Layoffs land at Amazon HQ; Redfin's reversal; Jeff B and Jay-Z

GeekWire

Technology, Tech News, News

4.4 • 116 Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2022

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Amazon became the latest tech giant to make layoffs in its corporate workforce this week in the face of the economic downturn, but the manner in which the plan unfolded left some employees scratching their heads, at best.

Foreshadowed in a Nov. 10 Wall Street Journal report foreshadowing cutbacks in Amazon's devices division, the scope became clear with a New York Times report Nov. 14, saying that the company planned to lay off about 10,000 corporate and tech workers. But that number was an approximation, not a precise count or a specific target, because Amazon is leaving the decisions to leaders in its divisions.

It also took couple days for Amazon to officially acknowledge the layoffs, with a memo from Devices and Services chief Dave Limp, and later from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, explaining that the job cuts could extend into next year.

The reaction was a mix of frustration, fear, uncertainty, and also acceptance, as GeekWire reporter Kurt Schlosser discovered when he visited the Amazon campus in Seattle this week. Kurt joins us to share what he saw and heard.

Also this week: the impact of the downturn on high-tech real estate brokerage Redfin, and our thoughts on a potential collaboration between Jeff Bezos and Jay-Z.

Share your perspective for next week's show: What are you thankful for in tech? Is there a technology that has changed your life, your job, or your company for the better this year? Or a trend in the economy or the industry that you're especially grateful to see? Send a message or a voice memo with your thoughts to [email protected] for a chance to be included in next week's episode.

With GeekWire co-founders John Cook and Todd Bishop.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey GeekWire listeners, before we start today's show, a question for you.
0:04.0	What are you thankful for in tech?
0:06.0	Is there a technology that has changed your life, your job, or your company for the better this year?
0:12.0	Or maybe a trend in the economy or the industry that you're especially grateful to see.
0:17.0	Send a message or a voice memo with your thoughts to podcast at geekwire.com
0:22.0	for a chance to be included in next week's episode.
0:25.0	Again that's Podcast at GeekWire.com. All right, here's the show.
0:30.0	There were lots of people, the food trucks were there. All the restaurants were busy people were
0:36.2	shuttling between buildings carrying to-go boxes of food. Normally for a reporter
0:41.4	that's like fish in a barrel.
0:42.9	Hey, you got a second to talk?
0:44.3	But as we know at Amazon, that's not such an easy task.
0:48.4	My understanding is that they go through a little bit of media training
0:51.6	as part of their onboarding. As an employee and of media training as part of their onboarding as an employee and that
0:54.0	media training consists of don't talk to reporters.
0:57.0	Yeah. Welcome to GeekWire from GeekWire.com in Seattle. I'm Todd Bishop and I'm
1:09.3	joined in the GeekWire offices this week by GeekWire reporter Kurt it's great to have you here Todd great to see you likewise so you've been doing lots of things IRL this week
1:20.1	Kurt you've been headed down to the Amazon campus and we'll talk about that in just a minute but first to set the stage for folks.
1:26.9	This was a week when we saw the difficult economy really come home to roost.
1:30.8	Amazon is laying off somewhere in the realm of 10,000 workers and I say that with a little
1:37.0	bit of trepidation because that number is very squishy. There was a report initially in the
1:42.1	New York Times that there would be about 10,000 job cuts at Amazon.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from GeekWire, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of GeekWire and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.