One of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas is an Amazon engineer who worked on recently announced software — but the company has angered the worker’s friends and colleagues by reportedly refusing to acknowledge his fate because they “’don’t want to hurt him. ”
Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Adam Selipsky beamed as he presented the Gravitron4 chip at the Re:Invent conference in Las Vegas Wednesday, though he failed to mention that an electrical engineer on the project, Sasha Troufanov, was thousands of miles away. , in the custody of Hamas terrorists.
“It’s bulls–t,” one Amazon employee told The Post about his employer’s silence on the situation.
Troufanov, 28, works for AWS’ Annapurna Labs in Tel Aviv. He was abducted from his parents’ home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7 along with his girlfriend, mother and grandmother.
His father, Vitaly Troufanov, was killed in the horrific invasion.
“They said ‘it’s not that we don’t want to [talk about Sasha]it’s going to hurt him,’” an anonymous Amazon employee told The Post Thursday about the company’s continued refusal to acknowledge Troufanov’s ordeal.
But Troufanov’s mother, Lena Troufanov, and his grandmother Irena Tati — who were both released Wednesday — said they trusted his friends and colleagues to make decisions about what information to release, a spokeswoman for the employee told The Post.
Sasha Troufanov, 28, was kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7. LinkedIn / Sasha Troufanov
Troufanov’s graduate friends were so frustrated by Amazon’s silence that they hired a truck with a screen emblazoned with his face and name to drive around Vegas on the conference grounds.
“The inspiration was to say that Sasha was one of them – we were trying to make a connection between the people coming to the conference and to the humanitarian crisis of the hostages,” Sasha’s friend Neta Yesood Alon told The Post.
“It’s not something far off, it’s people just like them, who have been kidnapped.”
Friends of Sasha Troufanov were disappointed by Amazon’s apparent lack of acknowledgment. Global Communication Si14
The truck crashed into many of the main drags, videos and pictures shown in Sin City.
Alon said it was “disappointing” to learn that “such a large company cannot say out loud that they have an employee who is being held hostage in Gaza.”
He rejected the idea that Amazon would risk Troufanov’s safety by talking about it publicly.
“We talked to the former chief [Israeli security agency] Mossad, Yossi Cohen…he said there was no danger,” Alon insisted.
“It wasn’t hard to figure out he worked for Amazon. You look up his name, you get LinkedIn saying he works there.. it’s not like a secret job,” he added.
Troufanov works for Amazon’s Annapurna Labs. LinkedIn / Sasha Troufanov
“When Amazon said it would be harmful, we did our due diligence, and [Cohen] said it was safe to discuss.”
Both Alon and an anonymous Amazon employee indicated that the other hostage, Avinatan Or, worked as an engineer at AI computing giant Nvidia.
“Global CEO [of Nvidia] was in close contact with his family, they got a big bonus… it’s a clear picture of how to handle it, because Nvidia is amazing,” the employee told The Post.
Immediately after Troufanov’s abduction, the anonymous employee explained, those who knew him from the Tel Aviv office contacted Amazon management for help with a campaign to return him and his family.
“We shouldn’t have to…ask management to admit that we have kidnapped workers,” they told The Post.
Amazon kicked off the project Troufanov is working on this week. Global Communication Si14
At first, they continued, the company took experts hostage.
“Which is not actually happening here – these people will not be brought back with money,” they explained.
The company then hired a different consulting firm, “which also wouldn’t do anything, but would take their money and not say they couldn’t,” lamented the employee.
Amazon leadership is allegedly so tight-lipped about Sasha that “a lot of people [in the company] didn’t even know” he had been taken by Hamas, they added.
“I think the silence is rubbish,” the employee asserted, saying that “the company’s values went out the window” when the Israel-Hamas war began.
“They are ‘trying to be the best employer in the world’? Really? You have an employee kidnapped…his whole family kidnapped or killed!” the worker insisted.
“It’s bulls–t.”
Other workers at the company also feel unsupported as the war between Israel and Hamas drags on, the worker added.
Sasha Troufanov’s friends hired a truck to show his face around the Las Vegas conference. Global Communication Si14
“There’s a lot of hate growing in Slack channels,” they said.
News of Amazon’s supposed silence on the plight of Troufanov and his family also began to spread on social media, where Sequioa’s Shaun Maguire posted it in an emotional X thread.
“Sasha’s father was buried without the family present — it was recorded in case the family came home…AND STILL THE AMAZON WAS SILENT,” Maguire wrote.
Troufanov’s friends were excited by some positive developments: His mother and grandmother, Irena Tati, were released by Hamas on Wednesday, and his girlfriend, Sapir Cohen, was released on Thursday.
Troufanov will also be honored at a rally for the hostages outside the Amazon conference Thursday. Global Communication Si14
“The rest of the group of friends stayed in Israel and visited Lena and Ilena – they’re still alive, so it’s good news,” Alon told The Post.
Meanwhile, Alon and another friend, Shahar Cohen, flew from Israel to Las Vegas on Thursday to join a rally for the Gaza hostages outside the Venetian, where Re:Invent was taking place.
“It’s for all hostages – Sasha is just the link between the tech community and the hostage issue,” Alon said of the Thursday evening rally, planned in partnership with the American Council of Israel in Las Vegas.
“It’s been 55 days [since they were taken] – and 55 days is too much,” he said.
The event is expected to draw “300 to 400 people,” Alon told The Post.
The family’s loved ones are also worried about what Troufanov will find when he returns.
“His father was killed, his kibbutz was burned, they have no home to return to,” Alon said.
“For those who are still alive, they have to start a new life, with much sadness for those who are gone.”
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
