And, to be realistic, "add AI to everything" is a sure sign that the person does _not_ understand AI.

> I’m just not convinced it’s okay for a big rich corporation to hire all these people and then fire them on a whim

Amazon doesn't owe anybody a job. Likewise, if you buy groceries from Safeway, you can switch to buying from Walmart anytime.

> It’s not like Amazon can’t afford it.

I'm sure there are a lot of things people don't buy even though they can afford it.

Amazon got where it was by ruthlessness. What may not be OK is in US you need a job to get healthcare. But other than that people earning that much can't expect job for life type situation like a firefighter or teacher. In US almost everyone is a defacto contractor by virtue of at will employment.

> I’m just not convinced it’s okay for a big rich corporation to hire all these people and then fire them on a whim.

isn't this the American dream?

become Bezos, then exploit every last cent out of your suppliers, employees and customers

no you dont understand, the whole career ladder at amazon is clogged with people at the company 10+ years, that have been in their role 5+ years. its a big game of dont get fired, and collect pay checks as long as possible

From the corporations' point of view, humans are computing substrate.

Relevant speech by SF author Charlie Stross, from the 34th Chaos Communication Congress in Leipzig, December 2017: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2018/01/dude-yo...

They exist to provide value to other entities. There is no requirement for supporting humans or even having employees.

they should give some younger people a shot to move into these management positions.

Lots of companies can make decent apps. And IMO the Prime Video TV/Mobile and Amazon mobile apps are "decent" from a "they do what they're trying to do" standpoint and don't fail all the time.

But they don't really think about things from a "consumer who wants to watch something tonight" vs "shopper who we want to get money from" perspective. So the Prime Video app has been painful to navigate and use. Things like concepts of how people want to interact with TV shows - one top level entry with seasons in it, vs top-level entries per season, which took them forever to change - reflect quick and dirty shoveling of concepts over from how they'd sell box sets or such vs thinking about it from a user-first POV. Or how search will return a match for just about anything because they will happily sell it to you vs having as a default "show any free results first because I'm not looking to spend more right now."

That's a product/vision failure (or just mismatch with what you and I want) not an engineering/engineering culture thing.

This is really easy to answer, with some perspective from the inside, but mostly from public information:

- Amazon has 3 main business lines ("orgs"): Ecommerce, AWS and devices.

- Ecommerce and AWS are (now) cash cows. Devices bleeds money. TV falls into the devices organization.

- Devices was a Bezos bet. Current Amazon couldn't care less honestly.

- The devices organization is (today, after layoffs and people leaving in droves) essentially full of incompetent people, where all the leftovers of the other two orgs end up.

- It's people that was hired to build structure with the sole purpose of some higher-up promotion. They never served any other purpose, neither they have any particularly sophisticated skill.

- That's the people that makes the TV app.

amazon has mediocre quality talent that they grind to the bone. which worked when the company just needed raw execution. amazon has an operations culture, which was important for:

1. scaling retail

2. keeping the servers running at AWS

all the low hanging fruit has been picked, they need a fundamentally different employee base

TV is Netflix's core competency. It's a sideline at best for Amazon.

Amazon Prime Video isn't targeting the US market anymore - they made a hard pivot to India [0][1][2], and as such are primarily investing in MX Player.

[0] - https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/apo...

[1] - https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/prime-video-india-growth-pa...

[2] - https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/prime-video-india-content-c...