AWS CEO Garman tells employees to quit if they don’t want to return to office: report

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) Web Services Chief Executive Officer Matt Garman said employees should quit if they do not want to return to the office, Reuters reported.

“If there are people who just don’t work well in that environment and don’t want to, that’s okay, there are other companies around,” Garman said at an all-hands meeting for AWS, the news outlet reported, citing a transcript. Garman added that he did not mean that in a “bad way,” but “we want to be in an environment where we’re working together.”

“When we want to really, really innovate on interesting products, I have not seen an ability for us to do that when we’re not in-person,” Garman added.

Garman took over for former AWS CEO Adam Selipsky in May 2024.

The policy has become controversial among many Amazon employees, with many taking to social media platforms such as LinkedIn to vent.

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Seeking Alpha.

Amazon enacted a return-to-office policy last month that will see workers return to the office five days a week, effective the first week of January 2025. The company had been enforcing a policy of three days per week in the office.

Amazon shares rose 1% in late morning on Friday.