Microsoft to lay off 11k employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#101

Post by shmatt » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 8:31 PM UTC

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #25

It's hard not to read some of these stories and not think that somehow some of these companies are free-riding on the ability to do some firings with minimal pushback because of the "well, look at what everyone else is doing!" climate that exists now. I'm having a hard time teasing out how much of this is driven by some sort of fundamental analysis of the economy, some collective BigCo CEO shared thinking, or, at my…

Corporate Americas' bloat has been the butt of many jokes for decades. Big tech is just as guilty. They still do want to keep high performers, which is usually why its not just a layoff announced, but a "re-organization", aka lets move all the high graded employees to other orgs and fire the lower graded ones

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#102

Post by throwawaysleep » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

foogazi wrote: post #94

throwawaysleep wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boggles my mind that people will work hard for an employer. You care about you less than a used napkin.

We don’t do it expecting love in return - we get a paycheck every two weeks

I get my paycheque for showing up. For dedicated work rather than mediocrity, I need extra.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#103

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

bink wrote: post #53

qeternity wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they spend any amount much less $3b or $10b to keep people they don’t need/want?

Normally, hiring 11,000 people you "didn't need" would be a warning sign that management was incompetent and require much more than just laying off the unneeded workers. It would suggest that large reforms are needed in planning and hiring. But these days it's just dismissed as an "oops!".

They wanted 11,000 extra heads when the market was rewarding growth.

Now that the market is rewarding bottom lines - they don't want 11,000 extra heads anymore.

It's easy to "blame the Fed" for the market rewarding the bottom line. But we forget that the reason the market was so crazily rewarding growth 2 years ago was also... because of the Fed.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#104

Post by mrkeen » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

rufusroflpunch wrote: post #56

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #25

It's hard not to read some of these stories and not think that somehow some of these companies are free-riding on the ability to do some firings with minimal pushback because of the "well, look at what everyone else is doing!" climate that exists now. I'm having a hard time teasing out how much of this is driven by some sort of fundamental analysis of the economy, some collective BigCo CEO shared thinking, or, at my…

What are you getting at, exactly? Are you implying they don't need to fire these people, they just want to? Or are you saying they think they need it, but they really don't?

He's implying that the company has some kind of duty to treat its employees like humans who would be adversely affected by being fired - or the company would perhaps suffer some PR damage from mass firings. But if everyone's doing it, it's a necessity.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#105

Post by brundolf » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

rufusroflpunch wrote: post #56

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #25

It's hard not to read some of these stories and not think that somehow some of these companies are free-riding on the ability to do some firings with minimal pushback because of the "well, look at what everyone else is doing!" climate that exists now. I'm having a hard time teasing out how much of this is driven by some sort of fundamental analysis of the economy, some collective BigCo CEO shared thinking, or, at my…

What are you getting at, exactly? Are you implying they don't need to fire these people, they just want to? Or are you saying they think they need it, but they really don't?

Firing a bunch of people impacts morale, PR, etc. So there may be a bunch of people they'd like to fire but not badly enough to deal with those consequences. But a public narrative of "it's the economy" or "layoffs are just going around" can shield them from those consequences and give them an opportunity.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#106

Post by etc-hosts » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

phillipcarter wrote: post #71

estebank wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> seeming negligible external-facing impact on the core product In both technical and product axes Twitter has already deteriorated massively, possibly beyond repair and the company might not make it to 2024, so I wouldn't call that "negligible".

> so I wouldn't call that "negligible". I think the mistake you're making here is assuming that your average tech CEO is paying attention to the same degree you are. They aren't. They don't have time to notice all the many little things that degraded already, they just saw that the site didn't go down a week later and moved on.

If he hires people, if he doesn't fire people, if he doesn't tweet, if he tweets that the flat earth people are out there fighting the woke mob, it doesn't matter, Musk will be hailed as a genius no matter what.

Musk has enough money and influence to stress out his employees and userbase for decades.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#107

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

matusp wrote: post #64

estebank wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> seeming negligible external-facing impact on the core product In both technical and product axes Twitter has already deteriorated massively, possibly beyond repair and the company might not make it to 2024, so I wouldn't call that "negligible".

In what regards has it deteriorated so much?

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#108

Post by adam_arthur » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #73

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #25

It's hard not to read some of these stories and not think that somehow some of these companies are free-riding on the ability to do some firings with minimal pushback because of the "well, look at what everyone else is doing!" climate that exists now. I'm having a hard time teasing out how much of this is driven by some sort of fundamental analysis of the economy, some collective BigCo CEO shared thinking, or, at my…

> with seeming negligible external-facing impact on the core product. Twitter is said to have lost $2.5 Billion/year in advertiser money, largely because Twitter's sales teams have not been returning emails from worried Advertisers. That's a pretty huge impact on Twitter's #1 revenue stream (estimated to be $5 Billion in 2021). Twitter's core product is advertisements. Without sales staff to keep the advertisers, the…

Interesting that Twitter is shipping features faster than ever after 80% layoffs.

Don't think Twitter's revenue issues have anything to do with sales staff. Advertising channels/campaigns can and should be 100% automated.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#109

Post by arwineap » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 8:33 PM UTC

jimbok wrote: post #80

Just last week MSFT nixed the accrual PTO benefit employees enjoyed and opted for the rouse of 'unlimited' PTO. Effectively, ending a liability/cash outlay they would pay when folks quit, or get fired. I hope those who were affected today receive severance that makes up for them losing this benefit. -James

My understanding is that the way they converted to unlimited PTO was by paying out people's vacation time with a one time payout.

In which case, they didn't lose benefit at all

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#110

Post by dragontamer » Tue, Jan 17, 2023, 8:33 PM UTC

adam_arthur wrote: post #108

dragontamer wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with seeming negligible external-facing impact on the core product. Twitter is said to have lost $2.5 Billion/year in advertiser money, largely because Twitter's sales teams have not been returning emails from worried Advertisers. That's a pretty huge impact on Twitter's #1 revenue stream (estimated to be $5 Billion in 2021). Twitter's core product is advertisements. Without sales staff to keep the advertisers, the…

Interesting that Twitter is shipping features faster than ever after 80% layoffs. Don't think Twitter's revenue issues have anything to do with sales staff. Advertising channels/campaigns can and should be 100% automated.

But not the features that retain advertisers. Which were the silent issues that no one talked about before.

And indeed, advertisers aren't talking about it now. They're just leaving the platform in droves. There's no one _to_ talk about it with. Entire teams (including high ranking executives) that kept relationships with advertisers have been fired.

Twitter doesn't even have anyone answering / categorizing the complaints anymore.

> Don't think Twitter's revenue issues have anything to do with sales staff. Advertising channels/campaigns can and should be 100% automated.

You can't automate news. News is constantly changing. Advertisers _constantly_ are complaining about "X is being shown next to Y news event. Please stop that", and its impossible to predict X, or Y.