To the AWS Family: Tough Decisions Ahead

Andy'Jazzy'Jassy sent the following email to Amazon Web Services employees earlier today. Greetings my fellow AWSers! It's been a hard few days as we had to make the tough decision to let go of 10% of the team to keep the business running. While I take full responsibility for our current situation, I want to take a step back to reflect on what brought us here. As you know, at AWS we pride ourselves on our commitment to the highest quality communication. We hold virtual meetings, team meetings, team bonding activities, and more to keep a consistent flow of communication. Unfortunately, this is not the only commitment we have. We also pride ourselves on staying on budget and budget is something that takes priority in a situation like this. After some analysis, we noticed that of all the funds we put into communication, a whopping 70% of it was going towards meetings and that just wasn't sustainable. Therefore, after some hard decisions, we had to make the cut and layoff 10% of the team. We understand this will be a hard transition and please know that we are here to support you in any way we can. Sincerely, Andy 'Jazzy' Jassy