Amazon plans to cut 14,000 corporate jobs, the company announced Tuesday.
The company said the cuts are to help it operate “like the world’s largest startup.”
CEO Andy Jassy wants a leaner company and has prioritized efficiency and cost-cutting measures.
Amazon announced Tuesday that it plans to cut 14,000corporate jobs, marking one of the biggest rounds of layoffs in the company’s history.
Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, Beth Galetti, announced the cuts in a blog post and said the reductions are a continuation of CEO Andy Jassy’s drive to operate the company “like the world’s largest startup.”
The latest move is part of Jassy’s effort to create a leaner and more disciplined company. In recent years, Amazon cut management layers, slashed bureaucracy, tightened costs, overhauled performance and pay systems, and ordered most corporate employees back to the office five days a week.
The changes really started after the pandemic, when Amazon’s growth slowed. The company moved to rein in costs by axing unprofitable projects and cutting a bloated workforce.
Jassy said in June that AI-driven efficiency gains would shrink Amazon’s workforce. Earlier this year, the company froze the hiring budget in its massive retail division, and in July, its cloud arm, Amazon Web Services, also faced layoffs.
When Kennedy met with the president-elect at Trump Tower in early 2017, he told reporters afterward that Trump had asked him to chair a “commission on vaccine safety and scientific integrity.”
Spokespeople for Trump later put out a statement saying that no decision had been made, and Kennedy ultimately never joined his first administration.
But according to the ABC reporter Jonathan Karl’s new book, “Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America,” Trump met with Kennedy for a second time at the White House after he was sworn in, and during that meeting, he “appeared to be persuaded” to let Kennedy lead a new task force on autism and vaccines.
Trump had long been interested in a potential link between autism and vaccines. He raised the issue at a 2015 GOP primary debate, where he called for administering smaller doses of vaccines over a longer period of time.
Ultimately, it was Gates — a billionaire philanthropist who’s worked heavily to expand access to vaccines — who helped convince Trump otherwise, Karl writes.
Gates later met with Trump, telling him that allowing Kennedy to lead the panel “would be a terrible mistake,” according to the book.
Trump reportedly told Gates at that meeting that he would hold off on the idea as long as Kennedy could discuss his views with top officials at the National Institutes of Health, including Anthony Fauci, then the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
When that nearly two-hour-long meeting took place in May 2017, Kennedy reportedly delivered a presentation on adverse health conditions that he said were caused by vaccines. Kennedy and Fauci then had a spirited discussion about the presentation.
Ultimately, Kennedy did not get a position in Trump’s first administration.
“Trump did keep his word to Gates,” Karl writes. “Kennedy was not appointed to any new task force on vaccines.”
Years later, after his own failed bid for the presidency, Kennedy endorsed Trump during the 2024 election, leading to his appointment as Health and Human Services Secretary in Trump’s second administration.
In that role, he has helped steer the health policies of Trump’s administration. Most recently, Trump himself alleged a link between Tylenol use by parents and autism in children, which drew pushback from many doctors and scientists.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which Kennedy now leads, declined to comment. Fauci, the Gates Foundation, and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
He believes that being in the same space fosters faster collaboration and innovation.
The startup may miss out on remote talent, but it’s worth it, Fuentes told Business Insider.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Claudio Fuentes, 31, who is the cofounder and COO of CompAI, which develops AI software for corporate compliance. Fuentes recently posted on X that his startup will no longer hire people who can’t work in-person five days a week at its New York office. This story has been edited for length and clarity.
I’ve been in tech for the last 10 years. I spent the last four in Silicon Valley and relocated to New York in February. We started CompAI in January and launched a product in April. We’ve had a pretty explosive growth curve.
We initially started remote. My cofounder is based in the UK and is planning on relocating to New York. We have a sales guy in France, and we have someone running customer success in Illinois. Our goal has always been: How do we actually get people in the same office? You just work faster.
I’m getting absolutely roasted by most of the remote tech worker community for my post in favor of the office. It shouldn’t be controversial that a company decides to hire locally, but somehow it is.
