Amazon starts layoffs in HR and cloud units: Read the memos announcing the cuts

Published

2 years ago

April 26, 2023

admin

Amazon on Wednesday began laying off some employees in its cloud computing and human resources divisions.

Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky and human resources head Beth Galetti sent notes to staffers in the U.S., Canada and Costa Rica informing them of the job cuts.

“It is a tough day across our organization,” Selipsky wrote in the memo.

The layoffs are part of the previously announced job cuts that are expected to affect 9,000 employees. Last week, Amazon laid off some employees in its advertising unit, and it has let go of staffers in its video games and Twitch livestreaming units in recent weeks.

Amazon wrapped up a separate round of cuts earlier this year that affected approximately 18,000 employees. Combined with the cuts this month, it marks the largest layoffs in Amazon’s 29-year history.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has been aggressively slashing costs across the company as the e-retailer reckons with an economic downturn and slowing growth in its core retail business. Amazon froze hiring in its corporate workforce, axed some experimental projects and slowed warehouse expansion.

By announcing layoffs in ads and AWS, Jassy has shown that two of Amazon’s biggest and most profitable businesses aren’t immune to the cost-cutting. Both AWS and ads have experienced slowing growth in recent months as companies trim their spending amid a challenging economic environment.

Some teams within AWS were included in the earlier round of layoffs. A portion of the cuts on Wednesday is expected to land in AWS’ professional services arm, which helps customers troubleshoot issues with their cloud infrastructure, according to a current employee, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak on the matter.

Head count in AWS ballooned during the Covid pandemic, which proved to be a massive boon for Amazon and other cloud providers, as companies, government agencies and schools sped their transition to the cloud.

“Given this rapid growth, as well as the overall business and macroeconomic climate, it is critical that we focus on identifying and putting our resources behind our top priorities — those things that matter most to customers and that will move the needle for our business,” Selipsky wrote in the memo. “In many cases this means team members are shifting the projects, initiatives or teams on which they work; however, in other cases it has resulted in these role eliminations.”

Amazon is scheduled to report first-quarter earnings after the bell Thursday. Investors will look for any insight into whether Jassy’s cost-cutting efforts have improved profitability, and when Amazon executives expect AWS growth to reaccelerate.

Shares of Amazon surged more than 3% in afternoon trading Wednesday.

Here’s the full memo from Selipsky:

AWS team,

As you know, we recently made the difficult decision to eliminate some roles across Amazon globally, including within AWS. I wanted to let you know that conversations with impacted AWS employees started today, with notification messages sent to all impacted employees in the U.S., Canada, and Costa Rica. In other regions, we are following local processes, which may include time for consultation with employee representative bodies and possibly result in longer timelines to communicate with impacted employees.

It is a tough day across our organization. I fully realize the impact on every person and family who is affected. We are working hard to treat everyone impacted with respect, and to provide a number of resources and touchpoints to aid in this transition. This also includes packages that include a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support.

To those to whom we are saying goodbye today, thank you for everything you have done for this business and our customers. I am truly grateful. To all AWS builders, thank you for your compassion and empathy for your colleagues.

Both the size of our business and the size of our team have grown significantly over recent years, driven by customer demand for the cloud and for the unique value AWS provides. This growth has come quickly as we’ve moved as fast as we could to build what customers have needed. Given this rapid growth, as well as the overall business and macroeconomic climate, it is critical that we focus on identifying and putting our resources behind our top priorities—those things that matter most to customers and that will move the needle for our business. In many cases this means team members are shifting the projects, initiatives or teams on which they work; however, in other cases it has resulted in these role eliminations.

The fundamentals and the outlook for our business are strong, and we are very confident in our long-term prospects. We are the leading cloud provider by a wide range of benchmarks, from our feature set to our security capabilities to our operational performance. We are focused on continuing to innovate in the areas that matter most to our customers as we help them minimize expense, innovate rapidly, and transform their organizations.

I am optimistic about the future. We’ll tackle our opportunities and our challenges, and continue to change the world.

Thank you,

Adam

And here’s the full memo from Galetti:

PXT Team,

As Andy shared a few weeks ago, leaders across the company have worked closely with their teams to decide what investments they are going to make for the future, prioritizing what matters most to customers and the long-term health of our businesses. Given PXT’s close partnership with the business, these shifts impact our OP2 plans as well, and we have made the difficult decision to eliminate additional roles within the PXT organization.

Today we shared this update with our PXT colleagues whose roles were impacted across the U.S., Canada, and Costa Rica. In other regions, we are following local processes, which may include time for consultation with employee representative bodies and possibly result in longer timelines to communicate with impacted employees.

