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 | Reuters
Throughout 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.
“We will continue to make investment decisions in light of long-term market leadership considerations rather than short-term profitability considerations or short-term Wall Street reactions,” Bezos wrote.
But with three-quarters of 2022 in the books, it’s clear that the tone has changed. Andy Jassy, who took over as CEO in July 2021, has been in cost-cutting mode to preserve cash as Amazon confronts slowing sales and a gloomy global economy. The stock is down 33% for the year, more than the 25% drop in the S&P 500 and is on pace for its worst year since 2008.
On the recruiting front, Amazon is freezing hiring for corporate roles in its retail business. And last month’s annual hardware event, which normally showcases a roster of gadgets and robots that may or may not still be around in a year or two, was noticeably constrained compared to prior launch events.
“If we look at everything collectively, Amazon seems to care a little more about margin than they have historically,” said Tom Forte, an analyst at D.A. Davidson who recommends buying the stock.
Jassy addressed the recent efforts to rein in costs at Amazon’s global all-hands meeting on Monday.
“Good companies that last a long period of time, who are thinking about the long term, always have this push and pull,” Jassy said at the meeting, according to excerpts shared with CNBC. “There are some years where they’re expanding really broadly. Some years where they’re checking in and working on profitability, tightening the belt a little bit. And sometimes when you have multiple businesses like we do at Amazon, some businesses are expanding at the same time that others are checking in.”
Amazon is far from alone in feeling the pinch. Fellow tech giants Meta and Alphabet have also been cutting costs to reflect a challenging macro environment and a dramatic slowdown after a decade of consistent growth. Companies across the tech sector have announced layoffs and hiring freezes or have lowered their hiring targets for the coming months.
Not that Amazon has put the brakes on all new spending. The company has been on a buying spree in recent months, agreeing to acquire primary care provider One Medical for $3.9 billion, Roomba maker iRobot for $1.7 billion and Belgian warehouse robotics company Cloostermans for an undisclosed amount. The company also said it would spend about $1 billion over the next year on wage increases and expanded benefits for front-line workers, and it has plans to hire 150,000 employees to help manage the holiday rush.
“We have an enormous amount of things that we’re investing in and that will continue,” Jassy said at the meeting, referencing Alexa, Prime Video and grocery as examples of some areas where Amazon continues to spend. “The trick for us during this time is just to balance those long-term investments and bets and customer experiences that we believe are the future of the company, along with really focusing on delivering along the way.”
The recent trend of belt-tightening has raised a longer-term question because it’s coincided with the company’s first ever change in leadership at the top after Bezos’ departure. The change on Jassy’s watch has prompted some analysts and former employees to wonder whether there’s a permanent shift in strategy underway or a temporary reset reflecting economic uncertainty.
Bezos built a reputation as a fearless entrepreneur willing to make big risky bets that could require hefty investment and may not generate meaningful revenue for years, if ever. 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.
More recent projects under Bezos included self-driving robotaxis, cashierless stores and delivery drones, all in pursuit of making life easier for customers.
Bezos ultimately axed plenty of products that didn’t pan out after launch. One of the most infamous examples is the Fire Phone, Amazon’s first smartphone that was discontinued in 2015, a year after its debut. Other endeavors with a short shelf life included a restaurant delivery service, social media feed, a device designed to replenish items with one click, a ticketing service, an auction site and an online wine store.
“They’re completely unafraid to kill something that’s not working,” said Craig Berman, a former Amazon vice president for global communications. “That’s never been a problem for them in the past.”
As the head of AWS, Jassy was at the center of Amazon’s profit engine, which gave the company the fuel to invest elsewhere. But since taking over as CEO of the parent company, Jassy has had to navigate the biggest jump in inflation in 40 years, supply shortages and an aggressive organized labor push that’s challenged the company’s long-standing anti-union stance.
More cuts may be coming
He’s putting in place cuts at a time when Wall Street has little appetite for the kind of experimental high-risk investing that defined the Bezos era. In July, Amazon reported its third straight quarter of single-digit revenue growth, largely due to weakening demand in its core online stores business.
