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Leaked recording reveals Amazon Prime Video boss warning employees the unit hired too fast, months before layoffs
By Eugene Kim,
2024-01-11
Amazon's Prime Video saw the fastest rate of headcount growth in the company over three years.
Prime Video boss Mike Hopkins told employees in July that the team was on pace to end the year with 8,000 people.
Now Amazon's entertainment business laid off "several hundred" people on Wednesday.
No other team at Amazon grew its headcount at a faster rate than the Prime Video and MGM Studios division in recent years, Business Insider has learned, a move that may have ultimately set the stage for Wednesday's layoffs.
Back in July, Mike Hopkins, the executive who leads the division, expressed qualms about how many people the team had hired and told employees that he was becoming more focused on being efficient in an internal all-hands meeting, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by BI.
Hopkins said in that meeting that his team was on pace to have 8,000 total employees by the end of 2023, a 2.5-times growth in roughly three years, adding that this was fastest pace of growth for any business unit at Amazon.
"That's a lot of growth," Hopkins said. "We grew faster than anybody else in Amazon for those three years. And I think it's healthy for us as a business to be checking in on headcount."
During the meeting, Hopkins repeatedly said that it's a "healthy thing" to review its headcount growth at the moment, given the expansion rate and economic uncertainty it saw. Prime Video was the first to do a hiring freeze at Amazon in 2022 because the team was growing too fast, he added.
"I said, look, we are going to go way over. We got to stop," Hopkins said about hiring at the time. "Let's make sure we got people in the right places. Let's make sure we're being as efficient and effective as possible."
Amazon's spokesperson didn't respond to a request for comment.
For years, Amazon has poured billions of dollars into its video streaming service, which is included in its Prime membership program. Those efforts have led to major accolades, including a series of Emmy awards, and in 2022, Amazon completed the $8.5 billion acquisition of the MGM movie studio, the second largest in company history.
But it has also shown mixed results. Amazon's "Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power," for example, is believed to be the most expensive TV series ever made, costing an estimated $500 million for the first season. But some estimates suggest only 37% of viewers in the US completed the series.
The layoffs appear to be aimed at making more shrewd investments going forward.
On Wednesday, Hopkins announced that "several hundred" roles would be eliminated, citing "opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas," while he pledged to increase spending on projects that "deliver the most impact." It was likely the biggest job cuts made at Amazon's entertainment business, following a smaller layoff of about 100 jobs in April 2023.
Contact the reporter Eugene Kim via the encrypted-messaging apps Signal or Telegram ( +1-650-942-3061 ) or email ( ekim@businessinsider.com ). Reach out using a nonwork device. Check out Business Insider's source guide for other tips on sharing information securely.
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