At Amazon the job is to eliminate work

We know, you want the jobs. 

That's why you're offering billions of dollars and other sweet kickbacks to get Amazon to move to your town. 

But what kind of jobs is Amazon offering at its headquarters? They’re not like jobs at other companies.

Take the programming jobs, for example. At Amazon, one of the greatest things you can achieve is to program your way out of a job, get computers to do what you were doing — faster. That means the job you sign up for will not be the job you end up with.

Then there are the gig jobs. Alexa, Amazon’s artificially intelligent personality, is hungry for cultural data, so it can appear more human. That’s why Amazon’s HQ has spots for fashion specialists. Alexa harvests their expertise in six or 12 month chunks, then lets them go.

On this episode of Prime(d), we unpack the jobs at Amazon’s headquarters, jobs that may next come to your home town. Those jobs come with a warning: embrace impermanence.

Caroline Chamberlain contributed to producing this episode. We benefited immensely our friends at CityLab. Our theme song is by Raymond Scott. You also heard "Heartline" by Pezzner, a Seattle artist.