Jassy is also working to dial back Amazon’s Covid expansion, which left it saddled with too much warehouse space and too many staffers. Amazon reduced its headcount by 99,000 people to 1.52 million employees at the end of the second quarter after almost doubling in size during the pandemic.
More slashing could be on the docket.
Amazon is in the middle of its annual planning process, which occurs in two phases, referred to as “OP-1” and “OP-2.” OP stands for “Operating Plan.” 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.”
OP-1 typically begins during the summer and involves months of preparation and planning. Each team puts together a proposal outlining key initiatives for the upcoming year, including any requests for funding or new hires. OP-1 documents are typically submitted before the start of the fourth quarter, which covers the critical holiday shopping period, and are reviewed by Amazon’s senior leadership team, called the S-Team.
The second phase, OP-2, takes place in January. That’s when teams finalize their annual plans, potentially tweaking them depending on fourth-quarter performance.
With the risk of recession on the rise, Amazon could be looking at further reductions in its investments if the holiday quarter is weaker than anticipated, a former Amazon manager told CNBC. Another ex-manager from the company said Jassy may be more deliberate about what spending requests he approves as a signal for where Amazon plans to focus given the uncertainty. Both former employees requested anonymity in order to speak candidly.
An Amazon spokesperson said in a statement that the company continuously evaluates “the progress and potential of our products and services to deliver customer value, and we regularly make adjustments based on those assessments.”
Layoffs unlikely
Still, don’t expect to see mass layoffs from Amazon even as the company curtails spending, or pulls the plug on some projects.
When Amazon winds down a business, it typically offers employees the chance to apply for a job elsewhere in the company, several former employees told CNBC. They’re usually given a window of one to three months to look for another role and have the opportunity to meet with various business leaders during that time.
“Amazon is not going to let good talent walk out the door,” said Andrea Leigh, a former Amazon executive who spent almost a decade at the company across a number of different businesses.
There can still be job losses. After Amazon announced it was winding down its telehealth service Amazon Care, it said 159 employees could be laid off. Another 236 employees will be let go from Care Medical, an independent company that was contracted by Amazon to treat Care patients.
One new invention that Jassy may be counting on to goose revenue is a second Prime Day sale. Taking place Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, it’s the first time Amazon has had two of its discount bonanzas in the same year since it launched Prime Day in 2015.
Ahead of its third-quarter earnings report later this month, the multiday shopping event may provide Amazon with an early sneak peek at what’s coming in 2023.
A man walks past a logo of SK Hynix at the lobby of the company’s Bundang office in Seongnam on January 29, 2021.
Jung Yeon-Je | AFP | Getty Images
South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix said Friday that it was ready to mass produce its next-generation high-bandwidth memory chips, staying ahead of rivals and sending the company’s stock soaring.
HBM is a type of memory that is used in chipsets for artificial-intelligence computing, including in chips from global AI giant Nvidia — a major client of SK Hynix.
According to its announcement Friday, the company has finished its internal validation and quality assurance process for HBM4 and is ready to manufacture those at scale.
“Completion of HBM4 development will be a new milestone for the industry,” said Joohwan Cho, head of HBM development at SK Hynix.
HBM4 is the sixth generation of HBM technology — a type of Dynamic Random Access Memory, or DRAM. DRAM can be found in personal computers, workstations and servers and is used to store data and program code.
SK Hynix’s latest HBM4 product has doubled bandwidth and increased power efficiency by 40% compared to the previous generation, according to the company.
Notably, HBM4 is expected to be the main AI memory chip needed for Nvidia’s next-generation Rubin architecture — a more powerful AI chip for global data centers — said Dan Nystedt, vice-president at TriOrient, an Asia-based private investment firm with a focus on semiconductors.
“SK Hynix is a key supplier for Nvidia, and the announcement shows it remains far ahead of rivals,” he said.
Samsung Electronics and Micron have struggled to catch up to SK Hynix in HBM, as it builds on its segment leadership and benefits from being Nvidia’s main HBM supplier.
