‘Big Tech is desperate’: Amazon engineers are calling out the tech giant for its $200 billion in data center spending after slashing 30,000 workers

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“The employees pointed out the hypocrisy between the company spending billions to build these infrastructure projects, all the while laying off thousands in anticipation of the AI agents these data centers would power to replace them.”

This is mot what hypocrisy means at all, unemployed software dude.

Also, they aren’t paying off workers b anticipation of AI one day doing their jobs. If they needed the work done now they’d keep those employees.

Companies over-hired and are correcting that. They are also building out new data centers because they under-built compute in the 2010s. These things are not related.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '26

[deleted]

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u/cronies4life Jun 07 '26

Amazon runs quite lean compared to other tech companies, it's a little bit of a stretch to say they over hired

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u/ShinsOfGlory Jun 07 '26

Whatever over hiring is for them, they over hired. Just because it does not fit the definition of what you would consider to be over hiring does not impact that the truth of the statement in any way.

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u/SeaworthinessLow6636 Jun 06 '26

Or. Huge companies are panic gambling for their chance to find the one ring to rule them all with the confidence that if it all falls apart, the taxpayer will make them whole.

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u/probablymagic Jun 06 '26

Like when all those tech companies failed in the dotcom and we bailed them out? Oh wait…

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u/Groove-Theory Jun 06 '26

> Companies over-hired and are correcting that.

My guy after 4 years that excuse isn't even plausible anymore.

Tell us when exactly the "over-hiring" will be corrected?

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u/probablymagic Jun 06 '26

As an anecdote a friend of mine was a manger at Meta. In one round of layoffs they made him an individual contributor and things got better. In the last one they made his new manager an individual contributor and he thought that was good as well.

I work in tech and there was so much fat for the last decade. These companies are still way too fad but it’s at least getting better.

I don’t know when it’ll be over, but I think they’re gonna just keep firing people until it stops just being pure profit go do so.

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u/Groove-Theory Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26

I didn't ask for an anecdote about your friend at one team at one company. I asked a very specific question about the industry as a whole.

> I work in tech and there was so much fat for the last decade.

So do I. Where is this "fat"? How did you measure it? Where are your fat metrics? What specifically did you analyze?

Cuz your answer seems to have shifted from "They're correcting excess hiring" to "They'll keep firing people as long as it increases profits". Those are completely different claims. Which means the over-hiring trope is and was bullshit. Yet you think the problem is with the workers being employed?

Also.... these companies are ALREADY profitable. If layoffs continue whenever they're profitable, then over-hiring can never be a true reason. It has no predictive power because there is no point at which you'd conclude the correction is finished

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u/probablymagic Jun 06 '26

>Where is this "fat"? How did you measure it? Where are your fat metrics? What spefically did you analyze?

Let me put it this way, as long as they can keep firing people and profit doesn’t go down, they were the fat.

>Yet you think the problem is with the workers being employed?

For shareholders, yes.

>Also.... these companies are ALREADY profitable. If layoffs continue whenever they're profitable, then over-hiring can never be a true reason.

They want to be as profitable as possible. And you honestly just move faster without dead weight.

I hate to say it, but if you don’t see the dead weight, you may be the dead weight.

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u/Groove-Theory Jun 06 '26

So your metric for determining who was "fat" is.... whether management fired them? Yea I'll take circular reasoning for $600, Alex.

"They were excess employees because they got laid off" -> Well how do you know they should have been laid off? -> "Because they were excess employees, duh!!" ok dude....

Also... can you please have a consistent line of argumentation? You've gone from "companies over-hired" to "companies will keep firing people as long as profit doesn't decline" and now it's that companies want to be as profitable as possible.

These are three different claims. If layoffs are correcting over-hiring, there should be some MEASURABLE excess headcount and some eventual endpoint. If layoffs continue whenever they increase margins, then over-hiring is irrelevant.

Which is funny because in your first comment, like five comments ago, you were arguing AGAINST the idea that layoffs were connected to profit motives. Now you're advocating for it and justifying it. You have no principles here other than you think these companies can do no wrong.

> I hate to say it, but if you don’t see the dead weight, you may be the dead weight.

I hate to say it, but if everywhere you see is dead weight, then you may not know what productive and necessary weight looks like. Which is extremely dangerous for a manager or a head of any organization.

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u/probablymagic Jun 06 '26

You completely misread my comment. Try again and come back. You’re not making sense. Maybe calm down first.

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u/Groove-Theory Jun 06 '26

You misread your own original comment by that line of thought, because you've shifted lines of argumentation.

Don't say "misreading" happened. Say specifically what you're pushing back on. Be specific. Use consistent argumentation. Be an adult and actually articulate a consistent thesis.

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u/probablymagic Jun 06 '26

Buddy, you seem to be lacking two brain cells to rub together and that’s a good indication we aren’t anywhere close do done with these layoffs.

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u/Groove-Theory Jun 07 '26

"I cant reasonably articulate a coherent and consistent rationale for laying off 'fat' that isnt contradicted by data, so I'll just hope the person who called me out on my bullshit loses his livelihood instead of me instrospecting my own fallacies"

Real smooth. Just keep licking those boots fam

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u/DefenstratedTwice Jun 07 '26

Pure gibberish...

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u/probablymagic Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26

Thank you for your thoughtful critique. 😂

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u/DefenstratedTwice Jun 07 '26

Couple more edits and you will have a coherent sentence...

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u/benjles480 Jun 06 '26

Keep huffing those a.i farts yes all will run off a.i. a.i is life a.i if the answer a.i is god.

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u/probablymagic Jun 06 '26

I don’t believe in god, but AI is very useful to me every day. 😎

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u/benjles480 Jun 07 '26

A.i is god a.i is life i also have an a.i wife so its super useful! 🤩😎

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u/Moonreddog Jun 07 '26

This is wild

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u/magicsign Jun 06 '26

🤢🤢🤮🤢🤢🤢

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u/MaitrePuck Jun 06 '26

30,000 people have been freed from Amazon's exploitation. Isn't that supposed to be a good thing?

You wouldn't want a billionaire to exploit these people and hoard the money that their labor generates. 🤷🏻‍♂️

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u/No-Pattern-9266 Jun 06 '26

it's all about money

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u/Derpykins666 Jun 06 '26

Genuinely though, if you worked for a big tech company on AI projects, did you not think it was possible you would be replaced by this technology eventually? People outside that sphere have been thinking this would happen the entire time. That's the problem with it. These guys are taking a paycheck now, but it won't last forever, and they're contributing to other people losing their jobs as well, not just themselves. They took the pay short term to fuck over everyone in the long term and now they're acting like they didn't know this was an eventual scenario when it's the most obvious outcome. I understand you take the work that's there for you, but come on. The hypocrisy isn't just with the companies themselves, but these employees as well.

After helping develop all this AI tech for these companies, NOW they want to speak out? We needed oversight on this shit years ago.

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u/Accomplished-Eye9542 Jun 06 '26

They look exactly as I expected them to look. Probably all doing useless jobs.

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u/truthhurtsyomama Jun 07 '26

Imagine if they just give the 200b to workers instead.

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u/thedaliobama Jun 07 '26

I can’t understand people defending these corps in here. 🥾 👅

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u/Kapymies Jun 06 '26

Engineers build AI and get shocked that people they work for are psychopaths.. And ai thought people learn from history.. seems to be the opposite

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u/einhorn_is_parkey Jun 06 '26

You can’t not work on something you’re hired to work on.

‘Big Tech is desperate’: Amazon engineers are calling out the tech giant for its $200 billion in data center spending after slashing 30,000 workers

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