As Amazon celebrated a quarter that smashed Wall Street’s profit expectations, CEO Andy Jassy was on the defensive about 14,000 corporate layoffs. He insisted the cuts were “not really AI-driven,” but were a “culture” move.
Jassy told investors the goal was to instill a “startup-style operation.” This justification follows a company blog post that did link the cuts to “advancements in AI” and the need for “staying nimble.”
The $2.4tn company’s financials are far from a nimble startup. It reported $180.17bn in revenue, and its AWS cloud division grew 20% to $33bn, its fastest pace since 2022.
The AWS growth is particularly strong given it recently suffered a major global outage. The division’s ability to beat revenue estimates ($33bn vs $32.42bn expected) shows its dominant and resilient market position.
While Jassy downplayed AI’s role in the job cuts, he highlighted its importance in Amazon’s future. He touted the Rufus shopping assistant and Zoox robotaxis as key to competing with rivals.
