In October 2025, IOLEBA reported that Amazon’s restructuring linked to artificial intelligence would cost roughly 30,000 people their jobs worldwide. Those figures felt enormous and abstract—one more headline in a year of AI‑driven layoffs. In her Business Insider article “I got laid off from Amazon after 11 years. My high school daughter taught me the biggest lesson on how to move forward,” reporter Tess Martinelli does something critically important: she narrows that number down to one person, Hemant Virmani, and one family living through the change.

Virmani spent more than 11 years as a senior software development manager at Amazon before receiving a late‑night email informing him that his role was gone. He describes the shock, the hit to his identity, and the difficult first days after the layoff. Instead of freezing, he built a practical response: calculate his financial runway, cut expenses, and rebuild his daily routine around two pillars—protecting his health and upskilling in AI—using the layoff as a starting point rather than an ending.

The “biggest lesson” in the article comes from his high‑school‑senior daughter. She had already faced her own earlier crisis and chose not to let it define her. Watching her stay calm and keep showing up for herself became Virmani’s model. He decided to treat the layoff as a moment to reset his mindset, stay positive, and focus on building what comes next instead of replaying what he had lost.

Today, he is deliberately being proactive rather than reactive about AI. He splits his time between applying for engineering leadership roles and teaching himself the AI tools and skills he did not have time to fully explore while employed—building his own AI project and grounding himself in the new landscape. Martinelli’s piece shows one professional doing exactly what we tell IOLEBA members: don’t wait for AI to happen to you; start building skills and assets you control now.

This story also echoes a message coming from the very top of the global economy. At the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warned that AI is hitting labor markets like a “tsunami,” especially for younger workers and entry‑level roles, and highlighted that around one billion people worldwide will need to be re‑tooled for the AI era. She emphasized that uncertainty is now the new normal and urged leaders and workers alike to think of the unthinkable and prepare for deep disruption rather than assume stability.

That is exactly why we created the IOLEBA Guild and why we wrote AI Fired, AI Freed. In our book, we follow six real people navigating AI‑driven job loss and transition. Hemant Virmani’s experience fits perfectly alongside their stories: one of 30,000 laid off in a single corporate decision, but also one individual using this moment to rebuild his skills, his health, and his long‑term plan. Our mission is to make sure that when the next wave hits, our members already have a lifeboat.

The younger generation is seeing this more clearly than many older workers. Gen Z voices in Big Tech and AI are already warning students not to invest a decade in traditional paths like law or medicine without asking whether those careers will still look the same once AI has fully reshaped them. Some former tech and AI leaders argue that long, inflexible degree tracks can become wasted years if they do not translate into adaptable, AI‑aware skills and real‑world projects. Virmani’s daughter’s mindset—accept the change, keep moving, and build something new—is exactly the mindset Gen Z needs, and the mindset we teach at IOLEBA‑U.

So when we look at Amazon’s October layoffs, we do not just see 30,000 anonymous roles; we see 30,000 stories like Hemant Virmani’s. Tess Martinelli’s article reminds us that behind every statistic is a person who has to decide whether to stay frozen or to learn, re‑tool, and start building something of their own. At IOLEBA, our answer is clear: use AI as a tool to create income, impact, and independence—not just as a force that reshapes your job description.