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The worlds largest retailer has announced massive job cuts before the holidays. On Tuesday, Amazon said in a memo to staff that it will lay off 14,000 employees. Heres what you need to know about the Amazon layoffs, and why these arent the last jobs that Amazon will likely cut in the future. Whats happened? On Tuesday, Amazons senior vice president of people experience and technology, Beth Galetti, announced the company was eliminating approximately 14,000 positions. Galetti sent a memo about the layoffs to Amazon employees, which was then published to the Amazon website. The headcount reduction of 14,000 positions is less than the up to 30,000 job cuts that Reuters had reported in the hours before Galettis memo was made public. However, it still represents one of the largest single layoff rounds of 2025. It also comes just days after competitor Target announced it was laying off 1,800 corporate roles. Amazon did not say which 14,000 jobs would be eliminated, but the memo specified that they would be corporate workforce positions, suggesting Amazons warehouse workforce is safe from the cuts. But that is to be expected as Amazon would be unlikely to reduce its warehouse staff ahead of the busy holiday season. According to PitchBook, Amazon has a total workforce of more than 1.5 million employees. Why is Amazon laying off 14,000 employees? In the memo, Galetti stated that the layoffs are a continuation of Amazon CEO Andy Jassys September 2024 directive to strengthen Amazon’s culture and teams. In 2024, that strengthening resulted in a return-to-office (RTO) mandate. In 2025, strengthening your culture apparently means cutting your workforce. The reductions were sharing today, Galettis memo states, are a continuation of this work to get even stronger by further reducing bureaucracy, removing layers, and shifting resources to ensure were investing in our biggest bets and what matters most to our customers current and future needs. But Galetti continued, explaining that the main driver for the cuts isyou guessed itartificial intelligence. The world is changing quickly, Galetti said. This generation of AI is the most transformative technology weve seen since the Internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before (in existing market segments and altogether new ones). Because of this, Galetti said that Amazon is convinced it needs to become a leaner company with fewer layers. The “layers” here are people. Amazon could cut even more jobs next year While the 14,000 job cuts Amazon announced today are devastating to the workers and their families who are affected, Amazon may not be done cutting positions. In the memo, Galetti added that looking ahead to 2026, Amazon expects to hire in key areas, while also finding additional places we can remove layers. How has Amazons stock price reacted? While the layoffs are devastating to the workers losing their jobs, Wall Street often sees layoffs as a good thing. Thats because laying off a large number of workers is usually the fastest way for a company to cut costs and thus increase its bottom line. But if Amazon was hoping to see a stock price boost from its layoff announcements this morning, the company is going to be disappointed. As of this writing, Amazons stock price (Nasdaq: AMZN) is relatively flat in premarket trading. Its up just half a percent to around $228.22 per share. As a matter of fact, Amazons stock price for 2025 hasnt moved much. Year to date, the companys share price is up just 3.4%. Thats compared to the Nasdaqs 21% gain in the same period. Amazon is expected to share its third-quarter 2025 financial results on Thursday, October 30.
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E-Commerce
Early in my career, I was fortunate to cross paths with a mentor who changed how I saw designand myself. He ran a small studio whose influence reached far beyond its size. He led with a quiet confidence and quick wit, showing how intelligence and humility could coexist in the creative process. I was passionate about the craft, but there was still so much more to learn about the tools, and about business. He taught me how to infuse storytelling into design. How to navigate constraints. How to bring meaning to every project, not just the ones that sparked instant excitement. He reminded me that creativity thrives on play and curiosity, and that if you lose joy in the process, the work suffers. Those experiences taught me that mentorship is about passing down not just skills, but a way of seeing and approaching the work. The guru form of mentorshipthe close, sustained one-to-one relationship between an experienced guide and an eager apprenticehas given way to something more imaginative and community-based. For me, much of that evolution has been visible through creative networks like AIGA that champion connection and professional growth. In addition, platforms like ADP List help creatives solve problems and refine their portfolios through focused, 20-minute feedback exchanges. Inclusive group-based initiatives such as Break the Wall blend workshops, one-on-one meetings, and targeted training to build confidence and open doors for underrepresented creatives. This new wave of mentorship redefines how we learn from each other in a post-pandemic world when proximity is no longer a given. It challenges the belief that deep creative growth depends on shared physical space, replacing it with something more fluid and democratic. How are these new approaches enriching creative mentorship, and what do we risk losing along the way? The Demise of Guru Mentoring During the era of the hands-on mentor, you didnt just