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Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

reuters.com

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Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#381

Post by marcosdumay »

colechristensen wrote: post #214
pavlov wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Probably some advertiser tools were broken and the people who’d been talking to those advertisers had been fired, but those are all temporary.” How is that temporary if — as it appears — the new management has fired the engineering teams which developed the ad tools, and also has no intentions of hiring more people to replace those ad sales teams?

Is it not obvious? Are you suggesting that Twitter is not going to have developers work on ad tools any longer? Are you suggesting that sales and customer relations for advertisers are just no longer going to be jobs that anyone does and Twitter is going to just hope and pray they get ad money? Yes lots of reorganization happens, lots of jobs were lost, but, duh, the work is still going to be done, even if there is a…

> Are you suggesting that Twitter is not going to have developers work on ad tools any longer?

Hum... I'm not the GP, but pretty much that. Yes.

If they have been broken by weeks, the team working on it was fired, no replacement has been brought yet, and it's the one big interface with the people paying money to the company, then it's a good bet that management either doesn't care about money or can't fix the problem.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#382

Post by bialpio »

opportune wrote: post #182
arwineap wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They lost it going forward, and also lost any kind of arbitrage when paired with salary increases. Eg my accrued vacation is “worth” 10% more after a 10% salary bump than before it.

It also serves as a nice buffer when you are switching jobs - you can take the PTO and still be employed (& so covered by health insurance for a bit longer, and stocks are still vesting), making for a nice break from work.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#383

Post by charles_f »

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

> Effectively, ending a liability/cash outlay they would pay when folks quit, or get fired

This was effective yesterday, and they paid off any remaining pto balance. I initially thought this would be an employee retention effort in the midst of low promotions and raises, but in was probably wrong. I don't know what gives.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#384

Post by charles_f »

dh2022 wrote: post #257
paxys wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All accrued vacation balance got paid out when Microsoft made the switch.

payout will be in April's paycheck. I was a little surprised about the difference on when the accrual stops (mid Jan) and when balance will be paid out - in April. Laying off people before April payout explains some of this difference (maybe all?).

Doubt it, they're still accrued and owed.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#385

Post by anotherman554 »

adam_arthur wrote: post #265
anotherman554 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Elon is mismanaging Twitter your post would be a good example of the cognitive bias called the Halo effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect

To say that somebody’s success at tasks that are highly correlated with a separate task is irrelevant is simply wrong. And people who tend to succeed at most things they do, tend to do so for a reason. It’s effectively statistically impossible for it to be sheer coincidence/luck. Or should I just pick random “logical fallacy” links to put in my replies instead?

If a baseball teams wins their first four games and you see them in the seventh inning behind by 30 points in game 5, when you predict game 5's winner is the relevant correlation how the team did in games 1 to 4 or is the relevant correlation how a team who is that far behind a particular game tends to do?

I simply noted you appear incapable of perceiving Elon as making bad decisions, which is kind of funny, since he seemed to think agreeing to buy Twitter was a bad decision, and was in the process of losing a court case about it before he saw the writing on the wall and closed the agreement.

If he actually is making bad decisions, I think the halo effect is at play.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#386

Post by brewdad »

hirsin wrote: post #149
pyrrhotech wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's silly to mention the cash on the balance sheet without also mentioning the debt of $77B. In reality, the net cash position is on the order of magnitude of $30B which puts a much tighter perspective on the impact of this cut. 40% of all public companies created since market inception in 1871 have gone bankrupt including many of the bluest of the blue chips. Complacent thinking like this is often the reason. Addit…

That's fantastic debt though, at presumably low interest rates. A dollar in my pocket today is worth way more than a dollar in debt at 3.0% interest or less. You can't subtract debt from cash on hand and get a usable value, they're different types.

That's exactly what a balance sheet does. Offset assets and liabilities.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#387

Post by charles_f »

redleggedfrog wrote: post #305

So one 1 out of 20 are getting let go. Looking around near 50 employee company I work for I easily see 2.5 employees I would let go just because they're near useless. Hell, I'd say it's at least 5. I'd say unless you've got a good manager, really good hiring, and are keeping close tabs on the technical people (just to make clear, I'm one of them those technical people) I figure you've at least got 1 our of 20 you sho…

Except that mass layoffs dont work that way. They're culling products and branches, not individuals

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#389

Post by Apocryphon »

SilverBirch wrote: post #61
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?

The point is that yesterday, they did want/need these people. To make a broader point, when money was cheap all the tech companies expanded to use cheap money to make bets that would grow their revenue. Some of these were speculative, some of these were ill thought out. In the same way that some companies started stupid projects during the cheap money era (meta, I'm looking at you), there will be companies that cut g…

The buck stops with them because they keep on raking in the dollars, unlike the people they fire.

Re: Microsoft to lay off 11k employees

#390

Post by moonchrome »

gowld wrote: post #59
anonporridge wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass layoffs give you the opportunity to quickly purge poor performers without as much paperwork. It's advantageous to have regular rolling layoffs because of this if you can justify them by economic conditions. There's also an effect of wanting to do smaller, pulsating layoffs over the course of many months or even years rather than one massive layoff of the size you actually need, because ultimately no one knows ex…

Why? What's wrong with firing people during other economic conditions? Why would the paperwork be any different, whether it's a small layoff or a big payoff? Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V is cheap, Microsoft implemented it many times in many products.

If you heard Microsoft just did 11k layoffs and then you got a job offer from them how does that sound to you ? To me it sounds like I could be in the next round if I get hired on the wrong team.
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