Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that Amazon was planning to layoff approximately 10,000 employees. SVP of Devices & Services at Amazon, Dave Limp, who oversees all the work behind Fire TVs, Echos, Fire Tablets, Kindles, and much more, has now confirmed the cuts in a memo posted this morning. Specifics about the number of employees let go, and from which teams, were not revealed, but chatter suggests that Amazon Alexa teams have been hit the hardest.
If the 10,000 corporate employee figure is accurate, this would represent the largest reorganization in Amazon’s history, as Engadget points out. While a significant number on its own, it would account for only about three percent of Amazon’s 1.5 million global employees. Sources tell Voiecbot that “much of the Alexa core [team] remains untouched or lightly impacted,” so the voice assistant isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. They continue to say that teams around fringe Alexa capabilities, such as Alexa Ambient, Alexa Health, Alexa Games, and Alexa Communications, have been impacted the most.
Another division that seems to have seen cuts is Amazon’s Luna cloud gaming team, but an Amazon spokesperson has told The Verge that Amazon is still committed to Luna and that the service is not being killed off. I haven’t seen any news outlets suggest that the Fire TV teams have been impacted much, but they didn’t come out completely unscathed, since I have seen a few of my former Fire TV colleagues discussing the layoffs of team members on social media.
As for what this means to customers of Amazon’s devices, it’s hard to say for sure. There haven’t been any announcements regarding specific devices or services being discontinued as a result of these job cuts. I expect, come next September when Amazon typically announces new devices, that we’ll see far fewer weird and unusual products revealed and a stronger focus on strengthening the existing products that are already successful.
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You yanks should form trade unions. Power to the people
This why all my amazon devices seemed to be down off/on last night? :) All back today, maybe just a coincidence…
Is this because employees wanted to unoniated?
Our union leader are bought by cooperations and they screw their own for a bribe.
Is this more Programmers or non-programmers?
Will there be a short term glut in available programmers soon?
I’m asking as a programmer that might be getting “reduced (work force reduction)” soon.
Market forces at work. Tech layoffs everywhere. Not related to inflation or unionization. This happens every so often. Right now there is a glut of gizmos, competing smart device platforms, streaming wars, social media carriers, etc. Too much all at once. Just the beginning. Expect more “right sizing”.
I have totally lost faith in Amazon’s ability to secure it’s Echo ecosystem – Mine was breached – I filed a report and provided proof but all I got back was a note claiming that they take these things very seriously then – Crickets. This was back in July. I contacted them 2 more times and got “Crickets” in response. As a result, all my echo devices are muted, I spent over $1000 on new networking equipment (none of it purchased through Amazon) and I cut back my Amazon shopping to pretty close to zero. What they just did to the Prime streaming music app has rendered it functionally useless to me. I use to listen to specific songs at specific times while doing specific things and now I can’t do it via Amazon unless I upgrade. No Thanks! I do not need some bot to choose music for me. And now the Recast/DVR system is circling the drain – It has become unreliable and unpredictable. I am waiting for them to drop the hammer on the Blink Camera ecosphere. All the things that have bound me to Amazon Prime are evaporating, one at a time. Way to go Amazon!
I also do not like the new prime music thing.
However, I found a Plex and a My Media Alexa skill. I have tried both with my QNAP server and they both work great. I am now able to play any of my music (of which I own a lot) on any Alexa device with simple voice commands just like I used to with prime music.
Search “How to play music you own on an Amazon Echo” or go to
shorturl.at/BQRY4
Take a look at the OurJukebox skill too, it’s a bit clunky but does work and runs without a server app – as long as you have a upnp media server.
Elias, I am not sure if you would know, or could comment on it, but would the division/department you were formerly a part of at Amazon also be hard hit in these layoffs?
I’m not aware of anyone that I worked with directly that has been laid off. The only Fire TV employees that I have seen laid off, whom I didn’t know personally, were non-technical (e.g., Marketing, …). That’s not to say there weren’t any technical Fire TV employees that lost their job, but the vast majority of product managers and engineers being laid off seem to be on the Alexa and Luna teams.
Just got an echo show 15,they should lay off who ever came up with this useless piece of crap, worst echo device I own, the interface is garbage,
the speakers are garbage too,and I don’t have any faith it will be able to be improved with an update.
It seems like they used a bottom of the barrel CPU in this thing
because it is so slow, laggy, and unresponsive besides the UI being pure garbage.