In the four years I spent in the Bay Area, I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by a lot of companies that I saw grow from nothing to Series A, Series B, Series C — absolutely crush it. These are companies like Cursor and Bland. The culture in San Francisco is hire your best friends, get them in the same room, and let’s build great software.
Before moving to the Bay Area, I spent six years in New York. In 2016, I was working for WeWork. So, you can imagine, peak Adam Neumann — hyper growth. I look back very fondly on what he was able to create around culture.
The economics and business strategy aside, if you think about the workplace and employee loyalty and productivity that they were able to extract from their workforce, it was bigger than life. To whatever degree I can try to replicate an environment like that in the companies that I build, I absolutely will do so.
‘Something not natural’
When COVID hit, I moved from New York to Miami because I grew up there. I spent a year remote in Miami and one year remote in the Bay Area before I went the full entrepreneurship route. I look back at those years as some of the most depressing of my life.
It’s really convenient to be able to make your own hours and be home. But, over time, the lack of human connection really begins to get to you. If you spend two years locked in a room, barely seeing sunlight, there’s something not natural about that experience.
At the end of the day, we’re not just building a workplace, we’re building a life that’s centered around our work. People used to actually meet their spouse at work. For many reasons, I think it makes sense for us to be in the office.
For our existing workers, some will relocate. With others, we’ll try to make it work, but we are definitely prioritizing that every hire from here on is in New York.
Unstructured riffing
Aside from all the extracurricular activities we do as a team that build trust and rapport, which then help productivity, one instance stands out. It was about 8:30 in the morning, and one of our guys showed up early to the office, walked up to my cofounder, and said, “What if we implement an AI agent for our customer support? Is there something you can hack together?”
About 20 minutes later, he had already spun up an automation in our Slack that auto-replies to customers when they ask a question by searching our knowledge base. That has cut down our customer-support requests by 95%.
That came through this very casual conversation, where the alternative is typically, “Oh, let’s hop on a call because it’s kind of hard to explain.” It’s not something you send in a single message. It’s like, let me riff with you on this in an unstructured way.
In a remote world, there are also things that don’t get said because of that friction that exists. Therefore, you prioritize the ideas that are more well-formed, as opposed to riffing.
That’s what innovation is: It’s ill-formed ideas that, through this organic communication, become fully formed and then flourish.
I completely get it if your job is working out of a cubicle, and it’s just depressing and you hate your life. Go remote. Workers get more value out of that.
We’re trying to build the opposite. We’re trying to make the statement that having everyone together is important right now. The in-person candidates that we do find tend to be the more committed ones. We probably will lose on some people who are maybe more qualified. I’m OK with that trade-off, because I think the net benefit is going to be worth it.
Luke Pollard suggested using barracks would be worth it given public opposition to housing asylum seekers in hotels
Good morning. The Home Office confirmed last night that it wants to use two barracks, in Scotland and southern England, to house around 900 male asylum seekers. The two sites are Cameron Barracks in Inverness and Crowborough Training Camp in East Sussex and ministers want the men to start moving in from the end of next month. Kevin Rawlinson has more details here.
Some bases are small, some bases are larger in terms of numbers, but I think the conversation around the bases that are in the news today is about proving this concept, is about seeing whether this works. We believe that these bases can provide adequate accommodation for asylum seekers.
We’re looking at what’s possible and, in some cases, those bases may be a different cost to hotels, but I think we need to reflect the public mood on this asylum hotels need to close.
Hayley Perry-Sanchez moved from Washington to Massachusetts.
Simon Simard for BI
Hayley and Helaman Perry-Sanchez put off their move to Cambridge, Massachusetts, as long as they could.
Helaman was accepted to Harvard Business School in 2020, and though he was excited to pursue his MBA, the Perry-Sanchezes weren’t as eager to relocate to the East Coast.
After meeting and marrying while they were in college in Utah — and subsequently leaving the Mormon church together — Hayley, 27, and Helaman, 29, had found jobs and built a life in Seattle. It was pricey, but they loved living there for two and a half years.
