‘Amazon Was Making Losses’: Ex-Employee Says 100 H-1B Workers Helped Build AWS

Business

oi-Swastika Sruti

According to Shobhit Mathur, co-founder and vice-chancellor of Rishihood University, there is nothing wrong with the role played by the skilled workers from other countries in the American technology sector.

During his early years working for Amazon, Mathur stated that there were more than 100 H-1B visa holders who were part of the team that developed Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is currently the largest source of operational income for the company.

These remarks have come at a time when there has been another heated debate on skilled immigration following the decision by the US government to temporarily suspend the process of Green Cards for eight major tech firms via the PERM program.

Shobhit Mathur Recalls His Early Days At Amazon

In his post on X, Mathur narrates about working for Amazon on an H-1B visa at a time when Amazon had yet to make profits. The workplace environment described by him is quite different from what one would imagine as that of a multinational technology corporation such as Amazon.

According to Mathur, the employees worked out of small cabins and used doors as worktables in a rented place. Mathur states that there were some 100 H-1B visa-holding employees who worked on the development of AWS.

Through his experience, Mathur tries to disprove the claim that foreign professionals are employed to provide cheap labor. The reason being, according to Mathur, skilled immigrants can ***ist in developing enterprises, creating technology and building services that will add to the economy’s value in the future.

It shows the contribution of international professionals that Mathur claims that he made during the development of AWS. But the number of some 100 H-1B visa employees is from his own experience.

US Suspends Green Card Processing For Eight Technology Companies

Mathur’s comments come after the US Department of Labor announced action against eight companies under the Permanent Labour Certification programme, known as PERM, on October 8, 2026.

The companies named were:

• Cognizant
• Infosys
• Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)
• Wipro
• HCL Technologies
• Capgemini
• Microsoft
• Adobe

The department said it would stop accepting new PERM applications from these companies and would not process their pending applications while the suspensions remained in effect. US officials cited alleged misuse of the system and concerns about the protection of American workers.

PERM is generally a required step when an employer sponsors an eligible foreign worker for employment-based permanent residency. The process normally requires employers to show that there are not enough qualified, available US workers for the position and that hiring a foreign worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed American workers.

The action does not, by itself, cancel existing H-1B visas. However, it could delay the Green Card process for eligible employees whose applications depend on PERM certification.

Why JD Vance Criticised Microsoft

JD Vance of US Vice President blamed the company for having laid off 6,000 US citizens while making use of numerous H-1B visas and Green Card applications.

The above statistics were offered by Vance when criticizing the employment practices of Microsoft. These figures are supposed to be Vance’s claims since there is no guarantee that all foreign citizens hired by the company displaced American workers. Moreover, Microsoft claimed that most of their visa applications were for existing employees.

This case illustrates the overall controversy regarding the use of H-1B program. On one hand, the supporters claim that the visa program enables technology companies to employ highly skilled workers. On the other hand, they argue that the program needs monitoring to avoid exploitation of foreign labor force by employers.

Both H-1B visa and PERM programs have different functions since the former enables certain employers to employ foreign specialists for specialized positions whereas the latter is mostly used to sponsor foreign workers for a Green Card.

Amazon’s H-1B Hiring Brings The Debate Into Focus

Amazon has been a major employer of H-1B visa holders, reflecting the technology industry’s demand for engineers, researchers and other skilled professionals.

The number of visa approvals should be interpreted carefully because such figures can include extensions and transfers, not just newly hired foreign workers. They therefore do not provide a direct count of how many new employees a company has recruited from overseas.

Mathur’s account offers a personal perspective on the debate. He recalled being part of Amazon’s workforce when the company was still developing its cloud business and argued that international professionals contributed to the growth of a service that later became a major profit centre.