These decisions are not taken lightly, and I recognize the impact it will have across both those transitioning out of the company as well as our colleagues who remain.

To those leaving, I want to say thank you for your contributions. You’ve helped build Amazon into the extraordinary company it is today, and we are here to support you during this difficult time. In the U.S., we are providing packages that include a 60-day, non-working transitional period with full pay and benefits, plus an additional several weeks of severance depending on tenure, a separation payment, transitional benefits, and external job placement support.

While this moment is hard, I remain energized by the important work that lies ahead of us. Together, we are building a workplace that helps fuel how Amazonians invent and deliver for customers. From making it easier for employees to find the information and help they need, to expanding our benefits, I am proud of the progress we’ve made over the last few years. This meaningful work is a direct reflection of PXT’s perseverance, resilience, and leadership. Thank you.

Please know that the entire PXTLT, including myself, is here to answer your questions and support you.

-Beth

Technology

Tech founders call on Sequoia Capital to denounce VC Shaun Maguire’s Mamdani comments

Published

9 hours ago

July 7, 2025

admin

Tech founders call on Sequoia Capital to denounce VC Shaun Maguire's Mamdani comments

Almost 600 people have signed an open letter to leaders at venture firm Sequoia Capital after one of its partners, Shaun Maguire, posted what the group described as a “deliberate, inflammatory attack” against the Muslim Democratic mayoral candidate in New York City.

Maguire, a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, posted on X over the weekend that Zohran Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary last month, “comes from a culture that lies about everything” and is out to advance “his Islamist agenda.”

The post had 5.3 million views as of Monday afternoon. Maguire, whose investments include Elon Musk’s SpaceX and X as well as artificial intelligence startup Safe Superintelligence, also published a video on X explaining the remark.

Those signing the letter are asking Sequoia to condemn Maguire’s comments and apologize to Mamdani and Muslim founders. They also want the firm to authorize an independent investigation of Maguire’s behavior in the past two years and post “a zero-tolerance policy on hate speech and religious bigotry.”

They are asking the firm for a public response by July 14, or “we will proceed with broader public disclosure, media outreach and mobilizing our networks to ensure accountability,” the letter says.

Sequoia declined to comment. Maguire didn’t respond to a request for comment, but wrote in a post about the letter on Wednesday that, “You can try everything you want to silence me, but it will just embolden me.”

Among the signees are Mudassir Sheikha, CEO of ride-hailing service Careem, and Amr Awadallah, CEO of AI startup Vectara. Also on the list is Abubakar Abid, who works in machine learning Hugging Face, which is backed by Sequoia, and Ahmed Sabbah, CEO of Telda, a financial technology startup that Sequoia first invested in four years ago.

At least three founders of startups that have gone through startup accelerator program Y Combinator added their names to the letter.

Sequoia as a firm is no stranger to politics. Doug Leone, who led the firm until 2022 and remains a partner, is a longtime Republican donor, who supported Trump in the 2024 election. Following Trump’s victory in November, Leone posted on X, “To all Trump voters: you no longer have to hide in the shadows…..you’re the majority!!”

By contrast, Leone’s predecessor, Mike Moritz, is a Democratic megadonor, who criticized Trump and, in August, slammed his colleagues in the tech industry for lining up behind the Republican nominee. In a Financial Times opinion piece, Moritz wrote Trump’s tech supporters were “making a big mistake.”

“I doubt whether any of them would want him as part of an investment syndicate that they organised,” wrote Moritz, who stepped down from Sequoia in 2023, over a decade after giving up a management role at the firm. “Why then do they dismiss his recent criminal conviction as nothing more than a politically inspired witch-hunt over a simple book-keeping error?”

Neither Leone nor Moritz returned messages seeking comment.

Roelof Botha, Sequoia’s current lead partner, has taken a more neutral stance. Botha said at an event last July that Sequoia as a partnership doesn’t “take a political point of view,” adding that he’s “not a registered member of either party.” Boelof said he’s “proud of the fact that we’ve enabled many of our partners to express their respected individual views along the way, and given them that freedom.”

Maguire has long been open with his political views. He said on X last year that he had “just donated $300k to President Trump.”

Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, has gained the ire of many people in tech and in the business community more broadly since defeating former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the June primary.

— CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report.