Hayley Perry-Sanchez and Helaman Perry-Sanchez in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Simon Simard for BI
Still, they knew the MBA program wasn’t an opportunity that Helaman, who hopes to work in the renewable energy space, could pass up. After deferring for four years, in August 2024, they quit their full-time jobs, packed up their things, and drove across the country with their two dogs.
I spoke to Hayley once a month for a year, starting the month before her move and following along as she adjusted to her new life in Cambridge. This story is part of a larger series in which Business Insider followed three people over a 12-month period as they relocated, detailing the realities of uprooting one’s life.
The first time we spoke, Hayley said she knew relocating from Washington to Massachusetts for Helaman’s education would be challenging. What she didn’t anticipate was the identity crisis she experienced over the coming months — or the thrill she felt finding her new self.
A new start
Hayley and Helaman told me they had built a beautiful life in Seattle. They loved the apartments they had lived in, the restaurants they had frequented, the friends they had made, their work-life balance, and the proximity to nature that living in the Pacific Northwest offered.
However, it was so expensive that they struggled to imagine living there long-term. “It’s a utopian place, aside from money,” Hayley said of Seattle, where the cost of living is 45% higher than the national average, according to Payscale.
The couple during their move.
Hayley Perry-Sanchez
When it was time to move to Cambridge, Hayley and Helaman were nervous about leaving everything they loved about Seattle, but they were also excited for a new experience.
“I was really excited to just be in a new place,” Helaman said. “I’d never experienced life on the East Coast.”
The couple traded their loft apartment in Seattle for a $3,350 Cambridge unit with two bedrooms, a patio, no dishwasher, and communal laundry for the building. When their lease started on September 1, Helaman had already started classes.
Hayley, who was doing contract work for a Seattle advertising firm and creating her own social media content, was left to do the bulk of the unpacking herself. “It’s a very strange adjustment to be moving into an apartment and setting it up essentially on my own,” she added.
She also found herself alone more often than she had been in months, as she and Helaman had spent the summer traveling in Europe together.
“It was hard going from being with each other 24/7 over the summer when neither of us was working,” Hayley told me in October 2024. “Now, he’s essentially working from 7 a.m. to past midnight most nights or just on campus for stuff.”
The adjustment was harder than Hayley Perry-Sanchez anticipated.
Simon Simard for BI
Cambridge life
As she got to know Cambridge, Hayley thought her neighborhood was cute, but she didn’t love the greater Boston area, from the food scene to public transportation options. The weather wasn’t her favorite as it got colder, and she had trouble meeting people outside the Harvard bubble.
“I don’t love Boston so far, but I didn’t think I would,” she told me two months after her move. “I just like the laid-backness of the West Coast.”
Hayley and Helaman mostly socialized with Helaman’s classmates, as they discovered that happy hours, dinners, and even trips are integral to the HBS experience.
“It’s really hard going to all of the Harvard activities and having that just be your social world,” Hayley said. “There are so many people. You meet somebody, you do the intros for five minutes, and then you’re talking to the next person.”
The work Hayley was putting into their life in Cambridge didn’t go unnoticed by Helaman, who said it wasn’t the usual balance they had established in their relationship before the move.
“The first few months, it felt like a very one-sided give-and-take, where Hayley was sacrificing a lot for me,” he told me in April 2025 when reflecting on the early months of the move. “It felt very much like she was coming to all of my things.”
By the end of 2024, Hayley was doing her best to adjust to the move, but she still didn’t feel at home in Cambridge. Often, she felt like she wasn’t building her own life because everything was focused on Helaman’s schooling.
School became a focus for both of them.
Simon Simard for BI
“The acclimation to partner school life is just so hot and cold all of the time,” she said. “It would be so much simpler to be 40 years old and have kids and just have to make a move.”
“But then I’m like, ‘I can’t compare. Everyone has their different struggles,'” Hayley added.
The cost of living in Cambridge — 70% higher than the national average, according to Payscale — also started to weigh on the Perry-Sanchezes. Even though activities and food were less expensive compared to Seattle, their housing costs were higher.