learn what someone did. You absorbed how they thought, often through shared experiences. When I joined Fifty Thousand Feet in 2004, the lessons my mentor taught me became the foundation for how I approached creative leadership and helped grow the practice. I learned that mentorship doesnt stop with one relationship; it becomes part of how you leadand help others to lead. When more experienced designers remind their teammates that trust is as essential to great design as aesthetics, mentorship becomes collective. It becomes how we grow together. When the pandemic hit, creative studios went quiet. Overnight, our way of working, defined by proximity and spontaneity, was replaced by screens and schedules. We lost the informal learning that happens in passing: the sketch on someones desk, the overheard critique, the unplanned spark of collaboration. Many leaders tried to re-create that closeness through digital tools. We held virtual check-ins and all-hands meetings. But something was missing. The energy of shared space, the easy conversations, the sense of momentum, was hard to replicate. Collaboration became more intentional, but less organic. In that absence, the creative industry began searching for new models that could sustain connection and growth in a hybrid world. The Rise of New Mentorship Models What followed was a burst of experimentation. Across the industry, new forms of mentoring have gained momentum since the pandemic, combining structure with flexibility and access. Micro mentorship has become a favorite starting point. These short, focused sessions meet creatives where they are, helping them refine portfolios, shape presentations, or overcome creative blocks. The approach trades hierarchy for immediacy. For younger designers, it opens the door to multiple mentors instead of one. For mentors, it offers the chance to share expertise in moments that matter most. At the same time, peer learning communities are reshaping how creatives connect. These networks erase titles and encourage reciprocity. One week you are the mentor, the next you are the learner. Younger professionals bring fresh fluency in tools and culture, while veterans share hard-won perspectives. That exchange keeps creative cultures evolving. Even traditional apprenticeship models are changing shape. Adobes Creative Apprenticeship, for instance, links aspiring designers with more than 200 creative leaders and 35 agency partners. It borrows the rigor of the studio system but scales it globally. Meanwhile, digital communities of practice have become the connective tissue of the industry. Organized around disciplines or shared challenges, they create space for ongoing dialogue, workshops, and portfolio exchange. Together, these models show that mentorship did not vanish in the pandemic. It adapted. It became faster, more open, and more human in its reach. The Benefits of Peer Learning and Community New forms of mentorship break down barriers of geography, hierarchy, and privilege. A designer in Nairobi can now receive feedback from a creative director in New York. A freelancer can find a sense of belonging in a global online forum. They also diversify the voices shaping creative careers. Traditional mentorship often reflected proximitywho sat near whom, who belonged to which agency, who got noticed. Community-based mentorship opens the door to people with different experiences, disciplines, and perspectives. That diversity fuels innovation by exposing creatives to new ways of thinking and working. Peer and micro-mentorship also allow for real-time feedback rather than waiting for annual reviews or rare moments of contact. They make mentorship a living part of the workday. And perhaps most importantly, they distribute the emotional labor of mentorship. Instead of depending on one relationship, creatives can build a constellation of guides, akin to a network that evolves as their career does. What We Risk Losing Yet efficiency has its costs. The quiet accumulation of trust and shared history that forms the long arc of mentorship is harder to replicate online. Tacit knowledge, the kind that comes from watching how someone handles conflict or reads a room, can be difficult to transfer in a virtual environment. There is something to be said for the value of serendipity, too. In-person work creates unplanned learning: the overheard insight, the offhand comment that sparks an idea. Virtual platforms tend to optimize for structure, not discovery. Without care, mentorship risks becoming transactional, something to schedule rather than something to live. Blending the Old and the New But we dont have to lose the good things about one-to-one mentorship. The future of creative mentorship might not be about choosing one model over another. Its about synthesis. The one-to-one relationships that shaped generations of creatives can coexist with todays distributed, community-driven systems. The key is to preserve the human connection at the heart of mentorship while expanding who gets to participate. For creative leaders, that means being intentional about creating the conditions where mentorship thrives. Make it part of your culture, not an HR program. Pair senior and junior talent on projects and encourage them to exchange feedback in both directions. Create small circles or pods where peers can learn from each other. Recognize mentorship in performance reviews, not just deliverables. Use digital platforms for access but keep curiosity, trust, and generosity as your operating principles. Mentorship is how creative culture renews itself. Whether it happens across a desk or across a screen, it remains the most human way we learn to create, lead, and grow.
