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In today’s big story, we’re looking at the growing tension at AWS with rising employee burnout.
What’s on deck:
But first, they say it’s lonely at the top.
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Amazon has entered the AI chat.
The tech giant has finally thrown its hat in the AI-powered chatbot ring with the unveiling of Amazon Q. Just like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Bard, Amazon Q is a generative AI chatbot users can talk to like a human.
Amazon Web Services, which developed Amazon Q, announced the new product under the fanfare of its annual event in Las Vegas, AWS re:Invent.
But like a duck in water, what appears graceful and smooth from afar actually requires a frantic pace under the surface.
Business Insider’s Eugene Kim, our resident Amazon expert, has a report on the growing tension and burnout among AWS employees.
A key piece of the issue, according to Eugene’s reporting, is so-called “AI fatigue” among employees.
The company was initially caught flat-footed with the release of ChatGPT last year. And while AWS has long held the spot of the top cloud provider, Microsoft and Google’s cloud units have recently made considerable ground thanks to their early adoption of generative AI.
Considering Amazon conducted its largest job cuts in company history this year (with more on the way) and has a return-to-work policy that has gone over like a lead balloon, you can understand why people aren’t pumped.
The burnout at AWS reminds me of another company at the top of its field facing turmoil: Goldman Sachs.
Goldman has long been considered the premier investment bank on Wall Street. But CEO David Solomon felt a need to diversify the bank’s revenue after taking over the reins in 2018. He super-charged the bank’s push into consumer banking, looking to tap into a booming market.
Fast forward a few years, and the results haven’t been great.
The work on Goldman’s consumer bank led to burnout and a tech-talent exodus, as previously reported by BI’s Dakin Campbell. The effort dragged on the bank’s financials to the point of impacting employee bonuses, causing more frustration.
By the fall of 2022, Goldman’s consumer-bank ambitions were dead. The entire episode led some executives to question Solomon’s leadership.
As famed journalist and former Goldman employee Bethany McLean put it: “When I started out at Goldman, it was the most feared firm on Wall Street. Those days are gone for good.”
The comparisons between AWS and Goldman aren’t apples-to-apples. While Goldman’s bet on consumer banking failed, AWS’s investment in generative AI could still pay off.
But both companies’ struggles demonstrate the challenges with being on top, and the risk that often the only way forward is to take a step down or two.
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The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, senior editor and anchor, in New York City. Diamond Naga Siu, senior reporter, in San Diego. Hallam Bullock, editor, in London. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York.