[Deep Dive] Project Dawn: When the Algorithm Decides to Fire You Before Your Boss Does

In Seattle, on January 28, the sky might not have been fully bright yet, but inside Amazon’s servers, “Project Dawn” had arrived ahead of schedule.

The sequence of events is absurd enough to be a joke: Colleen Aubrey, Senior Vice President of AWS Applied AI Solutions, pressed the send button a few hours too early. Consequently, thousands of employees received a “breakup letter” before they even got a meeting invite or saw the awkward expressions on their bosses’ faces. The letter read: “Changes like this are difficult for everyone…”

You see, this incident itself is filled with a high-tech sense of irony—a company claiming to lead the future with AI shattered the mental state of its own employees due to the most basic manual error (or an automation workflow bug).

Today, let’s not talk about stock prices. Let’s talk about this “amateur hour” operation alienated by code and KPIs.

1. Deep Insight: The “Human Bugs” Being Optimized

“Project Dawn.” Listen to that name—so full of hope, so vibrant. But in the dictionary of corporate jargon, a so-called “Dawn” usually implies clearing away the “residue” of the previous night.

The scale of these layoffs is staggering. If the rumors from last October hold true, this purge involves nearly 30,000 positions, close to 10% of Amazon’s corporate workforce. What’s even more interesting is that this “operational error” occurred against a backdrop of record-breaking profits and revenue.

This leads to a very counter-intuitive logic: In the past, layoffs happened because there was no money; in 2026, layoffs happen because money isn’t being made fast enough.

Was that premature email really a “mistake”? To some extent, it feels more like a subconscious act of “honesty.” In the eyes of the massive corporate machine, layoffs are no longer “personnel changes” requiring face-to-face communication or emotional cushioning, but merely a line of code to be executed. Since it’s code, what difference does it make to the machine if it runs a few hours early or late, other than a system log error?

That crumbled piece of A4 paper thrown into the trash can (as satirized by netizens in the comments) is actually every single one of us concrete human beings.

2. Independent Perspective: AI’s Perfect “Alibi”

Please note the title of the person who sent the email: SVP of AWS Applied AI Solutions.

This is a brilliant metaphor. The official reason for this round of layoffs, unsurprisingly, was pinned on “AI” and “future development.” Last October, Amazon’s HR chief hinted that increased AI usage was directly linked to job cuts.

But there is a blind spot here: Is the company really laying people off because AI has replaced humans?

Not necessarily. Even in 2026, AI still frequently “hallucinates” when processing complex business logic. It took years just to draw fingers correctly, let alone completely replace complex AWS architects or creative directors at Prime Video.

The truth might be crueler: AI is just a perfect “alibi.”

When management wants to polish profit margins for Wall Street reports, saying “I want to make more money” sounds too ugly. But saying “we are embracing AI-driven organizational transformation” instantly sounds sophisticated. Thus, redundancies caused by business expansion, strategic errors by management, and blindly expanded physical stores (like the closures of Fresh and Go convenience stores) are all packaged into this seemingly high-tech box called “Project Dawn.”

Colleen Aubrey didn’t send the email by mistake; she understood it too well. The first scenario applied by the “Applied AI” she represents is automating the act of “layoffs.”

3. Industry Comparison: Not Just Amazon, It’s Silicon Valley’s “Withdrawal Reaction”

If you zoom out, you’ll find that Amazon is not an isolated case.

Starting in 2023, Silicon Valley caught a disease called “Efficiency Addiction.” Next door, a certain search engine giant broke profit records yet laid people off; a certain social network giant declared a “Year of Efficiency” and saw its stock price soar. By 2026, this logic has been internalized as an industry standard.

A Certain Fruit Company (Apple): Still maintains dignity with extreme restraint. AirTag 2 was released, and antiques like the iPhone 5s can still update their systems (albeit in rare cases). They strive to maintain an old-world warmth of “we don’t easily abandon users, nor do we easily abandon employees.”
Amazon: Resembles an extremely rational Darwinist. If it doesn’t make money—whether it’s the Kindle team, unmanned supermarkets, or veteran employees who have been with the company for ten years—they are all red negative numbers in an Excel spreadsheet.

Amazon’s cruelty lies in its “Day 1” culture. Originally, this meant “forever maintaining the vitality of the first day of a startup,” but now, it seems to have morphed into a cold liquidation where “every day is the first day, and yesterday’s contributions don’t count.”

This contrast is lamentable: Some companies are trying to extend the life of old devices (iPhone 5s), while others are trying to shorten the professional life of human employees.

4. Unfinished Thought: When the System Crashes, Who Reboots?

This “email misfire” incident exposes not just a PR crisis, but the entropy increase of management systems.

Think about it: If a cloud computing company that prides itself on technology cannot even manage the distribution permissions and time locks for its own top-secret layoff emails, how can we trust it to manage the core data of millions of enterprises globally?

A deeper worry is: Will this kind of “act first, report later” blunder become the future norm?

What if next time, the AI HR system determines your code output is below average, automatically locks your badge, and sends you a “Project Dusk” termination letter before you even step into the elevator?
What if algorithms no longer need “accidental sends” but are authorized for “instant execution”?

A netizen put it well: “When will layoffs trigger mass protests?” As long as we accept “profit supremacy” as the only commercial axiom, such protests will forever remain stuck in Slack complaint channels.

5. Final Words: To All Classmates Who “Graduated Early”

At the end of this article, I don’t want to blame that HR Vice President, nor do I want to analyze those damn financial reports anymore.

I just want to say to the 30,000 victims of “Project Dawn” who received that email today: This is not your fault.

When a massive system begins to devour its own parts to maintain its operation, it’s not that the parts are rusty, but that the machine has gone mad. that prematurely arrived email, although rude, is also a form of release—it tells you in the most absurd way that your passion is no longer needed here, only your data.

Walk out of that office building with the spherical greenhouse. The world outside might also be a ragtag stage, but at least the dawn there is the actual sun rising, not an Excel macro command named “Dawn.”

As that netizen said: “Classmates, happy early graduation!”

Go eat a donut. Seriously, don’t choke yourself for the sake of code.

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