It’s nothing at all like my echo show 5 and 8, which are not great but this thing is 100% useless and makes the 5 and 8 seem light years ahead
this thing is even worse than my echo flex in terms of lag.
can’t control any of my smart home devices or view any of my cameras
screen does not respond at all.
and they ripped me off on the trade in
last time it was 25% off of the original price this time they only gave me 25% off of the sale price.
Amazon has too many brands and not enough innovation. For example, having two smart camera brands, Ring and Blink, they should be merged and create a unified smart home strategy. If Wyze can make a 2k camera then why hasn’t Ring. There is no reason to upgrade my old device when the update was barely an update.
This ^ Amazon Devices are a mess, and since Limp allowed all this, it is time for a shuffle all the way up.
Ring and Blink need merged.
The number of Alexa devices need reduced significantly.
The number of FireTV devices need reduced significantly. (There are 4 sticks!)
The number of Kindle devices need reduced significantly. (There are 5 hardware variations)
The other side bets like rings, frames, arlo, halo, smart soap dispenser, thermostat, air quality monitor, etc all need a deep review.
Amazon clearly took the approach of more better, but as a result, most of the stuff kind of sucks in various ways. They need to slim and focus on core products.
less doesn’t always mean better though
just look at the out of control trash fire known as Google ecosystem, assistant /home/chromecast/Adroid etc.
sometimes less just means less and worse too
Amazon is doing a way better job than google ever will, I have both ecosystems running side by side and I can say I never use Google at all anymore
they have hardly any devices and still all they seem to do is break thing, remove feature after feature, and F things up again and again and add useless BS nobody gives AF about, I am considering just getting rid of all my Google devices because they all have become useless trash including my pixel.
Recent removal of DUO and Android Auto for phone screens is really the final straw for me and is sealing Googles fate, I am considering going back to IOS at this point because things have gotten so bad.
Literally nothing works anymore,
it’s like that scene from Idiocracy where the roomba just keeps ramming the wall and the machine gun turrets shoot each other up.
If Amazon made an Alexa phone I would buy it without hesitation
because Google assistant is such a S#!t mess.
lets see in the last few months they have removed…
the ability to make calls from google home devices fi they are not in contacts so no more asking for the number to a business and then calling it.
life 360 intergration
location services
so no more asking where a family member is and having it tell you and show a map on screen
they broke IFTTT integration with no upgrade path to the new API
all applets are lost and have to be recreated and most do not even have equivalents in the new API
they also removed custom voice responses from the new API
they got rid of DUO and made it meet which is garbage and nothing but problems, nothing works in meet that used to work in DUO, filter for one example
they got rid of Android Auto for phones screen and replaced it with an outright dangerous piece of trash called “driving mode”
which totally sucks ass and is worse than completely worthless,
does not even work in landscape and is nothing more than shortcut to maps but somehow breaks maps even more and makes it impossible to use.
Forget about listening to music or having music control, or making calls
the POS doesn’t even work at all unless you are navigation someplace
I mean officially, the POS doesn’t work at all period no matter what you are doing.
Their ecosystem has always been an out of control dumpster fire but now it’s just completely useless and an absolute liability
I can imagine how many people have been killed in accidents already
I have come close a few times myself fiddling with this worthless trash.
I can not use this crap at all now , it does not function at all while driving ,it locks my phone continuously
even with smart lock trusted devices, (my car and my smartband connected)
the whole ecosystem has been pure S#!t since day one but since they got rid of trusted voice unlock it is just completely unuseable at all now.
GA doesn’t work with wireless ear buds either you have to continually pull out your phone and unlock it, it never really worked when they had trusted voice unlock either but now there is officially no hands free anything at all and it all just sucks S#!t.
I am just going to use my pixel 3A XL till it dies and I am never updating it to 12 either since they removed the smart home controls from the power button menu, I don’t know what my next phone will be but I can assure it won’t be a pixel.
and I will not be buying anymore Google home devices either.
Oh and today my home hub stopper functioning as the one thing it was still useful for, a photo frame , after rebooting the router now it loses the album you have set and you have to go in the home ass and re add it
you can count the number of devices Google has on one hand, even if you are a Simpson’s character and yet they still manage to F everything up beyond recognition.
Plus, starting in 2023 Amazon will pay a 15% corporate minimum federal tax. Imagine that, Amazon paying taxes like the rest of us!