AI and Management: Look for Lists and Save Time
December 18, 2025
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
How does a company figure out whom to terminate? [a] Ask around. [b] Consult “objective” performance reviews. [c] Examine a sales professionals booked deal? [d] Look for a petition signed by employees unhappy with company policies? The answer is at the end of this short post.
A human resources professional has figured out which employees are at the top of the reduction in force task. Thanks Venice.ai. How many graphic artists did you annoy today?
I read “More Than 1,000 Amazon Employees Sign Open Letter Warning the Company’s AI Will Do Staggering Damage to Democracy, Our Jobs, and the Earth .”* The write up states:
The letter was published last week with signatures from over 1,000 unnamed Amazon employees, from Whole Foods cashiers to IT support technicians. It’s a fraction of Amazon’s workforce, which amounts to about 1.53 million, according to the company’s third-quarter earnings release. In it, employees claim the company is “casting aside its climate goals to build AI,” forcing them to use the tech while working toward cutting its workforce in favor of AI investments, and helping to build “a more militarized surveillance state with fewer protections for ordinary people.”
Okay, grousing employees. Signatures. Amazon AI. Hmm. I wonder if some of that old time cross correlation will highlight these individuals and their “close” connections in the company. Who are the managers of these individuals? Are the signers and their close connections linked by other factors; for example a manager? What if a manager has a disproportionate number of grousers? These are made up questions in a purely hypothetical scenario. But they crossed my mind
Do you think someone in Amazon leadership might think along similar lines?
The write up says:
Amazon announced in October it would cut around 14,000 corporate jobs, about 4% of its 350,000-person corporate workforce, as part of a broader AI-driven restructuring. Total corporate cuts could reach up to 30,000 jobs, which would be the company’s single biggest reduction ever, Reuters reported a day prior to Amazon’s announcement.
My reaction was, “Just 1,000 employees signed the grousing letter?” The rule of thumb in a company with pretty good in-person customer support had a truism, “One complaint means 100 people are annoyed just too lazy to call us.” I wonder if this rule of thumb would apply to an estimable firm like Amazon. It only took me 30 minutes to get a refund for the prone to burn or explode mobile phone battery. Pretty swift, but not exactly the type of customer services that company at which I worked responded.
The write up concludes with a quote from a person in carpetland at Amazon:
“What we need to remember is that the world is changing quickly. This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before,” Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people and experience, wrote in the memo.
I like the royal “we” or the parental “we.” I don’t think it is the in the trenches we, but that is my personal opinion. I like the emphasis on faster and innovation. That move fast and break things is just an outstanding approach to dealing with complex problems.
Ah, Amazon, why does my Kindle iPad app no longer work when I don’t have an Internet connection? You are definitely innovating.
And the correct answer to the multiple choice test? [d] Names on a list. Just sayin’.
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* This is one of those wonky Yahoo news urls. If it doesn’t work, don’t hassle me. Speak with that well managed outfit Yahoo, not someone who is 81 and not well managed.
Stephen E Arnold, December 18, 2025
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