WATCH: SpaceX valuation is maybe even conservative, says Sequoia’s Shaun Maguire

Technology

Samsung expects second-quarter profits to more than halve as it struggles to capture AI demand

Published

9 hours ago

July 7, 2025

admin

Samsung expects second-quarter profits to more than halve as it struggles to capture AI demand

Samsung signage during the Nvidia GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in San Jose, California, US, on Thursday, March 20, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics on Tuesday forecast a 56% fall in profits for the second as the company struggles to capture demand from artificial intelligence chip leader Nvidia.

The memory chip and smartphone maker said in its guidance that operating profit for the quarter ending June was projected to be around 4.6 trillion won, down from 10.44 trillion Korean won year over year.

The figure is a deeper plunge compared to smart estimates from LSEG, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate.

According to the smart estimates, Samsung was expected to post an operating profit of 6.26 trillion won ($4.57 billion) for the quarter. Meanwhile, Samsung projected its revenue to hit 74 trillion won, falling short of LSEG smart estimates of 75.55 trillion won.

Samsung is a leading player in the global smartphone market and is also one of the world’s largest makers of memory chips, which are utilized in devices such as laptops and servers.

However, the company has been falling behind competitors like SK Hynix and Micron in high-bandwidth memory chips — an advanced type of memory that is being deployed in AI chips.

“The disappointing earnings are due to ongoing operating losses in the foundry business, while the upside in high-margin HBM business remains muted this quarter,” MS Hwang, Research Director at Counterpoint Research, said about the earnings guidance.

SK Hynix, the leader in HBM, has secured a position as Nvidia’s key supplier. While Samsung has reportedly been working to get the latest version of its HBM chips certified by Nvidia, a report from a local outlet suggests these plans have been pushed back to at least September.

The company did not respond to a request for comment on the status of its deals with Nvidia.

Ray Wang, Research Director of Semiconductors, Supply Chain and Emerging Technology at Futurum Group told CNBC that it is clear that Samsung has yet to pass Nvidia’s qualification for its most advanced HBM.

“Given that Nvidia accounts for roughly 70% of global HBM demand, the delay meaningfully caps near-term upside,” Wang said. He noted that while Samsung has secured some HBM supply for AI processors from AMD, this win is unlikely to contribute to second-quarter results due to the timing of production ramps.

Meanwhile, Samsung’s chip foundry business continues to face weak orders and serious competition from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Wang added.

Reuters reported in September that Samsung had instructed its subsidiaries worldwide to cut 30% of staff in some divisions, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Technology

Waymo to begin testing in Philadelphia with safety drivers behind the wheel

Published

13 hours ago

July 7, 2025

admin

Waymo to begin testing in Philadelphia with safety drivers behind the wheel

A Waymo autonomous self-driving Jaguar electric vehicle sits parked at an EVgo charging station in Los Angeles, California, on May 15, 2024.

Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images

Waymo said it will begin testing in Philadelphia, with a limited fleet of vehicles and human safety drivers behind the wheel.

“This city is a National Treasure,” Waymo wrote in a post on X on Monday. “It’s a city of love, where eagles fly with a gritty spirit and cheese that spreads and cheese that steaks. Our road trip continues to Philly next.”

The Alphabet-owned company confirmed to CNBC that it will be testing in Pennsylvania’s largest city through the fall, adding that the initial fleet of cars will be manually driven through the more complex parts of Philadelphia, including downtown and on freeways.

“Folks will see our vehicles driving at all hours throughout various neighborhoods, from North Central to Eastwick, and from University City to as far east as the Delaware River,” a Waymo spokesperson said.

With its so-called road trips, Waymo seeks to collect mapping data and evaluate how its autonomous technology, Waymo Driver, performs in new environments, handling traffic patterns and local infrastructure. Road trips are often used a way for the company to gauge whether it can potentially offer a paid ride share service in a particular location.

The expanded testing, which will go through the fall, comes as Waymo aims for a broader rollout. Last month, the company announced plans to drive vehicles manually in New York for testing, marking the first step toward potentially cracking the largest U.S. city. Waymo applied for a permit with the New York City Department of Transportation to operate autonomously with a trained specialist behind the wheel in Manhattan. State law currently doesn’t allow for such driverless operations.

Waymo One provides more than 250,000 paid trips each week across Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin, Texas, and is preparing to bring fully autonomous rides to Atlanta, Miami, and Washington, D.C., in 2026.

Alphabet has been under pressure to monetize artificial intelligence products as it bolsters spending on infrastructure. Alphabet’s “Other Bets” segment, which includes Waymo, brought in revenue of $1.65 billion in 2024, up from $1.53 billion in 2023. However, the segment lost $4.44 billion last year, compared to a loss of $4.09 billion the previous year.

WATCH: We went to Texas for Tesla’s robotaxi launch