Insider Finance - Business - Insider Today: AWS burnout problem

November 30, 2023 • 5 min read

with Dan DeFrancesco

Hey there! The latest edition of Spotify Wrapped — which outlines your taste in music over the past year — just dropped. Here’s how to find your Spotify Wrapped story to impress everyone with how many times you’ve listened to Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer.” 

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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The big story

AI fatigue at AWS

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.

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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.

3 things in

Markets

🔔 Before the opening bell: US stock futures rise early Thursday as investors watch for data on personal consumption expenditures and weekly jobless claims.

Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for The New York Times; Sylvain Gaboury/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

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3. What’s next for Tiger Global? Scott Shleifer upended the world of venture investing with Tiger Global’s aggressive push into the space before it eventually backfired. With the billionaire stepping down from his role leading Tiger Global’s private investing unit, the industry wonders where the firm goes from here.

3 things in

Tech

Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for The New York Times

1. Elon Musk drops “F-bomb” on fleeing advertisers. Tesla has its biggest product launch in four years today — the Cybertruck delivery event. However, during Musk's interview at the DealBook Summit on Wednesday, he barely touched on the new vehicle. Instead, the interview was at times philosophical, confrontational, and political.

2. These 66 rising stars of venture capital shook up the industry in 2023. Readers and top VCs from around the US named the top up-and-coming investors. They include people from big and small firms, across all sectors, and investing in startups of all stages.

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3 things in

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Kiersten Essenpreis for Business Insider

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2. Everything we know about the government’s investigation into American Express. Federal prosecutors have been interviewing former Amex employees. They’ve asked about a product that was marketed to small-business owners as a way to avoid taxes.

3. Exclusive Spotify data: the top 15 rising star podcast creators on the platform. The list of creators includes “The Basement Yard” from internet creator Joe Santagato and the business news show “Morning Brew Daily” from the newsletter publisher Morning Brew.

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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 City.

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