You know when you hit “reply all” on an email thread, and it quickly spirals into something like a flaming, out-of-control snowball rolling down a digital hill? It wasn’t “reply all” that got Amazon out of whack this past Tuesday, but the plain, old “send” button.
Colleen Aubrey, a senior vice president at Amazon Web Services (AWS), had drafted an email that she hadn’t meant to send yet, when it was included by mistake in a calendar invitation sent to a large number of Amazon workers.
That’s how the news broke that Amazon was planning to lay off 16,000 of them.
Here’s what happened…
“The email, which has been seen by the BBC, was sent late on Tuesday (January 27, 2026) and refers to a swathe of employees in the US, Canada, and Costa Rica having been laid off as part of an effort to ‘strengthen the company,’” as reported on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, by the BBC. “The message was apparently shared by mistake, as it was quickly cancelled.”
There was no putting the genie back in the bottle once the news was out there, though. In less than a day, Amazon went from accidentally leaking the news to attempting to cover it up to finally admitting, on Wednesday, January 28, that the news is confirmed: 16,000 Amazon employees will be let go.
There wasn’t ever really any doubt, though. It’s not like it was a rumor. It was an email from a senior executive at Amazon.
As is common but far from universal, the mood at the company seemed to be that many saw the storm clouds gathering long before the lightning bolt fell. “The lay-offs had been expected by Amazon employees for weeks, according to a former worker who asked not be identified,” said the BBC.
Still, it’s a crappy way to hear of mass lay-offs, preexisting suspicions or not.
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