Snap employees have started joking they work at 'Snapazon' now, as massive layoffs, forced attrition and an Amazon-like metrics culture take over

In the midst of a brutal reorganizationn, Snap employees have been grimly joking the company has been turning itself into "Snapazon."

The reference is both an acknowledgement that Amazon executives have ascended to key roles at the social media company, and that Snap managers are obsessing more over metrics, Amazon-style.

Last week, Snap made its most dramatic cuts ever, laying off about 1,500 employees amid a broad slowdown in its ads business. Employees told Insider the move was "shocking," especially when CEO Evan Spiegel shut down major initiatives like its Pixy drone and its subsidiary Zenly, a social app it had acquired.

Employees have seen the company's austere Amazonification take place in a few different waves. Prior to the layoffs, Snap managers had been told to put 10% of their teams on performance improvement plans, according to company insiders. Now, in a larger restructuring at the company, Snap's engineering chief and longtime Amazon cloud executive Jerry Hunter, is serving as Snap COO—a sign that the company will continue leaning into the Amazon style. 

Snap's abrupt layoffs came as a surprise to many inside the company. Earlier in the year, Snap insisted it was only implementing a "slowdown" in hiring and said repeatedly it would still grow headcount this year by 10%, a claim many managers relied on. Workers felt the company was going through changes that it would pull through and were not led to believe their jobs were in peril.

"I did not expect to be impacted at all," one former staffer said. "They've been stringing people along," another said. 

Are you a Snap employee or someone with insight to share? Contact Tom Dotan at tdotan@insider.com or on Twitter at @cityofthetown.

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