However, the companies have made some progress. Micron has also shipped samples of its HBM4 products to customers, while Samsung has reportedly been working to get its HBM4 chips certified by Nvidia.
“Despite the shifting competitive landscape, we anticipate SK Hynix will maintain a commanding position, potentially securing around 50% of the HBM market share by 2026,” said MS Hwang, research director at Counterpoint Research, covering memory solutions.
SK Hynix shares rose more than 7% Friday to hit their highest since 2000, following its chip announcement, bringing year-to-date gains to nearly 90%. Shares of Samsung Electronics and Micron have risen over 40% and nearly 80% in 2025, respectively.
SK Hynix posted record operating profit and revenue for its June-quarter, thanks to strong HBM demand, which accounted for 77% of its overall revenues. The company’s market capitalization has increased by more than $80 billion since the start of the year, according to data from S&P Capital IQ.
The firm expects to double HBM sales for the full year compared to 2024, and for demand from AI to continue to grow into 2026.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO and Co-Founder of Swedish fintech Klarna, gives a thumbs up during the company’s IPO at the New York Stock Exchange in New York City, U.S., Sept. 10, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
LONDON — It’s been a busy week for the European technology sector.
On Tuesday, London-headquartered artificial intelligence startup ElevenLabs announced it would let employees sell shares in a secondary round that doubles its valuation to $6.6 billion.
Then, Dutch chip firm ASML on Wednesday confirmed it was leading French AI firm Mistral’s 1.7 billion-euro Series C funding round at a valuation of 11.7 billion euros ($13.7 billion) — up from 5.8 billion euros last year. Mistral is considered a competitor to the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic.
These developments have revived hopes that Europe is capable of developing a tech industry that can compete with the U.S. and Asia. For the past decade, investors have been talking up Europe’s potential to build valuable tech firms, rebuffing the idea that Silicon Valley is the only place to create innovative new ventures.
However, dreams of a “golden era” of European tech never quite came to fruition.
A key curveball came in the form of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which caused inflation to soar and global central banks to hike interest rates as a result. Higher rates are considered bad for capital-intensive tech firms, which often need to raise cash to grow.
Ironically, that same year, Klarna — which at one point was valued as much as $45.6 billion in a funding round led by SoftBank — had its market value slashed 85% to $6.7 billion.
Now, Europe’s venture capital investors view the recent buzz around the region’s tech firms as less of a renaissance and more of a “growing wave.”
“This started 25 years ago when we saw the first signs of a European tech ecosystem inspired by the original dotcom boom that was very much a Silicon Valley affair,” Suranga Chandratillake, partner at Balderton Capital, told CNBC.
Balderton has backed a number of notable European tech names including fintech firm Revolut and self-driving vehicle tech developer Wayve.
“There have been temporary setbacks: the 2008 financial crisis, the post-Covid tech slump, but the ecosystem has bounced back stronger each time,” Chandratillake said.
“Right now, the confluence of a huge new technological opportunity in the form of generative AI, as well as a community that has done it before and has access to the capital required, is, unsurprisingly, yielding a huge number of sector-defining companies,” he added.
Europe vs. U.S.
Investors backing the continent’s tech startups say there’s plenty of money to be made — particularly amid the economic uncertainty caused by President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs.
For one, there’s a clear discount on European tech right now. Venture firm Atomico’s annual “State of European Tech” report last year pegged the value of the European tech ecosystem at $3 trillion and predicted it will reach $8 trillion by 2034. Compare that to the story in the U.S., where the tech sector’s biggest megacap stocks combined are worth over $20 trillion.
“Ten years ago, there wasn’t a single European startup valued at over $50 billion; today, there are several,” Jan Hammer, partner at Index Ventures, which has backed the likes of Revolut and Adyen, told CNBC.
“Tens of thousands of people now have firsthand experience building and scaling global companies from companies such as Revolut, Alan, Mistral and Adyen,” Hammer added. “Crucially, European startups are no longer simply expanding abroad — they are born global from day one.”
