Skip to main content

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos tells employees to cancel all meetings on Juneteenth: 'Slavery ended a long time ago, but racism didn't' (AMZN)

* Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a companywide email on Tuesday that he's canceling all of his meetings on Juneteenth, the day commemorating the end of slavery in the US. * Bezos encouraged Amazon employees to do the same to take some time to "reflect, learn, and support each other," according to the email. * Amazon is the latest high-profile company to instruct employees to take time off on Juneteenth. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wants employees to use June 19, the day known as Juneteenth commemorating the end of slavery in the US, as a day to "reflect, learn, and support each other," according to an internal email obtained by Business Insider. In the email, Bezos said that he's canceling all of his meetings that day, after having spent a lot of time thinking about the recent events that sparked the current Black Lives Matter movement. Although he didn't call it an official day off for the company, he encouraged all employees to cancel their meetings on Friday too, adding the company is offering online learning opportunities about Juneteenth throughout the day. Amazon's representative wasn't immediately available for comment. Recode's Jason Del Rey first tweeted about the email. Amazon is the latest company to instruct employees to cancel all meetings on Juneteenth. Other high-profile companies like Microsoft, Google, and Nike have made similar arrangements for their employees. The move follows growing calls for support of the Black Lives Movement internally at Amazon. An internal climate activist group encouraged employees to join the protests last week, while a group of employees are also taking steps to add "inclusion" to Amazon's famous leadership principles. Several Amazon executives addressed the issue in internal emails as well. Here's the full email Bezos sent to employees: Over the past few weeks, the [S-team] and I have spent a lot of time listening to customers and employees and thinking about how recent events in our country have laid bare the systemic racism and injustices that oppress Black individuals and communities. This Friday, June 19, is Juneteenth, the oldest-known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the U.S. I'm cancelling all of my meetings on Friday, and I encourage all of you to do the same if you can. We're providing a range of online learning opportunities for employees throughout the day. Please take some time to reflect, learn, and support each other. Slavery ended a long time ago, but racism didn't. Jeff SEE ALSO: In a leaked document, Amazon employees shared stories of racism and gender discrimination while calling for a new leadership principle on 'inclusion' Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: A cleaning expert reveals her 3-step method for cleaning your entire home quickly
https://bit.ly/2UUphii

Popular posts from this blog

Tokyo installed see-through public toilets in a park to let people inspect their cleanliness before using them, at which point the glass turns opaque

* Two see-through bathrooms have been installed in public parks in Tokyo. * They are made from "smart glass" designed so people can see how clean they are inside before using them. The glass turns opaque when the bathroom is locked and in use. * The stalls are part of a project that is redoing 17 of the city's public bathrooms with different designers to make them more accessible and appealing. * The goal is to fight assumptions that public toilets are "are dark, dirty, smelly, and scary," said the nonprofit foundation behind the project. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Tokyo has installed two see-through bathroom facilities in public parks, allowing people to see how clean they are before deciding to use them, at which point they turn opaque. The bathrooms are made of colored "smart glass," which turns opaque when the stalls are locked, said Shigeru Ban, the architect behind the designs. You can see how it works her...
Read more

Bill Gates says the world would need as many as 14 billion doses of a coronavirus vaccine to stop the virus

* The world could need as many as 14 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines, Bill Gates said on Thursday in a blog post about the race to develop a way to make people immune to the disease. * "We need to make billions of doses, we need to get them out to every part of the world, and we need all of this to happen as quickly as possible," Gates said. * Gates said he had his eyes on eight to 10 promising candidates, adding that healthcare workers and people in low-income countries should be first in line once we find one that works. * While potential vaccines are progressing with historic speed, they're still months, or even years away, and the biggest challenge lies ahead in proving whether they are safe and effective in humans. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Bill Gates believes we may eventually need to produce as many as 14 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines globally and that we're anywhere from nine months to two years away from making tha...
Read more

The 11 most important details we already know about the PlayStation 5, Sony's next-generation video game console set to arrive this year

* The PlayStation 5, Sony's next-generation game console that's deep in production, is scheduled to launch during the 2020 holiday season. * As you might expect, the PlayStation 5 is promised to be more powerful than the existing PlayStation 4 — and we've slowly been learning more about the next-gen console's new features since it was first revealed. * So far, Sony has offered a first glimpse at the new console via its new DualSense gamepad, and a tech demo highlighted the technical prowess of the new machine. * Here's everything we know so far about Sony's next-generation PlayStation console. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. The PlayStation 5 is almost here. Sony's next-generation PlayStation game console is scheduled to arrive this holiday season, but we already know plenty of details about it right now: how powerful it is, its main features, and we've even gotten a good look at its new gamepad.  Here everything we kno...
Read more