They spent a lot of money on trips they took with Helaman’s classmates, and because they mostly lived off his student loan money, their budget got tight. Ramen dinners became a staple, and they were taken off guard by how expensive their energy bill was in December when they started using their heater regularly.
Something had to give.
A reset
After spending time with family over the holidays, Hayley and Helaman returned to Cambridge in January with a game plan.
Hayley decided to redecorate the apartment, and she and Helaman agreed to approach their social life differently. They still planned to go on trips with Helaman’s cohort, but day-to-day, they wanted to prioritize smaller gatherings and date nights.
By our March catch-up, Hayley seemed lighter than I had seen her in months. She loved the new feel of the apartment and felt more in control of her social life.
Things got easier in Cambridge in 2025.
Simon Simard for BI
“I feel like I’m melting and just coming back to life,” she said. “I’m starting to feel like I’ve got a good group of people, whether it be students or partners of students.”
Helaman told me he was relieved when he and Hayley found “couple friends,” and he appreciated how the mindset shift for the new year had helped bring equilibrium back to their relationship.
“It forced us to be very communicative about how we were feeling about things,” he said of the move, adding that they “realized that going back to this mode where it felt more balanced” was important to their happiness.
“We’ll make it work as long as we’re together. The person is the home.”Hayley Perry-Sanchez
As it got warmer outside, Hayley also realized how much the weather in Boston had been affecting her. She didn’t have a car in Cambridge, so she relied on public transportation to get around, which was tough when it was cold and snowy. She found herself cooped up inside, though she rented a car about once a month to go antiquing or take her dogs on adventures.
“I don’t think I totally realized how stuck in the apartment I felt,” Hayley told me. “My mental health really rides on just getting out of the house, going for a walk, and having my dogs with me.”
Though the couple’s social life had improved, Hayley’s career was still in flux. She was doing contract work, making social media content, and started dog walking and pet sitting on Rover, but interviewing for full-time work felt tricky.
She and Helaman didn’t know if they would stay in the Boston area after he graduated, and his summer internship plans were up in the air.
Unable to truly put down roots, Hayley and Helaman still struggled to feel fully at home.
Looking forward
By May, Helaman secured a summer internship that allowed him to work remotely, so he and Hayley mostly stayed in the Boston area for the summer. The time at home together gave Hayley the chance to claim life in Cambridge for herself, a welcome change from the school year.
She found new things she loved about her home in the summer, like hosting events for the friend group she had made and visiting farmers’ markets.
Hayley also documented her experience visiting thrift and craft stores around the area on TikTok, such as Sewfisticated in Dorchester, where she befriended the owners. Hayley told me her visit there was one of the first times she felt truly connected to Massachusetts.
The Perry-Sanchezes built a new life together.
Simon Simard for BI
By summer, Hayley also felt more at peace with the fact that Helaman’s years at Harvard became a bit of a career sabbatical for her, too. Still, as she reflected on how her life had changed over the last year, Hayley told me she wished she had known that the program would feel like it was happening to her as much as it was to Helaman.
“It’s weird that I’m not a student and life is Harvard,” she said.
In year two, Hayley hopes to change that a bit. She doesn’t plan to attend every Harvard-related function Helaman attends, and she wants to establish a day-to-day routine that gives her structure and independence.
“Last year, we kind of felt like we had to say yes to everything and try everything, and I think now we can kind of take a step back,” she said. “I think having better boundaries that way will help.”
Many of Helaman’s peers have made plans to stay in the Boston area after graduation in 2026, but Hayley and Helaman aren’t sure what they will do yet.
Like Seattle, the Perry-Sanchezes don’t think Cambridge is their forever home, but their apartment has become a sanctuary, as has the community they built together.
Regardless of their choice, Hayley sees this chapter of her life as a growing experience for herself and as a couple with her husband.
“I think it’s peaceful that whatever it is, we’ll make it work as long as we’re together,” Hayley said. “The person is the home.”
“Based on the nature and extent of Dr. O’Connor’s actions, the Committee recommends that the Board of Medicine impose discipline, sanction, or revocation of his medical license,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) wrote.