Read more CNBC tech news
Amy Nauikoas, founder and CEO of fintech investor Anthemis, suggested that investors may be viewing Europe as something of a safe haven market amid heightened geopolitical risks and macroeconomic uncertainty.
“This is an investing opportunity for sure,” Nauikoas told CNBC. “Macroeconomic dislocation always favors early-stage entrepreneurial disruption and innovation.”
“This time around, trends in family office, capital shifts … and the general constipation of the U.S. institutional allocation market suggest that there should be a lot more money flowing from … global investors to U.K. [and] European private markets.”
Problems remain
Despite the bullish sentiment surrounding European tech, there remain systemic challenges that make it harder for the region’s tech firms to achieve the scale of their U.S. and Asian counterparts.
Startup investors have been pushing for more allocation from pension funds into venture capital funds in Europe for some time. And the European market is highly fragmented, with regulations varying from country to country.
“There’s really nothing that stops European tech companies to scale, to become huge,” Niklas Zennström. CEO and founding partner of early Klarna investor Atomico, told CNBC.
“However, there’s some conditions that make it harder,” he added. “We still don’t have a single market.”
Several tech entrepreneurs and investors have backed a new initiative called “EU Inc.” Launched last year, its aim is to boost the European Union’s tech sector via the formation of a “28th regime” — a proposed pan-European legal framework to simplify the complex regulations across various individual EU member states.
“Europe is in a bad headspace at the moment for quite obvious reasons, but I don’t think a lot of the founders who are there really are,” Bede Moore, chief commercial officer of early-stage investment firm Antler, told CNBC.
“At best, what you can say is that there’s this secondary tailwind, which is that people are feeling galvanized by the need for Europe to … be a bit more self-standing.”
Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss (L-R), creators of crypto exchange Gemini Trust Co., on stage at the Bitcoin 2021 Convention, a cryptocurrency conference held at the Mana Convention Center in Wynwood in Miami, Florida, on June 4, 2021.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
Gemini Space Station, the crypto company founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, priced its initial public offering at $28 per share late Thursday, according to Bloomberg.
A person familiar with the offering told the news service that the company priced the offering above its expected range of $24 to $26, which would value the company at $3.3 billion.
Since Gemini capped the value of the offering at $425 million, 15.2 million shares were sold, according to the report. That was a measure of high demand for the crypto company, which had initially marketed 16.67 million shares. Earlier this week, it increased its proposed price range from between $17 and $19 apiece.
A Gemini spokesperson could not confirm the report.
The company and the selling stockholders granted its underwriters — led by and Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley — a 30-day option to sell an additional 452,807 and 380,526 shares, respectively, per the registration form. Gemini stock will trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol “GEMI.”
Up to 30% of the shares offered will be reserved for retail investors through Robinhood, SoFi, Hong Kong-based Futu Securities, Singapore’s Moomoo Financial, Webull and other platforms.
Gemini, which primarily operates as a cryptocurrency exchange, was founded by the Winklevoss brothers in 2014 and holds more than $21 billion of assets on its platform as of the end of July.
Initial trading will give the market a sense of how long it can keep the crypto IPO party going. Circle Internet and Bullish had successful listings, but there has been a recent consolidation in the prices of blue chip cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether. Also, in contrast to those companies’ profitability, Gemini has reported widening losses, especially in 2025. Per its registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gemini posted a net loss of $159 million in 2024, and in the first half of this year, it lost $283 million.
This week, however, Gemini received a big vote of institutional confidence when Nasdaq said it’s making a strategic investment of $50 million in the crypto company. Nasdaq is seeking to offer its clients access to Gemini’s custodial services, and gain a distribution partner for its trade management system known as Calypso.
Gemini also offers a crypto-backed credit card, and last month, launched another card in partnership with Ripple. The latter garnered more than 30,000 credit card sign-ups in August, a new monthly high that was more than twice the number of credit card sign-ups in the prior month, according to the S-1 filing.
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