Amazon is doubling down on its massive restructuring, and the reason for the 14,000 layoffs in October is less about cost-cutting or immediate AI displacement and more about organizational culture. That happened.
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Amazon senior vice president Amit Agarwal confirmed that the job cuts were primarily aimed at removing organizational layers and boosting agility, echoing CEO Andy Jassy’s earlier stance: “It really—it’s culture.”
The Startup Mandate
The core idea, according to Agarwal, is to make the tech giant function like a nimble startup again, especially amid the accelerated AI boom.
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Goal: To become the “biggest startup,” as envisioned by CEO Andy Jassy.
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Method: To operate with agility, “we need fewer layers.” The workforce reduction, which affected nearly 10% of the white-collar workforce globally (estimated at 800 to 1,000 roles in India), was done to remove these layers.
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Ongoing Process: Agarwal stated that Amazon will continue to remove layers to “stay lean and move like a startup,” while simultaneously continuing to hire where necessary.
Jassy expanded on the “culture” aspect last month, noting that the rapid growth over several years led to too many layers and too many people, which, without realizing it, can “weaken the ownership of the people that you have who are doing the actual work.” The restructuring is meant to address this dilution of responsibility.
India Strategy: Focusing on Prime Hotspots
Agarwal also touched upon Amazon’s strategy for the highly competitive quick commerce market in India. The thing is, their expansion won’t be a rigid city-by-city rollout, or nothing.
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Focus: The expansion is centered on “Prime-dense clusters.“
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The Goal: They want to ensure they cover the largest percentage of their Prime membership base with the quick commerce delivery service, leveraging existing customer loyalty rather than just chasing a fixed city count.
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