Amazon’s empire: How the tech giant makes its money

Amazon is cutting hundreds of jobs from its AWS division

4/5/24 2:58PM

Amazon announced on Wednesday that it's cutting several hundred roles in its cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services (AWS).

If you’ve ever streamed a movie on Netflix, attended a meeting on Zoom, or scrolled through your Facebook feed, you've indirectly used AWS, which provides computing power, storage, databases, servers, and more to millions of businesses — helping it to become the profit center of Amazon’s increasingly sprawling empire. Indeed, although it accounted for just 16% of revenue last year, AWS alone contributed 67% of the company’s ~$37 billion in operating profit.‍

Efficiency: From A to Z‍

The layoffs came just a day after Amazon ditched the “Just Walk Out” cashier-less technology used at its grocery stores — which turned out to be heavily reliant on a review team team in India — and at an interesting time for Amazon generally.

Although it overlaps with its peers Alphabet, Meta, Apple, and Nvidia in many ways, Amazon is a much more complicated entity: for example, no other tech company owns grocery stores. It’s the nation’s second-largest private employer, with 22x more people on its payroll than Meta, and the company’s core expertise is in less buzzy niches: deliveries, servers, supply chain logistics, e-commerce seller services, and, increasingly, ads.

Those businesses are wildly different, but Amazon’s ruthless drive for efficiency is universally applied to them all. The layoffs in the AWS division follow cuts in the subscription services business — home to Prime, Audible, and Twitch — earlier this year, and all told Amazon has shed more than 27,000 roles since the end of 2022 across almost every area of the company.‍

FOMO: Amazon isn’t completely ignoring the shiny new sectors, recently completing a $4 billion investment into AI startup Anthropic.

Max Knoblauch2h

China’s EV startup trio have all become profitable

China’s EV startup trio, Nio, Li Auto, and XPeng, are now all profitable, following the latter’s Q4 results released Friday.

XPeng reported a quarterly net profit of about $55 million, compared to rival Nio’s Q4 net profit (also its first) of about $40 million. Li Auto posted Q4 net profit of less than $1 million.

All three companies being profitable offers a stark contrast to the EV market in the US, where Rivian quietly delayed its 2027 profitability target in a filing about its Uber robotaxi partnership yesterday. Lucid is likely further away, and last month cut 12% of its US workforce as part of its “path toward profitability.”

Still, it’s not all rosy for China’s EV startups, either. XPeng ADRs were down more than 6% in Friday morning trading as its Q1 sales forecast came in below estimates. As China rolls back subsidies, auto sales are slumping. Chinese retail EV and hybrid sales fell 32% in February from the same month last year.

9.3%

Max Knoblauch3/19/26

As the war with Iran produces the biggest spike in US gas prices since Hurricane Katrina, car retailer CarMax is continuing to see heightened interest in EVs, hybrids, and plug-in hybrids.

“From Feb 1st - March 1st (inclusive), compared to March 2nd to March 15th (inclusive), we saw a 9.3% lift in page views for these vehicles,” a spokesperson for the company told Sherwood News.

As industry insiders recently told us, EV interest climbs when gas prices rise. That appears to be holding true even without EV tax credits, which the Trump administration ended under its new budget package.

CarMax also saw EV searches spike in 2022, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting oil price spike.

Walt Disney Chairman And CEO Bob Iger Rings Opening Bell At NY Stock Exchange

It’s the end of Disney’s Iger era (again)

Incoming CEO Josh D’Amaro is replacing Bob Iger on Wednesday, though Iger will remain a senior adviser through the end of the year.

Max Knoblauch3/18/26

Claire Yubin Oh

trust me.

3/18/26

Small Danish company Trustpilot has become a surprise AI winner

Trustpilot’s profits jumped nearly threefold in 2025, thanks to AI chatbots eager to cite its website in their responses.

$35.4B

Max Knoblauch3/16/26

The tariffs imposed by the Trump administration have cost automakers at least $35.4 billion since the start of 2025, according to a new analysis by Automotive News.

That total will continue to climb this year, since the Supreme Court’s February tariff ruling largely leaves the 25% levy on vehicles and auto parts untouched.

Toyota has taken the biggest hit, projecting more than $9 billion in tariff costs in its fiscal year ending this month, while Detroit’s big three automakers — Ford, GM, and Stellantis — were hit with a combined $6.5 billion tariff charge in 2025.

In the fourth quarter, automakers sold about 8% fewer imported vehicles in the US compared to the same period a year ago, per the Automotive News Research & Data Center.

Tariff charges come at a rough time for legacy carmakers, which are also scaling back EV plans following the Trump administration’s elimination of tax credits and fuel standard goals. According to Automotive News, the cost of EV write-downs and restructuring is, so far, nearly $70 billion.

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