I need somebody to explain this to me like I’m five years old.

Amazon made $167.7 billion in revenue last quarter. Thats billion with a B. Net income was $18.2 billion. Up 35% from last year. The company is doing better than ever.

And they just fired 14,000 people.

How does that make sense? In what universe does “we’re making more money than ever” translate to “better cut 4% of our corporate workforce”?

My take: When a company makes record profits and fires people anyway, they’re not “restructuring.” They’re just being greedy. Full stop.

The official line is that Amazon needs to be “leaner” to invest in AI. Of course it’s AI. Everything is AI now. They’re spending $118 billion this year on artificial intelligence. But they cant afford to keep 14,000 workers?

CEO Andy Jassy told employees straight up that AI will “reduce our total corporate workforce.” So they knew. They planned this. They looked at the people who built their company and decided machines could do it cheaper.

Fortune reported something that stuck with me. Everyone thought AI would replace factory workers first. Nope. Its coming for the managers. The analysts. The people with college degrees who thought they were safe.

My cousin’s kid got a job at AWS right out of college two years ago. Good school. Student loans. Worked hard. He made it through this round but now hes updating his resume. The smart people are already leaving.

The stock went UP when Amazon announced the layoffs. Because of course it did. Wall Street loves layoffs. Layoffs mean lower costs. Lower costs mean higher profits. Higher profits mean the line goes up.

The cruel math: $18.2 billion profit. 14,000 fired. Stock goes up. Executives get bonuses. The incentives are completely broken.

And this isnt even Amazon’s first rodeo. They fired 27,000 people between 2022 and 2023. So were at 41,000 job cuts in three years now. While profits keep going up. While Jeff Bezos builds another yacht.

Gartner estimates that by 2026, one in five organizations will use AI to eliminate HALF of their management layers. Half. If you’re in middle management anywhere, theres a 20% chance your company is planning to replace your department with software.

I dont know what the answer is. You cant stop technology. You cant force companies to keep workers they dont want. But there has to be something between “record profits” and “mass layoffs.” There has to be a way to run a business that doesnt treat humans as a cost to minimize.

Or maybe there isnt. Maybe this is just how it works now. The rich get richer, the workers get fired, and we all pretend its progress.

More cuts coming in 2026. Merry Christmas.