

    The elephant in the room, however, is how Amazon will respond. The company is notorious for suing employees that leave for rival companies, citing the non-compete agreements they signed.

    Microsoft, along with CEO Satya Nadella, hinted at the potential issues Amazon might raise.

    “We’re sensitive to the importance of working through these issues together, as we’ve done when five recent Microsoft executives moved across town to work for Amazon,” Microsoft said in a statement, according to Bloomberg.

    Nadella told employees in an email that Bell would start in his new role when “a resolution is reached with his former employer.”

    Microsoft’s statement is an interesting choice of words, drawing attention to how it handled losing five of its own executives to Amazon. The not-so-subtle implication being that Amazon should tread carefully lest Microsoft give it a taste of its own medicine.

  • Amazon Will Hire More Than 40,000 Corporate and Tech Roles

    Amazon Will Hire More Than 40,000 Corporate and Tech Roles

    During Amazon’s Career Day 2021, to be held on September 15, the company plans to hire more than 40,000 corporate and tech roles.

    Amazon has experienced significant growth as a result of the pandemic. During lockdowns and quarantines, the company’s e-commerce platform was the lifeline for many consumers. The company has already went through multiple hiring sprees.

    Amazon has now announced it will hire more than 40,000 tech and corporate roles during Career Day 2021, along with tens of thousands of hourly positions in its Operations network.

    “We’re working hard every day to be the best place for people to have satisfying and fulfilling long-term careers,” said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. “Amazon continues to grow quickly and relentlessly invent across many areas, and we’re hoping that Career Day gives both job seekers and current Amazon employees the support they need to learn new skills or reimagine their careers at Amazon or elsewhere.”

    Amazon says it is the biggest job creator in the US right now, and has hired a whopping 450,000 individuals since the pandemic started. It appears the company isn’t slowing down yet.

  • Microsoft Snags Charlie Bell, Former AWS Heavyweight

    Microsoft Snags Charlie Bell, Former AWS Heavyweight

    Microsoft has scored a big win, snagging Charlie Bell just two week after he left rival AWS.

    Charlie Bell was a heavyweight inside Amazon’s cloud business, a 23-year veteran of the company. When Jeff Bezos stepped down as CEO, and AWS head Andy Jassy succeeded him, many saw Bell as the most likely candidate to take over as AWS CEO.

    Instead, Bell left the company he had spent more than two decades with, sparking a major reshuffling to help fill the gap.

    CNBC has now confirmed that Microsoft has hired Bell, although he’s currently listed as reporting to Kathleen Hogan, Microsoft’s head of HR and an executive vice president. It’s a somewhat odd placement for Bell, given his background, and is likely temporary.

    However things shake out, Bell joining Microsoft is a big blow to AWS, especially since Microsoft is Azure is the AWS’ closest cloud competitor.

  • Charlie Bell, 23-Year Veteran, Leaving AWS

    Charlie Bell, 23-Year Veteran, Leaving AWS

    AWS is making changes to its executive roster as Charlie Bell, a long-time company veteran, departs.

    Amazon has been in a state of transition following company founder and CEO Jeff Bezos stepping down in July, on the company’s 27th anniversary. Andy Jassy, the former head of AWS, took over as CEO, while Adam Selipsky took over as CEO of AWS, the company’s cloud business.

    According to an internal email send by Business Insider, Selipsky informed AWS VPs of Bell’s plans. In the meantime, AWS director Ryan Mackle, AWS support vice president Justin Brindley-Koonce and AWS managed services vice president John Brigden will report to AWS sales chief Matt Garman, who has been acting as the company’s COO.

    The email also indicated Peter DeSantis, part of Amazon’s “S-team,” will take over utility computing and Prasad Kalyanaraman will take over Infrastructure and Network Services. DeSantis and Kalyanaraman will both report directly to Selipsky.

    The reshuffle is one of the largest in recent years at AWS, and not unexpected when there’s such a major leadership change at the top.

  • Jeff Bezos Officially Steps Down as Amazon CEO

    Jeff Bezos Officially Steps Down as Amazon CEO

    Jeff Bezos has officially stepped down as Amazon CEO, on the 27th anniversary of the founding of his company.

    Bezos surprised the world when he announced in February 2020 that he would be stepping down from the company he founded and turned into an e-commerce and cloud behemoth. It’s believed he wants to spend more time on his Blue Origin company, one of the main competitors to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

    Monday, Bezos and Amazon made the move official. Andy Jassy, the head of AWS, succeeds him. Jassy’s promotion to the top job shows the importance of Amazon’s cloud business moving forward.

    In the meantime, despite not being CEO, Bezos will remain a powerful voice in the company. He continues to be its biggest shareholder, with a stake that’s currently worth some $180 billion.