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E-Commerce
In January 2025, subway riders at the 59th Street-Lexington Avenue station in Manhattan noticed a surprising new addition: spiked metal partitions between each fare gate. Some commuters called the partitions silly and foolish. Others said they were a waste of money. Over the past nine months, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has rolled out the same spiked partitions to 183 stations across the subway network, with more on the way. Like spikes on a handrail prevent people from sitting on it, these metal screens (which the MTA calls sleeves) are designed to prevent people from hoisting themselves over the turnstiles. Theyve also turned what was already an inhospitable system into an actively hostile public space. The MTA argues it has good reason to take these measures. About 40% of the agencys operating budget comes from fares and tolls, meaning every tap and every swipe helps keep trains and buses running. But many riders arent paying at all. In 2024, fare evasion on the subway cost the agency around $350 million, though it topped $1 billion if you include unpaid buses, trains, and tolls. [Photo: courtesy of the author] At 59th Street-Lexington Avenue, the spiked partitions, which were custom-made specifically for the New York subway, seem to have worked. According to an April 2025 MTA press releasefour months after installing the mechanismsfare evasion at the station dropped by roughly 60%. There is no way of knowing, however, if the drop is due to the “sleeves” or the other measures the MTA introduced at that station, including turnstiles with larger “fins,” and new anti back-cocking mechanisms to prevent people from squeezing in through the turnstile without paying. It is also possible that offenders simply moved on to a nearby station that hasn’t been retrofitted with these anti fare-evasion designs. Earlier this year, the MTA began piloting modern, glass-paneled gates at a limited number of stations, combined with gate guards now stationed at more than 200 locations. These efforts helped the MTA collect $5 billion in fare revenue in 2024, up $322 million from the previous year. The apparent success poses two uncomfortable questions: Should we accept a fortified, unwelcoming subway if it really does deter people from jumping the turnstile? And is there really no better way to get people to pay? [Photo: Marc A. Hermann/MTA/Flickr] A worldwide challenge Fare evasion is a global headache with no standardized solution, and different cities have taken different approaches to stopping it. In Paris, officials have relied on a growing army of fare inspectors and hefty fines. Transport for London, which lost more than $170 million in revenue to fare dodgers in the capital city in 2023, is considering adding AI-enabled, extra-tall ticket barriers to trap offenders. Meanwhile, Queensland, Australia, recently slashed train and bus fares from as much as $6.23 to a flat 50 cents, and fare evasion plummeted. New Yorks MTA, for its part, has mostly favored enforcement. In 2022, it convened a Blue-Ribbon Panel on Fare Evasion to recommend solutions. The panels report suggested promoting the citys Fair Fares program (which offers half-priced MetroCards to low-income residents), partnering with public schools to teach students transit etiquette, redesigning fare gates as part of a 2025-2029 Capital Plan, and posting gate guards to deter evasion. A spokesperson for the MTA told Fast Company that the agencys aggressive strategy stems directly from those recommendations, but declined to specify whether any education and outreach campaigns have been implemented so far. For now, the retrofitted gates and guards appear to be working: Subway fare evasion across the entire network dropped by 30% in 2024. [Photo: STraffic/MTA/Flickr] How far do we have to go? The New York City subwayrat-infested and delay-prone as it may beis one of the citys most vital public spaces. It may lack the allure of a park, or the quiet of your local public library branch, but it brings millions of people together across class, race, and borough lines. The subway is known as a place that generates community, where you see people different from you, sometimes even start conversations, says Setha Low, a professor of anthropology at the City University of New York. Making it into a fearful environment, making it less inclusive, isnt going to help the MTA get people back on the subway. The spiked walls havent yet reached Lows local station in Brooklyn, but when shown a photo of the spiked sleeves at Barclays Center, she drew comparisons to the kind of barbed wire shes seen across Latin America, where she conducted fieldwork for 15 years. The problem, she says, isnt just that the measures look hostile, its that they reflect a growing citywide aesthetic. Hostile architecturea term describing exclusionary urban design like spikes on flat surfaces or benches with dividers to deter sleepingfirst spread across New York in the 1970s, when the city was facing budget crises and rising homelessness. Over the past decade, it has multiplied and morphed. Inside Moynihan Train Hall on Madison Avenue, and in Low’s own subway station in Brooklyn, benches have disappeared altogethera strategic decision from the city to prevent unhoused people from sleeping in public spaces (see also the MTA’s new leaning benches). I walked 30 blocks down Madison Avenue the other day, and there wasnt one place to sit down, Low says. From the citys perspective, these new subway barriers are efficient. They maintain order, improve safety, and protect revenue. But that logic comes with a cost. I think its legitimate to think about the psychological impact of how we internalize these surveilled, parceled structures all around us, says Jon Ritter, a clinical professor of architecture at New York University. Assuming [the spiked partitions] work as deterrents, it raises the question: How far do we have to go to achieve the public good of fare collection? [Photo: Wells Baum/Unsplash] Going beyond infrastructure Not everyone jumps a turnstile for the same reasons. A 2019 study of the Transantiago system in Santiago, Chile, grouped fare evaders into four types: those who evade as protest, those who do it because the risk is low, those who see no value in paying, and those who simply forget. Milad Haghani, a researcher and principal fellow in urban resilience and mobility at the University of Melbourne in Australia, has developed his own understanding of the factors at play. These include how difficult it is to physically evade a fare, the quality and reliability of the service, the cost of the fare relative to the local minimum income, and the perceived likelihood of getting caught. The MTAs current strategytaller gates, spiked partitions, human guardsaddresses only the first factor: physical difficulty. It makes fare evasion harder, Haghani says, but it doesnt address why people choose to evade in the first place. He adds that when service quality is poor, people often justify evasion as a form of protest. And in New York, where locals regularly complain about unreliable weekend service or aging infrastructure that floods during storms, the MTA is giving them plenty to protest about. (Did we mention the rats?) In July, the MTA celebrated a small victory after its spring survey reported 57% subway rider satisfactionits highest since 2022. What was left unsaid, however, was that more than 40% of riders remain dissatisfied. If the goal is genuinely to reduce fare evasion, says Haghani, physical enforcement has to be paired with improving service and restoring trust. Passengers are far less likely to avoid paying when they believe the fare is fair. Until the MTA finds a way to improve its service and restore trust, the spikes might have to do. But if they also stop New Yorkers from feeling like the subway is a safe and inclusive space for everyone, there might be an even bigger price to pay.
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E-Commerce
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