💬 Quoted: “We want to operate like the world’s largest startup.”

Amazon is aiming to be less like The Titanic, and more like a cigarette boat. In a memo sent to employees yesterday, CEO Andy Jassy laid out two impending changes to the organization and its hundreds-of-thousands of office workers:

• Many middle managers are on the chopping block. As part of an organizational restructuring aimed at flattening its management structure, Amazon is looking to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by the end of Q1 2025.
• Workers are required to be in-office five days per week (so if you hear your tech-bro neighbor singing a remix of Billy Madison’s “Back to School,” now you’ll know why). Amazon previously required its office workers to clock in three days per week.

Zoom out: Tech layoffs and back-to-office mandates have been relatively common since 2022. But the full return-to-the-office movement appears to be losing steam: ~33% of CEOs recently surveyed by KPMG expect a full return to the office over the next three years, compared to 62% in 2023.

🥑🤖 Stat of the Day: As Isaac Asimov said when creating the Laws of Robotics: “First, do no harm – now help me make a burrito bowl.” Yesterday, Chipotle unveiled a new robot called the Autocado, which exists for a single purpose: preparing avocados for workers to mash into guacamole. The company says its new “cobots” (collaborative robots) can cut, core, and peel an avocado of any size within 26 seconds, helping to free up kitchen employees for other tasks. Following a series of successful lab tests, Chipotle says it’s now piloting Autocado machines in restaurants for the first time, with two California locations selected to lead the charge.

🤔 Did You Know? Lake Baikal in Siberia, Russia, is the world's largest freshwater lake by volume. It contains 22%-23% of the world's unfrozen freshwater (~6.2 quadrillion gallons) – or more than all five Great Lakes combined.

📰 Worth a Read: The Kids Who Didn’t Know Their Parents Were Russian Spies → (Wall Street Journal)